June 14, 2002 Four Busted for Child Pornography Four South Dakota men were arrested yesterday for possession of child pornography. These arrests are the latest in a string of child pornography prosecutions executed by the Attorney Generals office. In the last three months, the Attorney Generals office has either arrested or assisted in the arrest of six South Dakota men who possessed child pornography. These investigations were headed up by the Attorney Generals office and South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation with the assistance of local law enforcement. The Governors Internet Crimes Against Children Unit assisted in the analysis of computers that were seized. http://www.state.sd.us/attorney/news/documents/index.cfm?fuseaction=documents.displayOneDocument&documentID=321 - - - - - - - - FBI arrests 3 for extortion via the Net The FBI has arrested three men charged with extorting money via e-mail from people across the country who visited a child-pornography Web site. Lamont Cordaro, 23, from Cleveland, Ohio; Robert Walker, 31, of Oldham County, Ky., and Harvey Holder from Irvine, Ky. were arrested Tuesday at the Intown Suites in suburban Louisville, according to FBI testimony heard Thursday afternoon. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/06/14/extortion-internet.htm - - - - - - - - Australian woman charged in Net baby selling case A woman in Victoria, Australia, is charged with attempting to sell her child over the Internet. The business of selling babies over the Internet is in the spotlight again, this time with a 39- year-old Victoria, Australia woman appearing before a magistrate's court after she used the Internet to contact people overseas in an attempt to sell her child. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2111838,00.html - - - - - - - - Net piracy ring busted Twenty-one people in 14 states and Canada are facing federal charges in an Internet computer software, game and movie piracy ring dubbed "Rogue Warriorz," authorities in Las Vegas announced Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Myhre, who outlined the Rogue Warriorz operation during a news conference at the FBI office in Las Vegas, said an indictment was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/06/14/piracy.htm - - - - - - - - Police find first illegal DVD lab on West Coast Police uncovered the first DVD pirating laboratory on the West Coast where more than 1,200 illegal movies were found. Benoni Lugo, 20, of Long Beach was taken into custody for allegedly making the illegal DVDs. No charges have yet been filed. Police pulled over Lugo earlier this month for driving an unlicensed vehicle. When the officer opened the trunk, she found about 100 DVD movies, some of which are currently in theaters, including ``Spider-Man'' and ``Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3470278.htm - - - - - - - - Denial-of-service attack strikes Fox News The home page for Fox News was hit by a denial-of- service attack Friday, leaving the site periodically inaccessible, the company confirmed. As of 11:30 a.m. PST, News Corp.'s FoxNews.com was noticeably altered, with graphics and advertisements missing. Links to news stories still worked, but often times the site's home page was inaccessible. A Fox News representative confirmed that the site was the victim of a denial- of-service attack but did not say how long the site had been crippled or what the company is doing to address the problem. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105-936091.html - - - - - - - - Touts hack World Cup computers Scalpers jump the queue to score tickets. Touts have hacked into the World Cup ticketing computers to jump phone queuing systems and order seats, according to reports in Japan. The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that Japan's World Cup organising committee uses a standard telephone reservation system where callers dial a hotline number and are put through to one of several confidential numbers, where calls are answered by operators or a computer. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132655 - - - - - - - - JPEG worm breaks new ground Antivirus companies warned on Thursday of a new virus that communicates through digital images, but security experts aren't sure how much of a threat this latest evolutionary branch of malicious code poses. Dubbed the first "JPEG infector" by security company Network Associates, the W32/Perrun virus has two parts: infected JPEG images that contain the virus's payload and a viral program that extracts the code from the images and infects other JPEGs on the system as they are opened. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-935766.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2111833,00.html Blueprint Labels JPEG Virus 'Lame' http://online.securityfocus.com/news/482 First JPEG virus not a threat http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/25718.html - - - - - - - - Microsoft Ships Nimda To Korea in .NET Last September's super virus comes free with the Korean-language version of Visual Studio .NET. Microsoft warned Thursday that copies of its Visual Studio .NET development kit designed for Korea are infected with the Nimda worm. The company recommended that affected sites immediately install a special program, available from its site, that is designed to clean the infected files. According to Microsoft, the infected files contain an "inert" copy of the Nimda virus, which is "extremely" unlikely to be activated by users. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/480 http://zdnet.com.com/2251-1110-935611.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-935994.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25738.html - - - - - - - - Financial Giant Joins Fight Against Online Gambling Leading Credit Card Issuer Agrees to Block Key Internet Transactions. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced that the nations leading financial services company has agreed to block online gambling transactions with its credit cards. The move by Citibank, the nations largest credit card issuer, is expected to significantly reduce illegal internet gambling. http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2002/jun/jun14a_02.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3470817.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1106-936164.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/06/14/citibank-gambling.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/434903p-3478923c.html Dogs bite push to ban Web gambling http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-935974.html - - - - - - - - Spain May Force ISPs to Keep Tabs A proposal introduced in the Spanish Senate would force ISPs to keep records of their customers' Internet activity for a year, and make that information available to law enforcement for criminal investigations. Failure to do so would incur fines of up to $500,000. The measure, which is slated for vote next week, is an attempt to bring the country into compliance with a European Parliament directive advising the 15 European Union member countries to keep detailed records of communications - including Internet, e-mail, phone, fax and pager data - in an effort to thwart future terrorist attacks. