NewsBits for February 11, 2003 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Satellite TV hackers nabbed by FBI Federal authorities announced Tuesday they had made a sweeping arrests in a year-long undercover investigation of the satellite-TV piracy underground. Ten suspects have already pleaded guilty to a variety of federal charges, including one who admitted selling piracy hardware and software that cost pay-TV firms nearly $15 million. Seven other suspects face criminal charges, including six who were indicted under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, only the second time a federal grand jury has issued an indictment under the controversial law. http://www.msnbc.com/news/871516.asp - - - - - - - - - - Worker accused of stealing Microsoft software dies A former Microsoft employee accused of stealing and reselling software to finance a lavish lifestyle has died at age 32. Daniel Feussner of suburban Sammamish, Wash., died Friday at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue. His family said he suffered multiple organ failure and had previous medical problems. No other information was released about his condition. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/5152030.htm - - - - - - - - - - Teen charged in child-sex case A Simpsonville teen faces several charges stemming from a sexual assault on a minor, police said. Robin Mackenzie Nelson, 18, of 204 Stonegate Drive, Simpsonville, was charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, two counts of assault and battery high and aggravated, and one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree, according to four warrants. The suspect was brought to the attention of the Simpsonville police by the U.S. Customs Service and the State Law Enforcement Division, said Simpsonville police Lt. Ralph Bobo. The Customs Service had been monitoring the movement of child pornography from New Zealand to a source in Arizona, Bobo said. http://www.tribunetimes.com/stories/2003/02/11/200302115035.htm - - - - - - - - - - 1 held in Web pedophile sting The 38-year-old man walked into the fast-food restaurant and looked around. All the while, undercover law enforcement officers looked at him. Authorities said they believe the man had come looking for a 13-year-old girl whom he had arranged to meet. The girl did not exist: An officer had invented her in an online chat room. Authorities said Phillip Douglas Reese of West Sacramento met the "girl" in the chat room and engaged in explicit sexual conversation with her, all via the Internet. The Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force ran the sting. http://www.modbee.com/local/story/6144906p-7096380c.html - - - - - - - - - - Madison man faces porn charges An investigation into a Danish child pornography Internet ring has led to the arrest of a Madison County man on pornography charges. Bryan J. Reilly, 30, will await trial under home detention with strict conditions set Friday by Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge T. Michael Putnam. Court papers detail how a complex computer trace of people communicating with members of the Internet porn group led U.S. Customs Service officials to Reilly. The ring included a group of parents who sexually molested their own children and sent pornographic pictures of them worldwide. http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1044958803312960.xml - - - - - - - - - - Alleged Cyber Predator Arrested James Comfort, 28, is accused of being a cyber predator, allegedly raping women in both Syracuse and Rochester. In Syracuse, Comfort is accused using the Internet to lure and rape a girl in Syracuse. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday. At the time of the alleged crime, he was free on bail. He's accused of similar crimes in Rochester. Comfort remains in jail without bail. http://www.wstm.com/global/story.asp?s=1125352 - - - - - - - - - - Nurse Sentenced A pediatric nurse who pled guilty to child porn charges is sentenced. Albany County Judge Tom Breslin agreed with a plea agreement and ordered 43-year-old Burdett Lee Wilson behind bars for the next 1 1/3 to 4 years. Wilson was a nurse at Albany Medical Center when it was discovered he had more than 1500 images of child porn on his home computer. Police say there is no evidence Wilson ever actually abused a child. http://www.abc10.com/Global/story.asp?S=1124801&nav=6uyNDuwJ - - - - - - - - - - State indicts first suspect in Internet sex case An O'ahu Grand Jury has indicted a Honolulu man for allegedly using the Internet to try and lure a 13-year- old girl for sex, state Attorney General Mark Bennett said yesterday. Grant N. Detwiler, 27, is the state's first suspect to be indicted on a charge of first- degree electronic enticement of a child, a law created by the 2002 state Legislature, authorities said. Three men have been previously arrested for the same felony offense but were released without charges, pending further investigation, the attorney general's office said. http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Feb/11/ln/ln29a.html - - - - - - - - - - Second teacher walks free A Midland court has provoked a storm of criticism after a schoolteacher convicted of child pornography offences walked free - the second case of its kind in less than a month. The latest decision by Wolverhampton Crown Court to impose a non-custodial sentence on a child porn offender was condemned by police, children's agencies and a Midland MP who pledged to raise the issue with Home Secretary David Blunkett. http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/page.cfm?objectid=12627890&method=full&siteid=50002 - - - - - - - - - - Counterfeit games seized in China Hundreds of thousands of fake Nintendo games have been seized in an anti-piracy operation in southern China Video game publisher Nintendo says that three January raids in south China netted 300,000 counterfeit games, spotlighting the ongoing war by western firms against piracy in China. The games were seized at three factories in Guangdong province -- a hotbed of pirating activity in China for high- and low-tech products alike, experts said on Tuesday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2130227,00.html - - - - - - - - - - French court clears Yahoo in Nazi case In what might end a three-year legal fight, a Paris court Tuesday threw out accusations by French human rights activists who said Yahoo! Inc. should be held legally responsible for auctions of Nazi paraphernalia that were once held on its Web site. