August 13, 2002 Net romance ends in knifing, beating, fire A nine-month Internet romance between two Central New York teenagers turned deadly over the weekend when the pair met for the first time at the girl's town of Fabius home, court papers said. "I just snapped," Spencer Lee King, 17, of Palermo, Oswego County, told state police in a statement. He admits to stabbing and beating Nonie "Annie" Drummond, 14, to death and then setting her home at 825 Shackham Road ablaze to cover up the crime. Drummond's mother and grandfather were out of town for the weekend. http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1029230304179082.xml - - - - - - - - Berkeley student fleeces UK in eBay scam Police are trying to trace a Turkish man concerning an alleged fraud carried out on online auction outfit eBay. Mehmet Onay - who until recently was studying business administration at University of California Berkeley - is thought to have conned people out of an estimated PS125,000 ($190,000). Onay ran a business - Berkeley Electronics - while studying, selling items using eBay's UK operation. Up until a couple of weeks ago he had a reputation as a trusted supplier with a positive rating on eBay. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26654.html - - - - - - - - Web site exposes shoppers' info A list of more than 1,800 Web users and their personal details has been left at an extension of an online shopping mall that directs buyers to a range of well-known British retailers. On display at the site, UK Shopping City, are shoppers' names, e-mail and postal addresses, gender and age group. The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office said it will act on behalf of the thousands of consumers who have had their details exposed. http://news.com.com/2100-1017-949602.html - - - - - - - - Princeton removes dean who hacked Yale Web site A Princeton University dean will be removed from his job and offered another at the school after accessing Yale University's admissions Web site without authorization, Princeton's president said Tuesday. Stephen LeMenager, associate dean and director of admissions, had been on paid administrative leave. He has said he accessed the site to see how secure it was. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3857890.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-08-13-princeton-hacking_x.htm http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/08/13/yale.princeton.hacking.otsc/index.html - - - - - - - - Glitch blacks out FBIs Web sites The FBI accidentally pulled the plug on its own Web sites on Tuesday morning. A misconfiguration in the bureaus domain name setup meant that many visitors to FBI.gov could not get through. As of 2 p.m. ET, the FBIs configuration problem had been fixed. The apparent error also wiped out the online presence of the FBIs high-tech crime unit, the National Infrastructure Protection Center, at NIPC.gov. http://www.msnbc.com/news/793610.asp http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-949564.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2120788,00.html - - - - - - - - China to permit hearing on theft of Lucent software In a surprising twist to a high-profile espionage case, the Chinese government will allow federal prosecutors from New Jersey to travel to Beijing and interview witnesses about the theft of a Lucent Technologies computer program. The development is a rarity, say legal scholars and attorneys with the U.S. Justice Department. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3849979.htm - - - - - - - - Yahoo yields to Chinese Web laws Yahoo on Tuesday defended its decision to sign off on voluntary content limitations in China, a move that critics say opens the door to online censorship by the Web portal. The agreement, called the "Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry," essentially ensures that Internet companies in China will abide by the country's pre-existing regulations. Although these regulations are controversial, including requirements that companies monitor and restrict information deemed "harmful," the pledge does not broaden existing laws, according to Yahoo. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-949643.html - - - - - - - - Norwegians scramble for tech savvy DeCSS judge The trial of the teenage Norwegian programmer accused of creating the DeCSS "piracy tool" has been delayed until December 9 this year. Jon Johansen, who created DeCSS as a utitlity to play DVDs on PCs running on Linux, was due to stand trial for creating the DeCSS programme this summer. But the trial has been put back so that a "technically savvy" judge could be appointed, Greplaw reports. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26658.html - - - - - - - - U.S. vulnerable to data sneak attack A group of hackers couldn't single-handedly bring down the United States' national data infrastructure, but a terrorist team would be able to do significant localized damage to U.S. systems, according to a recent war games simulation. The United States Naval War College worked with Gartner Research to conduct a "Digital Pearl Harbor" simulation last month, testing U.S. responses to attacks on telecommunications, the Internet, financial systems and the power grid. The analysts found that it would be possible to inflict some serious damage to the nation's data and physical infrastructure systems, but it would require a syndicate with significant resources, including $200 million, country-level intelligence and five years of preparation time. