January 15, 2003 Welsh virus writer to be sentenced next A 21-old Welsh Web designer who pleaded guilty to creating and distributing three mass mailer viruses is due to be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court next Tuesday. Simon Vallor, of Llandudno, North Wales, last month admitted offences under section three of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 in creating the Gokar, Redesi and Admirer mass mailing viruses. http://212.100.234.54/content/56/28884.html - - - - - - - - Child Porn Case Has Kentucky Connections A California man has been arrested on federal child pornography charges for persuading young girls to send him nude photos of themselves. Authorities say 29-year-old David Huffman allegedly claimed to be a terminally ill teenager to get the sympathy of the girls from Kentucky, West Virginia, Massachusettes and California. Huffman was arrested Monday at his Fortuna, California residence. Huffman is alleged to have posed as a 17-year-old boy dying of brain cancer in Internet chat rooms. http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1084679&nav=4CALDNIr - - - - - - - - Man accused of sexual assault of two girls, 14 Waukesha - A man was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting two 14-year-old girls, including one he met over the Internet. Dustin Cummings, 22, of Kenosha was charged in Waukesha County Circuit Court with two felony counts of second-degree child sexual assault. According to a complaint, Cummings arranged to meet a 14-year-old girl he had met on the Internet and then forced her to perform a sex act on him in his car on Feb. 11 near a Town of Genesee elementary school. http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/jan03/110955.asp - - - - - - - - Spammer Exposes Customer Data A notorious spammer who pitches pirated software from Symantec's Norton product line over the Internet has left vast amounts of customer data exposed for the world to see. And apparently, that is not at all uncommon. One of the Web sites operated by this particular spammer is called salesscape.com, and links related to the site showed hundreds of customer orders in .txt files. http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1569901 - - - - - - - - SoBig virus infections on the rise Unsophisticated virus still spreading despite warnings. Despite being a crude piece of work, the SoBig-A virus is still spreading rapidly. The worm has been in the wild for less than a week, and infections were thought to have peaked. But antivirus vendors are reporting an alarmingly large number of infections. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1138044 - - - - - - - - Group cracking Xbox 'for the public good' The Neo Project, which is attempting to break the Xbox's main security code, says its activities are important for protecting security and privacy on the Internet. The Neo Project, which is using distributed computing to crack the main security code in Microsoft's Xbox games console, says it is confident its activities will stand up under legal scrutiny because they could have research and social benefits. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2128739,00.html - - - - - - - - IT manager innundated by spam Anybody despairing at the amount of spam they're receiving in their inbox may do well to consider the plight of one UK IT manager who has had to deal with around 500,000 unsolicited e-mails in just two months. silicon.com was contacted by the IT manager of a UK firm who wished to remain anonymous ealier this week. Since November 2002, his company has been inundated with a barrage of spam, at the rate of around 8,500 e-mails per day. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1106-980738.html - - - - - - - - Spam Confab: Hackers to Rescue? Hackers from around the world will converge on MIT on Friday to swap intelligence and marshal their collective brainpower for the fight against a seemingly indomitable opponent. This time it's not Microsoft, DirecTV or the Recording Industry Association of America. It's spam. A recent Harris Interactive poll found that 80 percent of Internet users found spam "very annoying" and 74 percent favored making mass spamming illegal. For the beleaguered masses of the spammed, these hackers could be heroes. http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57190,00.html - - - - - - - - ACLU: It's Almost 1984 Big Brother is watching you. The American Civil Liberties Union is quite sure of it. An ACLU report released Wednesday warns that the United States "has now reached the point where a total 'surveillance society' has become a realistic possibility." The problem, said ACLU analysts, is twofold: Increasingly sophisticated technologies make advanced surveillance a snap, while the erosion of constitutional protections in the wake of Sept. 11 threatens the legal safeguards shielding Americans from excessive government snooping. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57228,00.html - - - - - - - - Truce called in digital copyright fight Setting aside their long-held differences in the escalating war over digital copyright protection, two tech trade groups and the recording industry came together Tuesday to oppose drastic measures proposed in Congress to settle their disputes. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4950622.