November 22, 2002 Man gets 15 months for defrauding eBay customers A man was sentenced to 15 months in prison for cheating more than 180 eBay customers out of $153,000 for trading cards he never delivered. Vernon Derl Bell, 48, also must pay $153,000 in restitution. He pleaded guilty July 29 to fraud and was sentenced Thursday. Bell, an accountant, offered the sports trading cards over the Internet auction site from his home. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4583196.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/640533p-4844377c.html - - - - - - - - Sonera employees arrested in phone scandal High-level employees from Sonera's corporate security unit were arrested in connection to a phone tracing scandal. Five employees at Sonera, including the head of the Finnish telecom operator's corporate communications department, are under arrest in an escalating phone-tracing scandal. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126400,00.html - - - - - - - - Identity thieves strike eBay Con artists use scams to part eBay buyers and sellers from their user names and passwords When Deborah Fraser's credit card number was stolen, the thief didn't use it to buy a new car or a high-end laptop. Instead, the number was used to buy something potentially much more valuable -- a domain name with the word "ebay" in it. In Fraser's case, that was the domain name "change-ebay.com", a scam Website where an unknown number of eBay users may have been tricked into handing over their eBay username and password. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126405,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1017-966835.html - - - - - - - - Pentagon backs off on Net ID tags A Defense Department agency recently considered-- and rejected--a far-reaching plan that would sharply curtail online anonymity by tagging e-mail and Web browsing with unique markers for each Internet user. The idea involved creating secure areas of the Internet that could be accessed only if a user had such a marker, called eDNA, according to a report in Friday's New York Times. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-966894.html Washington's eye on the Internet http://news.com.com/2009-1023-966903.html - - - - - - - - Researchers: Pull plug on battery attacks A team of computer scientists is working to prevent new types of denial-of-service attacks aimed at battery-powered mobile devices. Tom Martin, a professor at Virginia Tech's electrical and computer engineering department, has received a grant for more than $400,000 from the National Science Foundation to devise a way to protect battery-operated computers from security attacks that could drain their batteries. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-966886.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126417,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-966886.html - - - - - - - - Next virus attack to cost SMEs billions Research has revealed that the financial loss to SME's when the next big computer virus hits could be billions. The next big computer virus attack could cost the UK's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) PS2.1bn, according to research carried out by McAfee Security. The research showed that of the 70 percent of SMEs who said they had received a virus, all had lost money and suffered systems downtime as a result. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126413,00.html - - - - - - - - T-Mobile installs GPRS network firewall T-Mobile USA Inc. said it has fixed problems that allowed hackers to probe a limited number of customers connected to its General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network, according to company spokeswoman Kim Thompson. Bellevue, Wash.- based T-Mobile has installed a firewall on the segment of its network that had allowed hackers to probe GPRS IP connections that are used by what Thompson described as "less than 100 users" http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/story/0,10801,76093,00.html - - - - - - - - On the Microsoft FTP server leak Microsoft made customer details - along with numerous confidential internal documents - freely available from a deeply insecure FTP server earlier this month. A well as numerous PowerPoint slides, such as Linux Vs Windows comparisons and .NET strategy papers, Microsoft "published" files an estimated 11 million customer email addresses and seven million snail mail address on the server. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1714 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126282,00.html - - - - - - - - ISC seeks cash amid BIND security concerns As the internet's domain name system suffers a series of security setbacks, the custodian of BIND, the software overwhelmingly used by ISPs to converts names into IP addresses, wants to ramp up security and is seeking the cash to do it, writes Kevin Murphy. This week the Internet Software Consortium introduced a membership fee structure in order to raise the money to maintain the security of BIND, the Berkeley Internet Name Domain, which has been found vulnerable to numerous security holes. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/28240.html - - - - - - - - Officials appeal for continued e-signature exemptions Federal courts and the Environmental Protection Agency are urging the Bush administration to maintain language that exempts documents relating to court cases and hazardous materials from a law that gives legal weight to electronic signatures. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/112202td2.htm - - - - - - - - Tech, entertainment take on copyrights Technology and entertainment lobbyists will sit down at the negotiating table Friday to seek a resolution to the long-running political spat over digital copyright. About 20 lobbyists are expected to meet at the Eye Street offices of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), just two blocks from the White House, to try and find common ground before the new Congress starts in January 2003. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-966833.html No More Music Piracy, Por Favor http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56522,00.html - - - - - - - - RIAA apparently published copyright material by mistake OVER ENTHUSIASTIC folk at musicunited.org, which issues stern warnings on its Web site about the unauthorised reproduction and distribution of copyrighted music, found itself with egg on its face yesterday when it appeared to have accidently published some copyright material belonging to the University of Chicago. The RIAA noted for its exceedingly fierce stance on music copyrights owns the musicunited.org web site. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6337 - - - - - - - - Security Through Soundbyte: The 'Cybersecurity Intelligence' Game Some say that cyberspace is the new battlefield, with its own unique rules, challenges, and concerns for those charged with defending it. If one does consider cyberspace a modern battlefield, intelligence must naturally play a key role in developing appropriate, proactive defenses. Regarding battlefield intelligence, military strategist Sun Tzu wrote that "what is called foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analog with past events, nor from calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation." That's sound advice. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/22/1037697858074.html - - - - - - - - Comdex's Secure Side A sampling of the information security products on the menu at Comdex. Comdex Fall 2002 was far from previous year's heights, but still continues to function as a smorgasbord for the information technology world. No surprise, then, that some security companies were there serving up products. At the same time, Comdex failed to draw many of the major security vendors. While the pickings were slim, some of them might prove interesting. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1713 - - - - - - - - FBI to link terrorism task forces The FBI is attempting to link its joint terrorism task forces located in various field divisions in a way that makes it easier for them to share data. The FBI established joint terrorism task forces (JTTF) following last year's terrorist attacks as a way to streamline communications and intelligence sharing. The task forces include representatives from the Defense Department and other government agencies at each of the FBI's 56 field divisions. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1118/web-fbi-11-22-02.asp - - - - - - - - Tech 'monitoring net' readied for scouring Iraq With four years of tidy-up time since weapons inspectors left Iraq, finding remnants of outlawed arms in a country the size of California would meet anyone's idea of a tough job. But advances in technology have given inspectors from the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency the ability to quickly sniff out telltale microbes or molecules that could signify chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4582603.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.