November 18, 2002 Judge Declares Mistrial In Internet Kidnap Case Moments after a prosecutor and defense attorney made opening statements Monday in a notorious Internet kidnap and sexual assault case, a judge declared a mistrial when several jurors said they heard someone in a hallway blurt out "He's guilty." The judge ordered jury selection for a new trial to begin on Monday afternoon. James Warren, 42, of Hampton Bays, is charged in a 65-count indictment with kidnapping, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, attempted murder, assault and endangering the welfare of a child following his August 2001 arrest. http://www.wnbc.com/news/1792093/detail.html - - - - - - - - MS anti-piracy crew puts Suffolk dealer in the stocks Pity Russell Simpson, joint owner of Suffolk- based resellers Greengage Computer Products, who has not only forked out an undisclosed sum in compensation for unwittingly flogging counterfeit copies of Microsoft software, but sentenced to the stocks too. For Simpson has been dragooned into supplying warning words in a Microsoft UK press release decrying the evils of grey imports. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1686 - - - - - - - - Chat room perverts could face jail Process of 'grooming' children may carry sentence The Home Office is to introduce stricter sexual offences laws that could see paedophiles jailed for the process of 'grooming' children online, rather than after an attack has been committed. 'Grooming' is the term used to describe how paedophiles cultivate inappropriate relationships with children. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1136887 - - - - - - - - Court Approves More Snooping The Justice Department has broad discretion in the use of wiretaps and other surveillance techniques to track suspected terrorists and spies, a federal appeals court panel ruled Monday. In a 56-page opinion overturning a May decision by the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the three- judge panel said the expanded wiretap guidelines sought by Attorney General John Ashcroft under the new USA Patriot Act law do not violate the Constitution. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56454,00.html - - - - - - - - Cyberstrategy will get substantive reworking The Presidents Critical Infrastructure Protection Board has received several hundred responses to its draft strategy for defending cyberspace, released in September for 60 days public comment. I think there will be a substantive reworking of the strategy to refine its focus on key areas, said Donald A. Purdy, deputy to board vice chairman Howard A. Schmidt. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20537-1.html http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/111802cd1.htm - - - - - - - - Homeland Security--Big Brother is here? Like it or not, the proposed Department of Homeland Security firmly establishes Washington's central role in computer and network security. When approved by Congress, perhaps as early as Monday, the massive new bureaucracy will become--among other things-- the nation's clearinghouse for developing plans to prevent electronic attacks, thwart them when they occur and release advisories to the public. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-966192.html Big Brother Goes to Washington http://www.msnbc.com/news/835798.asp Homeland security bill raises Net privacy issues http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-11-18-homeland-security-tech_x.htm Top GOP aides try to ease concerns over security bill http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/111802td1.htm - - - - - - - - Writer hacks into Saddam Hussein's digital mailbox Even Saddam Hussein gets spam. He also gets e-mail purporting to be from U.S. companies offering business deals and threats, according to a journalist who figured out a way into an Iraqi government e-mail account and downloaded more than 1,000 messages. Brian McWilliams, a freelancer who specializes in Internet security, says he hardly needed high-level hacking skills to snoop through e-mail addressed to Saddam. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-11-18-iraq-email_x.htm - - - - - - - - Fake Robbie tracks hit the web Latest attack on file-swapping by the record labels? The record industry is polluting online file-swapping sites with fake tracks from Robbie Williams's latest album, according to experts. Reuters has reported that songs from Escapology, which is released today, have appeared on music download sites, but appear to be decoys. The songs play for under 30 seconds before fading into silence. In other cases, they fail to play at all. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1136892 - - - - - - - - Fox Exec Wants Help Ending Piracy Self-described Hollywood "fat cat" Peter Chernin will take the stage at Comdex in Las Vegas on Tuesday to deliver the technology megashows first keynote by a media executive. As president and COO of the News Corporation, and also as chairman and CEO of the Fox Group, Chernin oversees an international network of news and entertainment companies. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56435,00.html - - - - - - - - Watch Out For Online ID Theft It's a jungle out there on the Internet: Your online identity can be stolen. Linn's Stamp News writer/editor Rachel Supinger was sitting at her desk one morning recently when she got a call: Was she really selling 15 laptop computers on eBay? "No, I've never sold anything like that," she told CBSNews.com's Lloyd de Vries. Supinger writes about and collects stamps. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/15/tech/main529522.shtml - - - - - - - - GSA awards patch system contract The General Services Administration this month awarded Veridian Corp. a contract to develop a system that will deliver specific software security patches to agencies that need to plug holes in their systems. The patch dissemination system is expected to help prevent the large number of network intrusions caused by known vulnerabilities and security weaknesses for which vendors have already issued patches, according to GSA officials. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1118/news-patch-11-18-02.asp - - - - - - - - Zone Labs beefs up corporate security Zone Labs, best known as the maker of the free desktop firewall ZoneAlarm, announced on Monday an updated version of its software for managing the security of corporate desktops. The companys latest software, Integrity 2.0, can set the security requirements for corporate PCs before the computers are allowed to connect to the network. "Each vulnerable PC and the important data it contains must be secured," Frederick Felman, vice president of Zone Labs, said in a statement. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966223.html - - - - - - - - Wired Security Mentality for WLANs Latis Networks, a company known more for its wireline network security applications, is taking its wired mentality into the Wi-Fi realm with the release of its StillSecure Border Guard Wireless application Monday. What makes his product more effective than intrusion detection systems (IDS), said Rajat Bhargava, Latis Networks president and chief executive officer, is the fact Border Guard won't let unauthorized users on the wireless local area network (WLAN) in the first place. http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/1502271 - - - - - - - - .NET/MSIL malicious code and AV/heuristic Engines The .NET strategy/technology from Microsoft has caused quite a stir amongst the security community. While the Windows .NET strategy incorporates numerous aspects, this article will focus on what aspects to cover in order to develop an AV/heuristic engine for this new platform. Specifically it will address the additions introduced by .NET technologies to standard Windows PE (portable executable) file format and how that will affect the development of an effective heuristic engine. It will also briefly discuss the existing malicious codes for the .NET environment. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1642 New delays snag .Net Server http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-966174.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126098,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966174.html - - - - - - - - Locking Down the Pop-up Perps Pop-up ads have already inspired civil lawsuits. Here's how federal computer crime law and the USA-PATRIOT Act could put obnoxious advertisers in the pokey. Regular readers of this column know that I have criticized government efforts, such as those expressed in the USA-PATRIOT Act, to expand the scope of the criminal law jurisdiction of the government, and to criminalize activity that is and should be lawful. However, a growing phenomenon is giving me cause to re-think this approach -- a phenomenon that I'm beginning to think should bring upon it the full weight of federal criminal law. I refer, of course to that ubiquitous and annoying bane of the Web, the pop-up ad. http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/124 - - - - - - - - UK Home Office unit looking at electronic offender tagging Has Hilary Benn MP become the UK's Minister for Cyborging? An article in yesterday's Observer news- paper might imply he's dangerously near to it. The story, unfortunately, starts the usual hares about people-chipping in its lead-in paragraphs, which does kind of obscure the real story lurking beneath. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28148.html - - - - - - - - Police to get new tool to find missing kids A technology which enables law enforcement officials to alert communities when a child goes missing through telephone messages will be put to use in the United States. Finding missing children may soon be made a little easier by a technology that will allow law enforcement officials to quickly alert communities with the details of a missing child via telephone. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126066,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2002-11-18-missing-kids-tool_x.htm - - - - - - - - Errant Cell Calls Are Clogging 911 System As a veteran 911 operator with the California Highway Patrol, Deanna Mora has been trained to calm distraught murder witnesses, comfort suicidal callers and make peace during angry domestic disputes. But she was not prepared for the call she received not long ago from an upset woman who had just left a pet grooming salon in Orange County. The woman's emergency? Her dog had just received a bad haircut and she wanted the police to take some action. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-badcalls17nov17,0,4978491.story *********************************************************** 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.