December 27, 2002 Local man gets nine years for child porn A Streator man was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography. William P. Hjerpe, 63, of 906 E. Bridge St., will get day-for-day time off his prison sentence for good behavior. He faced up to 30 years in prison for the felony. Prosecutors said that had this case gone to trial, they would have shown evidence that Streator police found several pictures of nude underage girls in Hjerpes car when he was arrested. Police also discovered a 12-year-old girl one of the girls photographed nude by Hjerpe crouched behind the back seat of his car at the time of Hjerpes arrest. http://www.times-press.com/newsmain.php?storyid=4250 - - - - - - - - Computer owner admits he stored porn on hard drive A Norridge resident, 54-year-old Robert DiCianni has pleaded guilty to one Class 3 felony charge of possession of child pornography and one Class 1 felony charge of possession of child pornography with intent to deliver. http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/no/12-26-02-71770.html - - - - - - - - Arizona law keeping inmates' information off Web to be decided Arizona's state prison dominates the skyline of this small desert town southeast of Phoenix, its perimeter a dense network of chain-link fences, guard towers and concertina wire. For nearly a century, the state's worst criminals have been sent here to serve their sentences or to await execution in isolated captivity. But that isolation is coming to a high-tech end. Today, the pervasive Internet has touched even this forbidding place, where a convicted killer now stands at the center of a growing controversy over just how far inmates' rights extend online. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/690737p-5128935c.html - - - - - - - - Japanese police to regulate online dating services Japan's National Police Agency on Thursday decided to regulate Internet-based dating services to punish and protect minors, many of whom have fallen into prostitution and other crimes. The move came as the agency's advisory panel on protecting youth issued an interim report suggesting punishments for teenagers as well as adults who lure people into having sex for money over cyberspace. The police agency will submit draft legislation to parliament in February. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/691095p-5130300c.html - - - - - - - - Report: China Closes 3,300 Cybercafes China has closed more than 3,300 Internet cafes in a safety crackdown launched after a fire in June at a Beijing cafe killed 25 people, the official Xinhua News Agency says. Nearly 12,000 other Internet cafes have been closed temporarily while they make improvements, Xinhua said Thursday. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4824513.htm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2127993,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-12-27-china-net_x.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/690398p-5126905c.html - - - - - - - - Klez makes it to the top of the charts Stubborn mass-mailing worm Klez has officially been named as the number one virus of the year. Discovered in April, Klez deletes files on local and network drives and overwrites other files with random data, making them impossible to restore. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1137749 - - - - - - - - Critics Fear Broadcast Flag Would Stomp on Consumer Rights If Hollywood gets its way, future broadcasts of digital television will not only have crisp video and sound but also invisible data to block unauthorized sharing. The "broadcast flag" is promoted by content owners as the least intrusive way to keep consumers from illegally redistributing copyright works. Digital TV technology, they say, can finally take off once popular movies and shows can be safely broadcast without fear of Internet piracy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42953-2002Dec27.html - - - - - - - - Hotmail, Yahoo! erect roadblocks for spam sign-ons Spam fighters have come up with an idea to frustrate the automatic creation of email accounts often used to send spam. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have designed software which acts as a gatekeeper, blocking computerised creation of accounts with Web mail services. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28694.html - - - - - - - - Defending your Net BILL THOMPSON took to the ICA a few weeks ago with a question: Is Big Business Killing the Net? Even he had to admit this was simple. Yes. Next? What we should do about it is harder. Thompson seems to be carving out a niche for himself as the anti-USAnian, anti-Barlovian, European sovereigntist Net radical. He thinks Europe needs its own Net. He thinks the Web is dead. And, at the ICA, he said he a regulated Net would be a good thing. http://inquirerinside.com/?article=6933 - - - - - - - - Hacker's Internet Cuffs Coming Off A man the federal government once labeled "the most wanted computer criminal in U.S. history" can soon resume surfing the Internet and using electronic devices he was forced to give up after his conviction. Kevin Mitnick, 39, of Thousand Oaks served five years in federal prison for stealing software and altering data at Motorola Inc., Novell Inc., Nokia Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and USC. Prosecutors accused him of causing tens of millions of dollars in damage to corporate computer networks. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-mitnick27dec27,0,5378554.story http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2128018,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978805.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/12/26/fcc.hacker.ap/index.html http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56997,00.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/28693.html http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/689748p-5123019c.html *********************************************************** 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. 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