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-15-motion-picture-truce_x.htm Antipiracy foes reach agreement http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2128737,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59063-2003Jan15.html Copyright proposal endorses a status quo that's anti-consumer http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/4950738.htm http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,57211,00.html Copyright truce excludes key voices http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2128771,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62059-2003Jan15.html Piracy: Music, Software v. Hollywood http://212.100.234.54/content/6/28882.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-980633.html U.S. warns Asia over copyright piracy http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4951101.htm Supreme Court upholds longer copyrights http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4953377.htm http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-980716.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-980792.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59143-2003Jan15.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/859644.asp http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/15/scotus.copyrights.ap/index.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57220,00.html - - - - - - - - Discarded computer hard drives prove a trove of personal info Two graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggest you think again. Over two years, Simson Garfinkel and Abhi Shelat bought 158 used hard drives at secondhand computer stores and on eBay. Of the 129 drives that functioned, 69 still had recoverable files on them and 49 contained "significant personal information" -- medical correspondence, love letters, pornography and 5,000 credit card numbers. One even had a year's worth of transactions with account numbers from a cash machine in Illinois. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/2055 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-980824.html http://news.com.com/2100-1040-980824.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/859843.asp - - - - - - - - Orange investigating security bug in Microsoft software Anglo-French telecom operator Orange SA is investigating two potential security flaws in the software in its SPV handset, which uses Microsoft Corp.'s mobile phone software. ``We're aware of this issue and will investigate it,'' an Orange spokesman said. ``We are taking it very seriously.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4953372.htm http://news.com.com/2100-1033-980803.html - - - - - - - - IBM's New PDA Provides a Measure of Security "We see this device being used by agencies, such as the FBI or Secret Service, and police and military personnel," said CDL president Cuong Do. The Paron is under review by the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense and the National Security Administration. An innovative PDA created by IBM and Consumer Direct Link (CDL) promises to reduce the risk of unauthorized entry into the offices, facilities, manufacturing sites or warehouses of businesses and government agencies. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20470.html - - - - - - - - MS plays the security card in Gov shared source retread Microsoft yesterday announced the Government Security Program, an initiative intended to provide governments and agencies with "controlled access... subject to certain licensing restrictions" to Microsoft source code. The announcement was accompanied by great amazement and astonishment in the public prints. Remarkably, this "unprecedented move" (Reuters) looks not entirely dissimilar to the Microsoft Government Shared Source Licensing Program, which has been available (to general disinterest) for some considerable time. http://212.100.234.54/content/4/28869.html - - - - - - - - The Curmudgeon's Crystal Ball: Security Predictions for 2003 As we ring in the new year, it's in with the new and out with the old. Or is it? Our fearless forecaster thinks not. After a much-needed holiday hiatus, Im back for 2003. And what better way to kick off the new year than with a series of predictions for the Internet security community? http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/135 - - - - - - - - Intell info sharing makes strides The sharing of intelligence information, at least in the unclassified arena, recently has taken several significant steps forward through a newly minted partnership among segments of federal, state and local governments. From September to December 2002, officials completed at least the initial integration of collaboration networks from the FBI, local law enforcement, the intelligence community and the State Department, allowing functions ranging from secure e-mail exchange to searches of one another's databases. http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2003/0113/web-info-01-15-03.asp - - - - - - - - Opposition grows in ID card debate As the consultation over ID cards draws to a close, privacy groups report increased opposition to the scheme, which would require a massive government database storing details on millions of adults. Opposition is growing against the introduction of an ID card in Britain, according to privacy advocates who believe the idea is an unnecessary and expensive threat to civil liberty. Privacy International has said there has been a surge in the number of people contacting the Home Office to express their hostility over the last few weeks. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2128768,00.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. Copyright 2000-2003, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.