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/5156629.htm - - - - - - - - - - Yahoo! UK! admits! scam! Yahoo! UK & Ireland has finally come clean and admitted that some of its customers have been targeted by fraudsters. The Internet giant has taken almost two weeks to respond to allegations of a scam designed to con its users out of PS199. The allegations surfaced last month in a newsletter posted by US-based search engine consultant Jill Whalen of HighRankings.Com after obtaining an email which "appeared to be from Yahoo! UK" advising the recipient that they needed to pay PS199 to have their annual Yahoo! listing review. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29281.html - - - - - - - - - - TEN BANKS END ONLINE GAMBLING WITH CREDIT CARDS New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced today that ten banks have signed agreements to block cardholders from using their credit cards for transactions identified as online gambling. "This is a turning point in the credit card industry," Spitzer said. "The vast majority of credit card issuers and all issuers doing significant business with New York consumers have now recognized their legal, ethical, and business obligation to block credit card transactions identified as online gambling." http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2003/feb/feb11b_03.html - - - - - - - - - - Strong national standard vs. ID theft The identity-theft capital of the country is Los Angeles. The City of Angels boasts the dubious distinction of the highest per capita instance of this insidious crime. No wonder Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-Calif.] has taken a keen interest. She has already introduced three bills this year and has a fourth in the works. http://www.msnbc.com/news/871419.asp - - - - - - - - - - To Thwart the Identity Thieves With the problem getting worse each year, only a bold reform approach will do the job. How about a market- based solution? In Phoenix, a burglar allegedly lifted a computer from TriWest Healthcare Associates that holds key personal information, including Social Security numbers and health records of 500,000 U.S. Defense Dept. employees from 16 Western states. In Long Island, N.Y., a low-level clerk at tech company TCI is charged with downloading 30,000 credit reports without authorization and selling them to two accomplices for $60 a piece to assist a wide-ranging identity-theft caper. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2003/tc20030211_7896_tc047.htm - - - - - - - - - - ID theft a growing concern A Modesto man who said he once bought more than $100,000 worth of merchandise using other people's identities offered advice Friday on how to avoid being a victim of someone like him. And he explained just how easy it was for him and others to live off someone else's good credit. "We'd go through the garbage of mortgage companies and department stores because they often would throw away paperwork and receipts with customers' Social Security numbers and other personal information on it," he said. http://www.modbee.com/local/story/6130731p-7083325c.html - - - - - - - - - - License For Terror? For Small Fee, Web Sites Offer Fake IDs To Anyone If you think identification checks at airports are helping to protect against another 9/11, hink again. In a matter of days, NewsChannel 4 ordered a phony New York driver's license from a Web site. A NewsChannel 4 producer purchased the fake, submitting a picture of a man she called "John Walker," adding: "He doesn't have a driver's license number (please make one up), and also make up an address." However, the picture the producer sent is no ordinary man looking for a license. He's Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, from the FBI's "22 Most Wanted Terrorists List." Right now, there's a $25 million reward for his whereabouts. http://www.wnbc.com/news/1968841/detail.html - - - - - - - - - - Symantec warns of internal threats While recent events like the Slammer worm outbreak have reiterated the need for external protection, a security software maker says Asian companies can't afford to ignore threats of insider sabotage. According to Symantec, more than 50 percent of security incidents it responded to over the years involved staff misuse or abuse. Most firms don't implement layered security measures so employees tend to have free access within the network, said Ross Wilson, Symantec Southeast Asias senior regional director. http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/security/0,39001150,39113680,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Games maker not suing over bug alert Epic Games, maker of the Unreal Tournament series of virtual world shooting games, on Tuesday denied reports that it considered filing a lawsuit against a security company that found holes in its products. The reports began when TechTV.com quoted Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein as saying that several comments made by security firm PivX Solutions were "slanderous" and that Epic would consult with its lawyers. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984191.html - - - - - - - - - - Funding delays stall expansion of online identification A federal initiative designed to verify the identity of citizens doing business with the government over the Internet is facing funding delays, according to Bush administration officials. The e-authentication project, one of President Bush's 24 initiatives to put more government services online, seeks to allow individuals to garner identification credentials to sign and transmit documents and transact other business online with government agencies. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0203/021103td1.htm - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft Sends Security Alerts Home Microsoft is introducing a new home-user version of its free e-mail security news alert service for non-technical users. The Microsoft Security Update newsletter will include information on new product patches and security issues, the company said Tuesday. Microsoft intends the newsletter to complement its five-year-old Microsoft Security Notification Service, which is aimed at IT professionals and offers detailed technical information on security problems and recommended solutions. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109297,00.asp - - - - - - - - - - CipherTrust boosts spam protection CipherTrust Inc. has come up with a tool that systems administrators can use to block unsolicited bulk e-mail, known as spam, but still let in legitimate e-mail traffic. The company's IronMail secure e-mail gateway appliance can now aggregate results of multiple CipherTrust detection filters, enabling administrators to make more informed decisions. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0210/web-cipher-02-11-03.asp - - - - - - - - - - Quantum Cryptography Even the strongest digital lock is useless if someone steals the key. With quantum cryptography, "you can be certain that the key is secure," says Nabil Amer, manager of the physics of information group at IBM Research. The world runs on secrets. Governments, corporations, and individuals -- to say nothing of Internet-based businesses -- could scarcely function without secrecy. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20732.html - - - - - - - - - - Buffers Cause Heaps of Problems A new version of the old buffer overflow problem is appearing: a version that is not protected by the architectural approach of inhibiting stack execution. The first hacking "magic wand" I saw was the buffer overflow exploit used by Robert Morris in the original Internet Worm back in the late 1980s. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20723.html - - - - - - - - - - Do it with spanners - how the Iraq cyber attack will work It was recently revealed that last July President Bush had signed a secret directive covering the development of cyber warfare systems, and providing guidance on their use. We have no idea why, given that it's secret, we've heard of it, but we'll let that pass - clearly, if we're getting the components of cyber warfare in place at this juncture, then we're probably thinking about Iraq. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29278.html - - - - - - - - - - DoJ: We Want to Read Your E-Mail Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to expand the government's domestic surveillance powers under the controversial USA Patriot Act to include reading individual e-mails and monitoring a person's Web surfing activities. The Patriot Act, which is already under legal attack by privacy groups, was passed following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and gives the Justice Department broad new electronic eavesdropping powers. http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1582401 - - - - - - - - - - What's the World's Most Stupid Security Measure? Human rights watchdog Privacy International has launched a quest to find the World's Most Stupid Security Measure. The global competition will identify what the group describes as the most "pointless, intrusive, annoying and self-serving" security measures. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/29279.html - - - - - - - - - - FBI chief seeks new powers; rebuffs critics FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that Congress should grant law enforcement and intelligence agencies greater surveillance powers to combat terrorism. Responding to a question from Sen. John Warner, R-Va., about whether new anti-terrorism legislation is necessary, in spite of the curbs it could impose upon privacy and civil liberties, Mueller said he wants changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I do not believe that would be undermining the privacy of our citizens at all, he said. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0203/021103h1.htm - - - - - - - - - - Biometrics urged for border A biometric system that incorporates fingerprint and facial-recognition technologies can best help secure the nation's borders, according to a recent report. The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that a combined approach was the way to go after performing a study of potential biometrics programs that was mandated by the USA Patriot Act and the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0210/web-nist-02-11-03.asp - - - - - - - - - - Militarys newest weapon: instant messaging While offline aboard ships or planes, Navy Medical Corps physician Eric Rasmussen continues working in his Groove Workspace collaboration groups. When hes back online in Kuwait or at Central Command in Florida, his 45 coworkers know via instant messages, and any file changes he has made are securely updated. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/21134-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Three dead in Japan after apparently plotting suicide online Three Japanese were found dead in an apartment Tuesday after apparently plotting suicide together on the Internet, police said. The unidentified 26-year-old man and two women are believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the apartment, where the door was sealed with tape and locked from the inside. Police found several portable cooking stoves in the apartment. A 17-year-old student went to the apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo after reading an Internet posting by the man detailing his suicide plan, then reported the deaths, police said. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/759865p-5485656c.html *********************************************************** Computer Forensics Training - Online. An intense, 150 hour, instructor lead program that teaches you computer forensics and helps prepare you for the Certified Computer Examiner exam. 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