August 29, 2002 Webmaster indicted for terror support A federal grand jury has indicted the founder of the StopAmerica.org Web site on charges of aiding al-Qaida terrorists. Prosecutors say Earnest James Ujaama, 36, who was born James Earnest Thompson, conspired to create an al-Qaida boot camp in rural Oregon. Ujaama also helped al-Qaida with computer training and Internet propaganda, according to the 9-page indictment released late Wednesday. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-955939.html - - - - - - - - Electronic evidence anchors porn case A Rochester, N.Y., federal judge on Thursday sentenced a former Xerox engineer accused of trafficking in child pornography to nearly four years in prison. The government's prosecution of Larry Benedict, 45, is unusual because all the evidence in the case is electronic, and all of the evidence appears to have been allegedly tampered with or otherwise altered after it was in government custody. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-955961.html - - - - - - - - Ziff pays $125K to settle security breach Publisher Ziff-Davis has agreed to pay $125,000 to settle legal actions brought after a security breach that exposed customer credit card details on the Web. The States of New York, Vermont and California will receive $100,000 from Ziff to cover their costs in investigating a breach that exposed some "12,000 subscription orders last year", according to ZDNet. Ziff will also pay 50 users, whose credit card details were inadvertently published on the Web, $500 in compensation. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26864.html http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,54817,00.html - - - - - - - - Big fine handed down for mobile spamming Sending out unsolicited text messages that misled mobile users to believe they had won a PS500 prize proves to be rather expensive. A company that sent large numbers of unsolicited text messages to mobile phone users telling them they had won a mystery prize worth PS500 has been fined PS50,000 by the premium rate services regulator. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2121498,00.html - - - - - - - - Some of Interior still disconnected About 6 percent of the Interior Department's systems remain disconnected from the Internet eight months after a federal judge ordered a departmentwide shutdown due to security concerns, according to a recent Interior report. Most of the systems support the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Special Trustee, organizations that rely on information technology to fulfill the department's trust fund duties. BIA and OST have assigned project managers to seek reconnection. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0826/web-trust-08-29-02.asp - - - - - - - - Glitch in Web site menaces iVillage customers Women who logged on Thursday to iVillage.com, a Web site network devoted to women, found not only the typical discussions on breast-feeding and children but other people's private messages as well, prompting fears that their own personal comments might be revealed. Each time the site's users logged on, they saw a different person's messages. "I tried about seven or eight times and each time got a different users inbox, including someone I recognized from another message board at Parents Place," one of iVillage's Web sites, said Laurie Clark of Fenton, Mich. Clark said she could access other peoples' messages, though she was careful only to read junk mail. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/516485p-4100263c.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/08/29/ivillage.e.mail.ap/index.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/800959.asp http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3963577.htm - - - - - - - - Whos spying on my Hotmail? With new spyware, even your private Yahoo, Hotmail e-mails can be seen. Think using Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail at work protects you from your boss prying eyes? Think again. New spy software essentially lets employers or parents co-pilot virtually any kind of e-mail account, including private Web-based e-mail accounts like Yahoo and Hotmail. A new version of eBlaster spyware will secretly forward all e-mail coming and going through such Web-based accounts to a spys e-mail, allowing anyone to ride-along even the supposedly private e-mail. http://www.msnbc.com/news/800409.asp - - - - - - - - Inland Revenue may miss online targets Concerns about security will put people off submitting their tax returns online, says a key parliamentary committee. Fresh from lambasting the government for its faults in its approach to the Internet, the Public Accounts Committee has turned its attention to the Inland Revenue. According to the committee, the Inland Revenue is unlikely to achieve its target of 50 percent take-up of its online services in 2005, because of security and reliability concerns, limited Internet penetration, and a lack of incentives for people to use the Revenue's e-services. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2121484,00.html - - - - - - - - China winning Internet war against dissidents for now, group says Contrary to some predictions, the Internet is unlikely to spark major political change in China in the near future, an influential U.S. research institution said Thursday. The report by the Washington-based Rand think-tank, which claims to be one of the most thorough analyses ever of Internet use by Chinese dissidents and Beijing's response, found a crackdown on dissidents is succeeding in cyberspace. As a result, while the Internet may ultimately support change, this will more probably occur in an evolutionary manner, said the report, titled "You've Got Dissent". http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/516413p-4100130c.html - - - - - - - - Spam hits 36 percent of e-mail traffic Corporate networks are becoming increasingly clogged by e-mail pitches for pornography, money-making schemes and health products, and there's little relief on the horizon. Once a mild annoyance, unsolicited bulk e-mail --also known as spam--could make up the majority of message traffic on the Internet by the end of 2002, according to data from three e-mail service providers. Businesses "are seeing an enormous increase in spam," said Enrique Salem, CEO of anti-spam service provider Brightmail. "It's become a huge problem." http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-955842.