October 9, 2002 N.C. man pleads guilty to solicitation A North Carolina man has been convicted of soliciting a minor for sex over the Internet as part of an undercover investigation by the Bedford County Sheriff's Office's Operation Blue Ridge Thunder task force. Paul Eric Daniel, 42, of Cary, N.C., entered an Alford plea of guilty Tuesday in Bedford County Circuit Court to a charge of solicitation by using a communication device. Bedford County Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Krantz said that for about two months prior to his arrest on Aug. 15, Daniel had corresponded in Internet chat rooms with a Bedford County sheriff's deputy posing as a 13-year-old girl. http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story137807.html - - - - - - - - Massive computer chip theft at Heathrow Police appeal for help after PS3m of memory chips are stolen from a Heathrow warehouse. Police are searching for a gang who stole over PS2.6m worth of memory chips in a raid at a warehouse near Heathrow Airport on Wednesday morning. The chips had been imported from Korea, and officers believe that the raid -- which believed to have taken place between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. -- was carefully planned. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2123626,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-961464.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/27529.html - - - - - - - - Anti-Porn E-Mailer 'Fesses Up' The Internet stalker terrorizing the porn business confessed his sins yesterday to the FBI. But the G-Men took no action against Bryan Sullivan, who swamped the inboxes of adult industry bigwigs with bigoted slurs and stomach-turning tales of murder and torture. Sullivan, 37, an electrical engineer with Kansas City Power & Light, was long suspected of being the man behind dozens of ugly messages from "zodiac_killer" and "pornhater2002." On Tuesday, he confirmed that suspicion to the FBI agents who visited his home. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55667,00.html - - - - - - - - A hacker creates headaches for security-card company Technology companies often co-opt troublesome computer hackers by hiring them. But as NDS Group PLC has learned over the past six months, such arrangements can be risky. NDS, one of the satellite-TV industrys top providers of antipiracy technology, is under legal attack by rivals who make the stunning accusation that the company has in some cases helped pirates steal TV signals. Last week, U.S. prosecutors in San Diego hit the company, a unit of media company News Corp., with grand-jury subpoenas related to a continuing federal probe. http://www.msnbc.com/news/819161.asp - - - - - - - - Text message brings reprimand The advertising watchdog has reprimanded a company for sending an offensive text message calling for consumers to upgrade their mobile phone. Phonetastic UK, based in Newport, Gwent, sent a text message that stated: "You are a dick and I am going to kick your head in ya big useless donkey. UPGRADE UR MOB 0800 0859362". The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld the complaint adding that it was concerned at the company's lack of response to its investigation. It ruled that the message was "likely to cause serious or widespread offence to recipients" and told the advertisers not to repeat the text message. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/27524.html - - - - - - - - High court weighs copyright law U.S. Supreme Court justices criticized a copyright extension law on Wednesday, but appeared reluctant to suggest that it was unconstitutional. During oral arguments, the justices reserved their most pointed questions for foes of the Copyright Term Extension Act, a federal law that extends the duration of all U.S. copyrights for 20 years. It prevents works like Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie" and the poems of Robert Frost from becoming part of the public domain. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961467.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A776-2002Oct9.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/819269.asp http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55684,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-10-09-net-copyright_x.htm - - - - - - - - State puts heat Amazon over privacy Consumer protection regulators in Massachusetts are urging Amazon.com to respond to criticisms of its privacy policy. As previously reported, privacy advocates Junkbusters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center Tuesday sent a letter to consumer protection regulators in 14 states, the District of Columbia and the Federal Trade Commission, charging that Amazon was not doing enough to protect customers' privacy. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-961310.html http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55647,00.html - - - - - - - - House committee votes to create e-gov administrator A bipartisan bill to create an e-government office within the Office of Management and Budget won approval Wednesday from the House Government Reform Committee. Approved by voice vote, the legislation, H.R. 2458, aims to improve coordination and deployment of information technology across the federal government and help agencies achieve the IT management reforms required under the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1002/100902td1.htm - - - - - - - - Memo details surveillance lapses in terror, spy cases FBI agents illegally videotaped suspects, intercepted e-mails without court permission and recorded the wrong phone conversations during sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations, according to an internal memorandum detailing serious lapses inside the FBI more than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks. The blunders _ roughly 15 over the first three months of 2000_ were never made public but garnered the attention of the "highest levels of management" inside FBI, said the memo written by senior bureau lawyers and obtained by The Associated Press. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1091 - - - - - - - - Employers crack down on workplace downloads Technology companies Macrovision and Websense are teaming up to root out illegal MP3s, movies, games and other copyrighted material on employees' work computers. The partnership is part of a new push by Web filtering company Websense to give employers tight control over exactly what happens on their employees' computers. Its scope ranges fromdisabling peer-to-peer applications like Kazaa to identifying pornography, music or movies on individual hard drives. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-961262.html - - - - - - - - Wi-Fi "wartrappers" nab drive-by hackers A "honeypot" trap consisting of a Wi-Fi-equipped laptop is the latest weapon against drive-by hackers. Set up at the London headquarters of consultants KPMG, the laptop looks to the outside world like a simple wireless access point, but contains monitoring software designed to determine the level of illicit activity. "We are trying to measure the number of wardrivers, and the level of attack they are attempting," said Michael van Strien of KPMG, revealing the device at the RSA security conference in Paris. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-961405.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2123600,00.html - - - - - - - - Report: Net Not Getting Any Safer A recent Aberdeen Group report paints a dismal landscape of a digital world of compromised service providers, undermined networks and virus-riddled computers. While some experts contend the report is way too melodramatic, a new industry consortium -- including Microsoft, Oracle, Guardent, SGI, Network Associates, BindView and five other companies -- aims to even the odds between software developers trying to plug security holes and hackers trying to exploit them. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55581,00.html - - - - - - - - Info strategy challenges Air Force The Air Force is doing a good job of making data available worldwide via ground- and air- based platforms, but knowledge management and security remain top challenges, the Air Force chief information officer said, speaking Oct. 8 about the service's progress on its information strategy. "Knowledge management is one of the most significant challenges we face," said John Gilligan, Air Force CIO. "Air Force knowledge is managed in pockets, and we have not yet figured out how to grow it beyond the pockets" and apply it in areas such as warfighting capabilities. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1007/web-afcio-10-09-02.asp - - - - - - - - NSA will test a high-level access card The National Security Agency is planning to test its own version of the Common Access Card at the end of next year. While most Defense Department employees will use the Common Access Card, top NSA officials will use the Universal Secure Access smart card for physical and network access to DOD facilities. NSA recently asked SSP-Litronic Inc. of Irvine, Calif., to come up with a stronger, more secure smart card for its Key Management Infrastructure initiative to develop NSAs public-key infrastructure. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20233-1.html Treasury set to issue digital certificates with smart cards http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20232-1.html - - - - - - - - CERT warns of hacked SendMail Some copies of a popular mail-server program are implanted with a back door that could allow access to Internet attackers, security experts warned Tuesday. A Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Coordination Center advisory said that illicit code added to the Sendmail package creates a back door when the program is compiled from its source code. Such a compromised program --called a Trojan horse by security experts--can leave networks exposed to attack and administrators unaware of the vulnerabilities. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-961311.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2123626,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-961469.html - - - - - - - - Microsoft rethinks copy protection scheme Bowing to criticism, Microsoft on Wednesday backed off a copyright protection scheme that would have restricted the use of TV programs recorded on computers that run an upcoming version of the Windows XP operating system. Windows XP Media Center Edition, which is to be installed on a new line of Hewlett- Packard Co. personal computers later this year, would have encrypted recordings so that they could only be played on the PC that recorded the program. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-961376.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27531.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/biztech/10/08/digitaltv.ap/index.html http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/569366p-4467311c.html Microsoft outlines security strategy http://www.vnunet.com/News/1135763 - - - - - - - - Famed hacker hawking historic laptops Famed hacker Kevin Mitnick is hoping to make some money by auctioning off the infamous laptops he used to break into networks while he was a fugitive in the 1990s. Labeled a "computer terrorist," Mitnick was on the run from the FBI for three years, hacking into the networks of Novell Inc., Motorola Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Nokia Corp. and computer scientist Tsutomu Shimomura, who helped the government capture him. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/10/09/hacker.mitnick.reut/index.html - - - - - - - - RSA Conference: The security nightmare Top tech companies examine security failures and propose solutions to the industry's biggest headache. Microsoft's Craig Mundie sparks a renewed debate over the "myth" that open source software is more secure. (Series of Stories) http://zdnet.com.com/2251-1110-961356.html - - - - - - - - Mozilla's 'Code of Silence' Isn't Developers are accused of not publicizing the browser's security vulnerabilities enough. But do we really need world wide alerts for every bug? Is the Mozilla project covering up security holes in its open-source browser? That seems to be the accusation in a recent note to Bugtraq, in which security researcher Thor Larholm publicized a list of bugs in Mozilla 1.0. The bugs weren't exactly a secret to begin with -- the list itself came from the Mozilla Web site. http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/114 - - - - - - - - A high-tech defense against low-tech terrorism One hardly has to think to know what is on everyone's mind these days--one year later, we are still somehow changed. Harder to fathom, perhaps, is exactly what the acts of war and responses have to do with technology. In brief, the impact (of the Sept. 11 attacks) has already been great, both because of the attempts to pass unnecessary legislation and the clear need for greater use of technology by government. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-961355.html *********************************************************** 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.