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-949605.html http://news.com.com/2100-1017-949605.html U.S. computer systems vulnerable to attack? The U.S. government is the world's largest technology consumer -- at least if you measure it in terms of dollars spent. The Bush administration had budgeted more than $50 billion for tech spending in the next fiscal year. But past administrations have also invested billions in systems that many officials in Washington seem to agree have never worked. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/08/13/government.computers/index.html - - - - - - - - Cybersleuths aid in child porn crackdown With Friday's bust of an alleged worldwide pedophile ring and the FBI's recent "Candyman" sting of child porn Web sites, investigators say they need to become more aggressive and innovative to stop what has become a global, lucrative trade in such illegal material. But child porn sites like Candyman are nothing new to Dennis Guzzy. A former Philadelphia sex crimes cop, he now trolls the Web for an anti- pedophile task force run by the Pennsylvania attorney general's office. His targets: child molesters who collect child porn and look for children in order to have sex. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/08/13/child.porn/index.html - - - - - - - - Identity theft criminals can steal lives Air Force members need to be cautious with personal information, said agents from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations headquarters at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. Information, including Social Security number, bank account and credit card numbers, account passwords, telephone numbers and addresses, are collected by some criminals to commit fraud. http://www.af.mil/news/Aug2002/8130294.shtml - - - - - - - - White-Hat Hate Crimes on the Rise When hackers broke into Ryan Russell's server and plastered his private e-mails and other personal files on the Internet last week, Russell tried to shrug it off as a harmless prank. But Russell, editor of Hack Proofing Your Network and an analyst with SecurityFocus.com, also seemed shaken by the incident. "There's a group out there whose goal in life is to show they're smarter than you and they have the tools to do it," said Russell, a "white-hat" hacker who goes by the nickname "BlueBoar." http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54400,00.html - - - - - - - - Gateway Country stores to offer anti-piracy classes Computer retailer Gateway Inc. plans to provide free classes to consumers on the do's and don'ts of online music, showing how to download music and burn CDs without violating copyrights. The three-hour classes - to be held at all 274 Gateway Country retail stores - may help deflect criticism from record-label executives. The executives argue that companies such as Gateway encourage consumers to pirate music and movies online to boost sales of their computers, CD recorders and related gear. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/497746p-3969090c.html - - - - - - - - Microsoft investigates possible glitch in Internet Explorer Microsoft is investigating claims that its popular Internet Explorer software has a loophole that allows attackers to pose as legitimate Web site operators, potentially giving them access to computer users' user names, passwords and credit card numbers. Although Microsoft says it is too soon to judge the severity of the problem -- and even whether a flaw exists -- some programmers and consultants say it could threaten the security of everything from online banking to shopping at Amazon.com. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2002-08-13-explorer-flaw_x.htm http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/holes/story/0,10801,73437,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-949551.html - - - - - - - - PGP, GPG defeated OpenPGP and GnuPG are susceptible to a chosen- cyphertext attack which would allow an adversary capable of intercepting an encrypted message to use the intended recipient as an unwitting 'decryption oracle', researchers Kahil Jallad, Jonathan Katz and Bruce Schneier report in a recent paper. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/576 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-949506.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26643.html - - - - - - - - KDE smokes MS in SSL bug fix A serious flaw in SSL certificate handling reported by Mike Benham, affecting IE and Konqueror, has already been fixed by KDE's Waldo Bastian, we're pleased to mention. The fix is available only in the CVS (Concurrent Versions System) tree at the moment, but KDE reckons it will have patched binaries available for its 3.0.3 version, available early next week. A patch for KDE 2.2.x is currently in the works. As for Microsoft? According to Benham they haven't even replied to him yet. Apparently, real Trustworthy Computing takes an enormous amount of time. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/575 - - - - - - - - A Site to Despise Untrained Spies The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a website for people to protest the Bush administration's citizen informant program, which would enlist civilians nationwide to report suspicious behavior by their fellow Americans. The ACLU charges that the Terrorist Information and Prevention System (TIPS), which is expected to launch this fall, is a massive invasion of privacy. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54492,00.html - - - - - - - - Sex.com case turning dirty Although it's an arcane case about property rights in the digital age, the Sex.com saga has all the trappings of a juicy pulp fiction novel: a fugitive on the lam in Mexico, would-be bounty hunters, and porn. Now justices in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals are hoping to sort out at least one of the issues: whether domain name registrar VeriSign can be held responsible for turning the Sex.com name over to someone who sent the company a forged letter requesting the transfer. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-949660.html - - - - - - - - Norton AntiVirus adds IM protection Symantec next month plans to ship a new version of its Norton AntiVirus desktop product used by home-office workers and consumers, adding a way to deter harmful computer viruses that might be transmitted via instant-messaging client software from Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft. http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/0813syman.html - - - - - - - - Spammers can't spell "cat" New ideas - new weapons, if you will - are sorely needed if we are serious about eradicating spam before we're all too old to care. Existing spam filters appear to be causing many legitimate e-mail senders and recipients more grief than does junk e-mail - witness the nightmarish tale from the online magazine TidBITS that we chronicled here two weeks ago. http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2002/0812netbuzz.html - - - - - - - - Unlocking the Secrets of Crypto: Cryptography, Encryption, and Cryptology Explained Encryption, decryption and code breaking came into the public consciousness in the 1980s with popularity of the movie War Games. It became newsworthy in the 1990s with the legal battles surrounding PGP and the political discussion of the Clipper Chip. Now, with information security becoming more and more of a common concern, the terms encryption, cryptography and cryptology - commonly grouped together under the term crypto - are seeping into our daily language. Still, many people are unsure of what these terms refer to. The purpose of this article is to demystify crypto and break it down to simple tools that aid us in achieving satisfactory privacy and security. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1617 - - - - - - - - File-swapping foes exert P2P pressure The anti-piracy war is about to spill over onto the home front. Until now, the entertainment industry has relied on civil lawsuits aimed at companies, not individuals, to limit widespread copyright infringement on peer-to-peer networks. Napster fell to legal assaults, and MP3.com soon came under fire by the recording industry. MP3Board.com, Scour.com, and Sharman Networks, which markets Kazaa, have been targets of the entertainment industry's legal fusillades against suspected copyright infringers. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-949533.html - - - - - - - - Germany: deep linking lunacy continues The German Government has released a new draft law for regulating copyright in the information society, according to EU directive 2001/29/EG. Among other things, the government clarifies the rights of reporting daily news in online media - but unfortunately, the controversial article 87b of German copyright law (Urhebergesetz, "UrhG") has not been changed. This is the German interpretation of the EU database directive. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26656.html - - - - - - - - Most of your company is missing! There are two types of companies. Those that have already experienced a serious data loss and those that will. Unfortunately, most companies think their existing data storage and backup plans fully protect them from data loss. All to often, companies discover that a large amount of vital corporate information was left unprotected. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-949556.html - - - - - - - - Evolving firewalls Firewalls have evolved considerably since their inception. Learn about the various generations of firewalls and target the one that best suits your company. Webopedia.com defines a firewall as "a system designed to prevent unauthorised access to or from a private network." Although technically accurate, this definition tells us only what a firewall does and doesn't address the more important question of how it does it. For administrators who are continually focused on keeping their networks secure, it is helpful to take a closer look at the way firewalls function and how they have evolved in recent years to better protect our corporate networks. http://techupdate.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t481-s2120765,00.html - - - - - - - - Rental car companies may be tracking you via GPS A flurry of lawsuits filed in the last few months claims a Budget Rent a Car licensee in Tucson, Arizona, used satellite technology to track renters who took cars out of state - and penalized them thousands of dollars under a policy that charged $1 per mile if the car was taken beyond the boundary. The suits allege invasion of privacy and fraud, among other claims. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/497792p-3969319c.html - - - - - - - - Wristwatches are 'LoJack for kids' Richard Winn of Pinegrove, Pa., doesn't think of himself as paranoid, but with so many abductions in the news lately, he wants to protect his daughters, ages 6 and 9. So he bought them special wristwatches that will track their locations 24 hours a day. "You hope like heck you're not over-paranoid and you're not too fearful of your child being dragged away," Winn says. "But you know the opportunity exists." http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techreviews/products/2002-08-12-gps-device_x.htm *********************************************************** 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. 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