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53195,00.html - - - - - - - - Cult hero holds domain hostage The administrator of South Africa's web addresses said on Thursday he had hidden the key to the country's ".ZA" domain network abroad to prevent any government interference in access to the Internet. South Africa's parliament has given initial approval to a law that will allow the government to take control of the country's Internet address administration. But critics, including ZA domain-name administrator Mike Lawrie, say the government has no right to stage the takeover and warn it could collapse the domestic Internet structure. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-935968.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2111887,00.html - - - - - - - - Feds set up security alliance Three federal agencies have formed an alliance to help small businesses protect their information technology. The National Infrastructure Protection Center, a part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology will provide computer and IT security to the companies. The agencies will sponsor a series of workshops in Washington, San Francisco and Chicago to help train small-business owners to identify cost effective security products, processes and services. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105-935951.html - - - - - - - - Survey says firms need more protection from Internet risks Despite increased interest in security since Sept. 11, companies are not doing enough to protect themselves from risks on the Internet, according to a survey released Wednesday by The St. Paul Cos. The lack of attention to high-tech risks, such as computer viruses and theft of confidential information, carries a high cost and could put some smaller companies out of business, said Bill Rohde, president of global technology underwriting for the St. Paul-based commercial insurer. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3465285.htm - - - - - - - - Intercept hardens anti-hacker blockades Server and operating system security house Entercept Security Technologies has bolstered its intrusion-prevention software to provide protection against the latest hacking techniques, putting a stop to the Return into Libc buffer overflow exploit that hackers use to gain root access to machines. The software works by identifying executable code that comes from unchecked buffers, effectively blocking the code before it can do any damage. Advanced lock-down features known as Vault Mode have also been added. Entercept 2.5 introduces a new level of intrusion prevention by locking critical operating system files and settings. http://www.theregus.com/content/55/25239.html - - - - - - - - EU experts gather data on Web privacy problems EU experts are informally collecting data to see if music player software or similar systems violate EU privacy laws, but have yet to open a formal investigation, officials said Friday. Music recognition services have become increasingly popular as users download music from the Internet and play CDs on computers. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3470308.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-935991.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2111893,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-936126.html Record Biz Has Burning Question http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,53157,00.html - - - - - - - - Sun sets pace for Web services security Sun Microsystems, sensing it has fallen behind rivals Microsoft and IBM in Web services leadership, is launching a renewed strategy in an attempt to play catch up. Senior Sun executives have issued an edict to internal programmers to quickly create a software "framework" that addresses what they see as potential security weaknesses in existing Web services standards, a source familiar with the plan said. Sun has begun sharing details of the framework with potential partners and is working as quickly as possible to have an announcement ready by late summer or early fall, sources said. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-936042.html - - - - - - - - Wireless spectrum sale may be delayed Lawmakers have cut a deal to postpone most of the sale of valuable wireless spectrum just days before the government is slated to begin the auction, sources familiar with the situation said Friday. The Federal Communications Commission is poised to begin auctioning 758 wireless licenses on Wednesday, but the sale has attracted few big bidders or large wireless carriers because of concerns about when the airwaves would be available. http://news.com.com/2100-1033-936161.html - - - - - - - - Info sharing bill advances Working with unusual speed, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill on June 13 to make it easier for federal agents to share intelligence tips with their state and local counterparts. The Homeland Security Information Sharing Act is one piece in what is expected to be a growing arsenal of legislation to protect Americans by relying on data mining to share details about suspected terrorists. It still faces debate in the Senate. "State and local officials will be the first to respond to a terrorist threat," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the panel's chairman. "We must provide a way to get this information quickly." http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0610/web-bill-06-14-02.asp - - - - - - - - President pushes his high-tech agenda in meeting President Bush rallied high-tech executives to the war on terrorism Thursday, urging them to apply their expertise to warfare and homeland security. ``Our high-tech advantage will make it easier for us to keep the peace,'' Bush told about 130 industry leaders at a White House forum. ``We're going to have to continue to use high-tech means and high-tech equipment to chase the killers down one by one.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3464464.htm - - - - - - - - It's a long, hard road to homeland security By now, we all know how the FBI and other government agencies failed to connect the dots. The FBI, CIA, NSA and other intelligence gathering agencies have been encouraged to play together nicely. The FBI acknowledges that it needs significant changes especially on the technology front--to be more effective in the 21st century. And to top it all off, we have the proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as an umbrella agency empowered to protect the American people from terrorists. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-935577.html - - - - - - - - 'Prophet' helps warfighters see enemy The Army is hoping its new Prophet system will help soldiers predict the future when it comes to the movement and tactics of U.S. enemies. For the first time in more than 20 years, the Army this week unveiled a new, mobile signals intelligence and electronic warfare system. It is designed to empower soldiers with surveillance capabilities to match the service's current threats, said Edward Bair, program executive officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO-IEWS), whose office developed and managed the system. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0610/web-army-06-14-02.asp *********************************************************** Search the NewsBits.net Archive at: http://www.newsbits.net/search.html *********************************************************** The source material may be copyrighted and all rights are retained by the original author/publisher. The information is provided to you for non-profit research and educational purposes. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however copies may not be sold, and NewsBits (www.newsbits.net) should be cited as the source of the information. Copyright 2000-2002, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.