November 1, 2002 Cactus teacher arraigned, faces charges related to child porn A 31-year-old Cactus Elementary School teacher on Wednesday was arraigned on five federal counts related to child pornography before U.S. Magistrate Clint Averitte in Amarillo. Charles Alan Snooks faces one count of producing child pornography, punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison; two counts of mailing and receiving child pornography, each count punishable by a maximum of 15 years and prison; possession of child pornography, punishable by a maximum of four years in prison; and a count seeking forfeiture, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Drake. http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/110102/new_cactus.shtml - - - - - - - - Ex-teacher pleads guilty in porn case A former elementary school teacher pleaded guilty Thursday to child pornography charges, a prosecutor said. James Robertson, 57, of Thousand Oaks, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of possession of child pornography, Deputy District Attorney Howard Wise said. Robertson faces up to nine months in jail when he is sentenced Dec. 9. http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_1517179,00.html - - - - - - - - Porn claim to be examined WorkCover has announced it will investigate allegations that an officer used his work laptop computer to view child pornography. WorkCover acting chief executive officer Greg Tweedly e-mailed all staff yesterday stating that Work-Cover would "conduct a thorough review and examine all available evidence". The e-mail reiterated a statement from WorkCover yesterday that management only learned of the allegations when The Age made inquiries recently. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/31/1036026978741.html - - - - - - - - Court tells Aimster to stop illegal swaps A U.S. District Court judge has agreed to the terms of a preliminary injunction outlined by the recording industry to halt the swapping of music files on Aimster. The decision, announced Thursday, marked another legal victory for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The industry group has been waging a relentless battle against online person-to-person file-sharing networks--most notably Napster--that allow people to download copyrighted songs for free. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-964212.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2125121,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-964212.html Madster file-sharing service ordered to keep track of songs http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-11-01-madster-ruling_x.htm http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/biztech/11/01/madster.ruling.ap/index.html - - - - - - - - Mississippi tops software piracy roll of shame Mississippi flouts software licensing regulations more than any other state in the Union. Almost half (48.7 per cent) of the business software used in the southern state is pirated, according to a state-by-state study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance and conducted last year. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27891.html U.S. software-piracy rate rose slightly in 2001, study shows http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-11-01-piracy-rate_x.htm - - - - - - - - Merkur worm poses as anti-virus update An Internet worm, posing as an anti-virus update arriving in an email, is also using peer to peer (p2p) software to spread. The Merkur worm, aka W32.HLLW.Merkur@mm arrives in email form with the subject "Update your Anti-virus Software" and has an attachment named "Taskman.exe". The worm relies solely on the recipient being fooled into running the attachment to spread. Like similar worms that have used "social engineering" to lure in unsuspecting victims, the Merkur worm sends itself to everyone in the victims' address book when it is opened. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105-964190.html - - - - - - - - Bugbear worst virus in October A variant of the Bugbear worm was the most wide-spread bit of malware in October, according to statistics released yesterday by Sophos Anti-Virus. Bugbear-A displaced Klez-H at the top of the virus list last month, although the latter is still causing serious problems. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-964197.html - - - - - - - - Police admit they can't keep up with cyber criminals Europe is losing out in its fight against cyber crime, a top law enforcement official said on Friday. ``With cyber crime, it's become so obvious that we've lost the battle even before we've begun to fight. We can't keep up,'' Rolf Hegel, head of Europol's serious crime department, told the Compsec 2002 computer security conference here. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4421571.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-964187.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2125138,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-964187.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/829178.asp http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/computing/20021101-0444-tech-cybercrime.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2002-11-01-europe-cybercrime_x.htm - - - - - - - - FBI seeks help vs. cybercrime The FBI has dramatically stepped up its efforts to battle cybercrime, but it is not getting the help it needs from companies that are the cybercrime victims, FBI Director Robert Mueller told technology business executives Oct. 31. "We probably get one third of the reports we would like to get" from companies that have suffered cyberattacks, Mueller said. "You're not enabling us to do the job." In the year that Mueller has been director, the FBI has made fighting cybercrime a high priority, topped only by counterterrorism and counterintelligence. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1028/web-fbi-11-01-02.asp Agencies, companies urged to set guidelines for fighting cyberterrorism The war on cyberterrorism requires law enforcement agencies and the private sector to develop guidelines and protocols for sharing information about network vulnerabilities and cyber attacks, government and industry leaders said Thursday. "Face-to-face relationships are great, but we need to go beyond that," Chris Painter, deputy chief of the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS), said during a cyber-security forum at Computer Sciences Corp. headquarters in Falls Church, Va. http://207.27.3.29/dailyfed/1102/110102td1.htm - - - - - - - - IG: State Department flunks systems security The State Departments information system security remains weak a year after the department was told of serious flaws, according to a recent report by the State inspector generals office. The IG reviewed system security in accordance with the Government Information Security Reform Act, which calls for annual reviews. Even though State made a plan for certifying and accrediting its systems, it has no timetable, according to the IG. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20398-1.html - - - - - - - - E-card trickery now in spyware, too Fake greeting cards seem to be the ploy of choice lately. It looks like a romantic e-greeting card. Hi love. I was thinking of how to make your day happier so I found this on the Net, the card says, adorned with a fistful of electronic daisies. I cant wait to get home and give you a big strong KISS. ... Love, Brian. But even as the recipient reads those words, Brians e-card is secretly installing spy software on her computer. Using e-cards to sneak software onto someones computer seems to be the latest fad, and in this case, its the latest trick in the escalating world of spouse-spying software. http://www.msnbc.com/news/828942.asp - - - - - - - - Wi-Fi Alliance tries again on wireless security The Wi-Fi Alliance aims to make it easier to build robust security into wireless LANS with the announcement yesterday of a successor to the flawed WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) protocol. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) uses a higher level of encryption and brings in dynamic key exchange functions absent with WEP. WPA is designed to work with existing products and is expected to first appear in Wi-Fi certified products during the first quarter of next year. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1554 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/27888.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19852.html T-Mobile flies Wi-Fi in airports http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-963870.html - - - - - - - - Microsoft attacks spam in new Outlook Microsoft is taking spam fighting more seriously in the next version of its widely used Outlook e-mail and contact-management software. Outlook 11 will, by default, no longer grab data such as images from outside servers when previewing e-mail formatted like Web pages. The ability to send and receive e-mail formatted in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) was at one time touted as a feature in Microsoft's e-mail programs. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-964166.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2125139,00.html - - - - - - - - The hidden gotcha of spam In the recent account of my struggle to employ wireless computing at a Florida technology conference, I described my attempt, when all else had failed, to use a Web-based POP3 e-mail account. That backup plan failed, too, but for reasons I never anticipated-- and there's a lesson here for all of us. The source of my woes? Spam. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2896281,00.html - - - - - - - - Hacker reveals secrets of success In his mid-1990s flight from the law, uber-hacker Kevin D. Mitnick was accused of donning new names, disguises and addresses, all the while continuing a ''hacking spree'' to steal from top-flight computer, Internet and telephone systems. The first cyber thief to get his mug on a federal Most Wanted poster, Mitnick was his own worst enemy. After his 2000 release from prison, he now works only the legal side of the street as a security consultant and has authored a book of anecdotal escapades that will surprise and alarm many computer-reliant companies, as well as provide a certain amount of intrigue for individuals with an interest in computers. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4423008.htm - - - - - - - - Personal data travels far Technology is making it much easier for government agencies to share information, so they are -- including details about your bank accounts, medical complaints and family lives. Personal information from an electronic application for a student loan, for example, may be transmitted to 10 other government agencies and private entities such as consumer reporting agencies, schools and lawyers. Financial details from a farm loan application sent to the Agriculture Department may be sent on to 13 other recipients. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1028/web-privacy-11-01-02.asp - - - - - - - - Agencies fail to comply with technology-transfer law Several federal agencies are not complying with a two-year-old law that aims to improve the transfer of technologies developed with federal funding to the commercial sector, according to a new General Accounting Office report. The 2000 statute requires agencies to submit, with their annual budget requests, reports to the Commerce Department and the Office of Management and Budget detailing their technology-transfer activities. http://207.27.3.29/dailyfed/1102/110102td2.htm - - - - - - - - Attention Londoners: Big Bobby is watching. That's the message of posters plastered along London's bus routes earlier this week to assuage riders' crime fears. But the posters are having the opposite effect on privacy advocates, who say the artwork is creepily reminiscent of the all-seeing authority described in George Orwell's 1984. The posters show a red double-decker bus crossing a bridge as four floating eyes stare down from the sky. The eyes' pupils are the symbol of Transport For London, the city's mass-transit provider. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,56152,00.html - - - - - - - - New police Web site featuring fugitives leads to arrests in Fremont Fremont police have launched a new Web page featuring the city's 10 most wanted fugitives. The site, www.fremontpolice.org/wanted/wanted.html, which includes the felons' mug shots and thumbnail explanations of their crimes, started two weeks ago. So far, the Web site has been credited with generating tips that resulted in seven arrests, said warrants officer Tim Hunt, who spearheaded the project. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4417635.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.