December 20, 2002 Man pleads guilty to spreading computer viruses A 22-year-old Web designer pleaded guilty Friday to spreading three computer viruses over the Internet. Simon Vallor, from Llandudno in Wales, appeared at Bow Street Magistrates Court in London and admitted spreading three viruses, including GoKar and Redesi. Though the viruses can automatically spread through e-mail when someone opens one, their distribution was relatively limited. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4784324.htm http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1899 http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/12/20/courts.virus/index.html http://www.vnunet.com/News/1137723 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-12-20-virus-case_x.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/28659.html http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/683360p-5084411c.html - - - - - - - - Online sexual predator task force nets nine arrests Agents posing as a 14-year-old girl have arrested nine men on charges of surfing the Internet to find and lure minors for sex over the last 18 months. Some of the men arrested by agents and officers with the Louisville Innocent Images Task Force also were charged with crossing state lines for sex with a minor. To find sexual predators, task force members surf the Web's chat rooms, often posing as a 14-year-old girl, and exchanging messages with older men. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-12-20-net-predator_x.htm - - - - - - - - Head of Child Porn Ring Gets 30 Years A Texas man behind a worldwide e-mail ring that traded pornographic images of children, some as you as 18 months old, was sentenced to the maximum of 30 years in federal prison Friday. "I'm sorry for the children in the pictures," Mark Bates, 33, of Palestine said. "I was using the pictures so I wouldn't go out and hurt anyone. I wasn't thinking there was actually a person behind the pictures." http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PORN_RING?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME - - - - - - - - Seven major movie studies sue maker of DVD backup copy software Hollywood fought back against the makers of DVD movie copying software, countersuing the company for allegedly trafficking the tools of digital theft. Seven major motion picture studios filed the counterclaim Thursday in federal court against 321 Studios, the makers of DVD Copy Plus and DVD X Copy. The software sold at stores nationwide allows the user to make a copy of a DVD to a blank CD or DVD by defeating the copy protections encoded onto the original movie disc -- activity the studios say is a legal no-no. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1897 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-978580.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978580.html http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/682907p-5081808c.html - - - - - - - - Judge finds file-sharing company in contempt of court Madster and the founder of the file-sharing service were found in contempt of court Friday by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen in Chicago said Madster violated a preliminary injunction he issued in October. The recording industry had filed a contempt motion claiming Albany-based Madster was disregarding the terms of the injunction, which barred the swapping of copyrighted songs and files on its Web site. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-12-20-madster_x.htm - - - - - - - - One Click Fraud: more MS scammers likely This week Seattle FBI told The Register that more arrests in the Daniel Feussner case were unlikely. Feussner was the Microsoft employee charged last week with selling $9 million of stolen software. But Microsoft itself believes more cases will be unearthed as it investigates abuse of its internal purchasing system, The Seattle Post Intelligencer's Dan Richman reports today. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/28660.html - - - - - - - - Police investigate porn DVD bought at Dixons Police in Birmingham have launched an investigation after child pornography was found on a DVD disk bought at a Dixons store in the West Midlands. The disk was part of software sold with a PS200 CD rewriter. The family that bought the hardware told the Birmingham Post that they were "totally appalled" by what they saw. It seems the box containing the rewriter had been opened prior to it being bought. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28656.html - - - - - - - - No cyberterrorismyetsays security chief Although terrorists have yet to execute a successful Internet-based attack on the United States, criminals continue to assail private and public sector computer systems, causing millions of dollars in damage and posing a threat to national security, said Richard Clarke, the presidents cybersecurity czar, at a Thursday briefing. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1202/122002h1.htm Terrorists on the Net? Who Cares? http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,56935,00.html - - - - - - - - Web security plan won't invade privacy-White House Efforts to bolster Internet security will not lead to increased government scrutiny of individuals' online habits, the White House and industry sources said Friday. As it finalizes sweeping guidelines that aim to increase cybersecurity, the Bush administration said individual privacy would not be affected by efforts to prevent cyberattacks. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4785010.htm http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1902 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18848-2002Dec20.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/850160.asp http://www.vnunet.com/News/1137717 http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/683645p-5085676c.html Federal database spy site fading away http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978598.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/850218.asp http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-12-20-net-monitor_x.htm - - - - - - - - Online dope sales hit new high Canadian group sells cannabis on the web, but 'only for the sick'. Activists in Canada have set up a website offering home delivery of cannabis for seriously ill people. The move follows a decision by a Quebec judge to stop the drug trafficking trial of two volunteers from the Compassion Club of Montreal, a group that provides marijuana for medicinal purposes through its website. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1137719 - - - - - - - - Windows XP, Winamp Flaws Endanger File Swappers' Computers Two new security Relevant Products/Services from IBM holes affecting music file swappers have been discovered, one in Microsoft's and the other in Winamp, a media jukebox player for Windows. The flaw in Windows XP enables music files of either MP3 Latest News about MP3 or Windows Media format to deliver a malicious payload without even being played by a user. "Because of the file handling capabilities of XP, it reads the file header as you open up the directory where the file is contained, or float above an MP3 file with your cursor," Henk Pieters, spokesperson for Foundstone, told NewsFactor. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20309.html - - - - - - - - Security flaw threatens Cisco Web site A vulnerability in Cross-Site Scripting could mean trouble for both Cisco and its Web site user. Securiteam.com, an online security portal, have found a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the cisco.com Web site, according to an advisory. "The vulnerability would allow attackers to cause users to view third-party malicious JavaScript or HTML code as if it were the legitimate content offered by Cisco," the advisory said. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2127862,00.html - - - - - - - - Encryption in the Enterprise There are times when a company should think twice about encrypting data. Although point- to-point encryption can keep competitors and would-be crackers at bay, internal encryption can cause security problems of its own. When it comes to computer security, the primary question is not whether enterprises should be paranoid, but how paranoid they should be. To reduce their risk, many companies are attempting to put encryption to work. The question is, do they fully understand the role of this technology and how it should be deployed? http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20303.html - - - - - - - - ElcomSoft trial--testing copyrights A jury found that Russian Dmitry Skylarov's program to crack Adobe eBook software did not violate the criminal provisions of the DMCA. Will this decision weaken the current law and create a backlash to replace it with tougher restrictions? http://zdnet.com.com/2251-1110-976193.html So sorry Adobe urges more DMCA busts http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28654.html Week in review: Defending tech http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-978552.html http://news.com.com/2100-1083-978552.html Sklyarov reflects on DMCA travails http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-978497.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978497.html - - - - - - - - FBI under fire for IT slipups The FBI continues to mismanage its information technology resources despite efforts at reform, a federal audit has concluded. The U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General on Thursday issued a report blasting the agency's information technology investments, blaming lax oversight and a lack of centralized planning. These contributed to delays and cost overruns in a critical project aimed at updating the agency's IT infrastructure, among other things. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978586.html http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1202/122002h2.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.