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-955842.html You've got spam, and more spam http://news.com.com/2100-1001-955842.html If it's spam, the message is "delete" http://news.com.com/2100-1017-955806.html - - - - - - - - Survey finds U.S. firms fear cyberattacks over physical attacks U.S. companies are more concerned about electronic attacks such as computer viruses than physical attacks by terrorists, according to a poll of chief security officers released Thursday. The poll, released by a new magazine for security officers called CSO, revealed that 59 percent of top security officials believe computer attacks pose the biggest concern to their company over physical attacks (eight percent) or electronic attacks with physical consequences (three percent). Nearly half - 49 percent - anticipate a major cyber attack by a terrorist organization such as al-Qaida, according to the survey. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/516460p-4100198c.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-08-29-cyber-attack_x.htm http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/08/29/cyberattack.fears.reut/index.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3961676.htm - - - - - - - - JVC claims 'uncopyable' CD-ROM Consumer electronics maker JVC and games developer Hudson Soft have developed a new copy-protection technology that they claim will prevent CD-ROM discs from being copied, the companies said on Wednesday. The technology, called "Root", marks the latest effort by the computer industry to control software piracy through technical means. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-955918.html - - - - - - - - MS in fresh digital cert flaw A flaw in the Windows handles digital certificates enables sophisticated crackers to get up to all sorts of mischief on unprotected boxes. An ActiveX control called Certificate Enrolment Control (which ships with all versions of Windows), which deals with web- based certificate enrolments, can be manipulated to delete certificates on a victim's PC. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26859.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19245.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/801123.asp http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3965537.htm - - - - - - - - Does Crime Pay More on the Internet? Those bent on Internet crime can forgo ski masks, dangerous weapons and jackhammers by simply arming themselves with a computer, a modem and a clever plan to rob a bank. Crime on the Internet, as opposed to crime in the physical world, generally does not involve physical danger or high risk of exposure -- but does it pay more? The Internet's tentacles reach deeply into almost all facets of business and personal life, leaving companies and consumers vulnerable to attack and making it easier for criminals to remain anonymous. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19192.html - - - - - - - - Certification Pays For IT Security Pros Companies are willing to pay more for IT security professionals with certification. IT security professionals were in high demand even before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, and they continue to outpace their IT peers in compensation and bonus pay for certification, according to a recent research study. Industry regulation, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which has an April 14 deadline for compliance with privacy rules, and high-profile hacker incidents are encouraging more IT workers to pursue security certification to become skilled in intrusion detection or database security, says David Foote, chief research officer at Foote Partner. http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020828S0007 - - - - - - - - Scientology says it's threatened by "unadulterated cyber-terrorism" I can see from your writings that you have a strikingly different view of the DMCA that we do. Your inclusion of the Church in some of your articles, without finding out what actions we take and why, calls for a revisit of the subject. I am happy to provide you with a position paper that lays out quite simply our view on the issue of copyright protection on the Internet. http://www.politechbot.com/p-03917.html - - - - - - - - Australian security industry receives exclusive call In an unusual move, the local security industry has been given exclusive access to an entire telephone band thanks to a decision by the country's telcommunications regulator. There have been 10,000 telephone numbers which start with the prefix 1345 reserved for the security sector. http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/communications/story/0,2000024993,20267773,00.htm - - - - - - - - Technology firms await homeland security spending boom In the past year, the federal technology market has flown where others have fallen. But the flight hasnt been smooth. And IT firms are still waiting for the post-Sept. 11 technology spending boom to kick in. Several high-profile contracts worth billions of dollars have experienced major hiccups recently. The rollout of the Navys new communications network, known as the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, was delayed because a huge number of old databases and systems had to be modernized. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0802/082902pp1.htm - - - - - - - - IT efforts focused on homeland More than 80 percent of state and local government officials said one of their major technology initiatives for next year would be homeland security, according to a Gartner Inc. analyst. But he cautioned many don't know what that emphasis will entail. "That's a huge percentage," said Rishi Sood, research director at Gartner, which recently completed a national survey. "That percentage obviously is biased by the fact that [Sept. 11] just occurred and our focus on homeland security. But if you look under the cover of that data point, state and local government organizations don't really understand what they need to do with respect to homeland security today...and they don't have the funding to deploy those." http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2002/0826/web-sood-08-28-02.asp - - - - - - - - Lancashire Police deploys wireless Wan Cable & Wireless wins 10-year PS2.5m contract Lancashire Police has admitted that its new PS2.5m wireless wide area network (Wan) was needed because network pressure was affecting officers' ability to do their jobs. The force has implemented the wireless Wan linking 55 police stations around the county, and believes that it will dramatically improve its ability to tackle crime. It has signed a 10-year, PS2.5m deal with Cable & Wireless (C&W) to replace existing point-to-point leased line connections. C&W will also provide ongoing support and training. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134657 *********************************************************** 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.