October 29, 2002 DoCoMo gets defaced Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo shut down part of its Web site last week after an attack by Internet vandals. DoCoMo was forced into action after pages on the Web site which allowed business customers to contact the mobile operator were defaced. WirelessWeek reports that the cracker left his name along with the phrase "never die" on the defaced portion of the site. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27830.html - - - - - - - - Reuters accused of hacking The news agency has been accused of breaking into a Swedish company's Web site to get an earnings report, but denies the allegation. A Swedish company has filed criminal charges against Reuters, claiming that the news agency broke into its Web site to get access to an earnings report. But Reuters that the information was publicly available on the company's Web site, and said there was "no substance" to the charges. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2124669,00.html - - - - - - - - Kournikova virus author loses appeal Jan de Wit, aka OnTheFly, infamous author of the Anna Kournikova worm, has lost his appeal against his sentence for creating and distributing the prolific worm. An appeals court in Leeuwarden yesterday upheld a 150 hours of community service order imposed by a Dutch district court last September. The 22-year old appealed the verdict, fearing that his "conviction could hamper his career", Dutch IT news service Webwerld reports. He now works in a computer shop. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1527 - - - - - - - - CIA warns of Net terror threat Al-Qaida is not the only terrorist network hoping to wreak havoc on the United States through "cyberwarfare," the CIA says. America's spooks have named Sunni extremists, Hezbollah and Aleph--formerly known as Aum Shinrikyo--as other top threats. "These groups have both the intentions and the desire to develop some of the cyberskills necessary to forge an effective cyberattack modus operandi," the CIA said in a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-963771.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-963771.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/827548.asp - - - - - - - - Pro-Islamic hackers gearing up for cyber war, experts say Pro-Islamic hackers are on the frontline of a potential new cyber war after the end of a ceasefire by ``hacktivists'' and virus designers that followed the September 11 attacks on the United States, Internet experts say. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4392929.htm http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20021029/tc_nm/tech_islamic_dc http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2124626,00.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/10/29/tech.islamic.reut/index.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2002-10-29-cyber-attacks_x.htm - - - - - - - - Court weighs Virginia anti-porn law A federal appeals court heard arguments Monday regarding a challenge to a Virginia law restricting sexual material on the Internet. Three judges from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., spent an hour hearing from attorneys representing People for the American Way, which is challenging the law, and the state of Virginia, which is defending it. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-963796.html - - - - - - - - Card turns PCs into spam generators, but is it a virus? Users who try to view the e-card are warned they must install new software and told in small print of the End User License Agreement that the program will access the installers address book. Net users continue to complain about a greeting card which is making the rounds that behaves much like a computer virus. And the firm thats spreading the self-promoting message has apparently widened its distribution efforts. http://www.msnbc.com/news/826033.asp http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/10/28/security.net/index.html - - - - - - - - Congress should set rules for online gambling Congressional inaction on Internet gambling is hand-cuffing the casino industry and favoring shady corners of international commerce, according to gambling industry analysts and attorneys. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4396739.htm - - - - - - - - Homeland goes interstate route If you're having a hard time envisioning what the national strategy for homeland security would look like, try using the interstate highway system, built more than 50 years ago, as an example. That's what Steve Cooper, senior director of information integration and chief information officer for the White House Office of Homeland Security, told attendees at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers in St. Louis on Oct. 28. http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2002/1028/web-nascio-10-29-02.asp - - - - - - - - Employee surveillance unaffected by terror threat US companies have not increased Internet surveillance of employees in response to the government's anti-terrorism efforts, a new report asserts The General Accounting Office, an auditing arm of Congress, said sin a report released on Monday that corporate-level monitoring of email and Web use does not appear to have changed since the 11 September, 2001, terrorist attacks. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2124681,00.html - - - - - - - - Wireless WarDrive: Wee Bit of Fun Finding a public restroom in Manhattan was the biggest challenge on Day 1 of the WorldWide WarDrive. Within a 40-block radius, the WarDrivers identified dozens of wide-open wireless networks. Among the spotted "private" business and home networks were those appearing to belong to a bank, a police station, several law firms and department stores, and a financial services firm. http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,56062,00.html - - - - - - - - FIPS testing finds lots of mistakes in crypto IT About half of the cryptographic modules submitted for Federal Information Processing Standard validation have security flaws, a survey by the National Institute of Standards and Technology has found. Almost all evaluated products had documentation errors, said Annabelle Lee, director of NIST's Cryptographic Module Validation Program. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20344-1.html - - - - - - - - Promise of P3P stalls as backers regroup Six months after its recommendation as an Internet standard, a major privacy initiative is entering an awkward adolescence as software heavyweights adopt it and individual Web sites leave it to languish. In ordinary economic times, a protocol like the World Wide Web Consortium's Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) might have a hard time gaining acceptance in the marketplace, as mainstream consumers generally exhibit lax security practices when it comes to their own online privacy. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-963632.html - - - - - - - - Thumbs-up on security for Windows 2000 Windows 2000 has passed all required tests for a security certification accepted in 15 countries, Microsoft announced Tuesday. While software vulnerabilities may still occasionally bug the operating system, the Common Criteria certification attests that the key software components of Windows 2000 meet a specific level of security. The effort to obtain the certification, which took almost three years and cost millions of dollars, shows that Microsoft is serious about security, said Craig Mundie, vice president and chief technical officer for the Redmond, Wash. -based software giant. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-963776.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-963776.html http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20347-1.html - - - - - - - - Home-based cybersecurity defense won't work In 1944, the U.S. government kicked off the Smokey Bear campaign to teach citizens how carelessness with smoldering matches could set off raging forest fires. Now the government is making another call to arms-- this time to defend cyberspace from intruders. The most recent draft of the Bush administration's "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace" plan calls for users of the Internet to secure their own part of the worldwide network. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-963665.html http://news.com.com/2010-1071-963614.html - - - - - - - - Draft standards to increase info-sharing, cut IT costs The Office of Management and Budget issued a draft report last Friday outlining federal technology standards designed to increase information sharing among agencies and reduce overall technology costs. http://207.27.3.29/dailyfed/1002/102902t1.htm - - - - - - - - Chemical imaging may uncover crime scene evidence When emergency workers respond to a crime or accident scene, they could encounter a suspicious substance, such as a powder, that they need to identify immediately. But the process could take hours or days using traditional forensic science. Pittsburgh-based ChemIcon, however, believes it has developed technology that can identify suspicious materials, explosives and other criminal evidence far more quickly than that. And the technology can present its findings in a way that jurors and other lay people can easily understand. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2002-10-29-chemical-imaging_x.htm - - - - - - - - Your brain may soon be used against you The last refuge of secrets and lies - the brain - maybe about to reveal all. Scientists are finding ways to use the brain's activity to expose truths a person may try to hide. The techniques could revolutionize police work, improve national security, and threaten personal privacy. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4391614.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. 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.