NewsBits for April 23, 2003 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ New worm exploits SARS concerns Increasingly virus writes have been relying upon a topical hook in an attempt to encourage recipients to launch the virus--whether it be concealed in an e-mail purporting to offer nude pictures of female celebrities or exclusive spy pictures of Iraq. In this instance an e-mail arrives offering information about the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars), which has killed dozens of people worldwide. Called W32/Coronex the mass-mailing worm will infect the recipient's machine once activated and will e-mail itself to every name in the infected machine's e-mail address book. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-997995.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2133789,00.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/30370.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/904118.asp http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/virus/story/0,10801,80613,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Recording Industry Goes After Students Over Music Sharing Jason, a senior at the University of Maryland, ran one of the most popular Web sites on campus out of his shoebox dorm room here. The site let his 8,500 fellow dorm residents search for music files, among other things, stored on one another's computers and copy them in seconds. Then came the news that the record industry had filed lawsuits against four students running similar sites at other universities, accusing them of enabling large-scale copyright infringement and asking for billions of dollars in damages. Within an hour, Jason, who insisted on anonymity for fear of being sued himself, had dismantled his site. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/23/national/23STUD.html - - - - - - - - - - Busted laptop led to probe of Penn kid-porn suspect The Internet child pornography case against former Penn vice provost and library director Paul Mosher started innocently enough - with a busted university laptop computer. When a computer repairman tried to fix Mosher's Apple notebook PowerMac G4 last August, police say evidence surfaced of what turned out to be more than 2,600 explicit sexual images involving children, mostly boys, allegedly downloaded by Mosher over the last five years. An investigation by Philadelphia police sex crimes detectives found that Mosher allegedly used three credit cards to purchase the images from a porn site, EasyNews. http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/5694633.htm - - - - - - - - - - Cyber sex predator sting nets new arrest The Nassau DA's office set up an online sting operation to catch pedophile predators using cyber sex. Tuesday, a 33-year-old Port Jefferson man was arrested on just those charges. He thought he was talking to a 14-year-old girl online, but he was actually conversing with an undercover detective. Operation Teen Saver is an online sting operation aimed at catching sexual predators before they do real harm. This is the 15th arrest of its kind in the two-year existence of the operation. http://www.news12.com/NewCDA/articles/article_detail/0,5942&rid%3D5(r)ion;%3DLI&tab%3Dtopstories&id%3D55045,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Ohio Man Arrested After Alleged Sex Meeting With Teen A Reynoldsburg man was arrested late Monday night after he allegedly drove to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex. Jeffrey Allen Ables was charged with attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and importuning. According to the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department, Ables was arrested in Cincinnati by detectives at about 11:45 p.m. Ables allegedly discussed engaging in specific sexual conduct with a person he believed to be a 14-year-old female during conversations in an Internet chatroom. The 14-year-old turned out to be an undercover detective posing as a girl. Authorities said that Ables was heading to Cincinnati to meet with the girl and to engage in sexual conduct with her in his vehicle. http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/2150124/detail.html - - - - - - - - - - DVD-copy rights ready for trial Hollywood's movie studios face a key test in their battle to defend copyright holders from digital pirates, when a federal court in California this Friday hears a case filed by a maker of software that allows users to copy DVDs. At stake for the studios are potentially billions of dollars in revenues that would be lost if nearly perfect digital copies of movies on DVD were sold in large quantities on the black market or circulated on the Internet in digital files. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-997954.html - - - - - - - - - - Web site operator agrees to stop flood of misleading spam Three years ago, Brian D. Westby told police he was a ``self-employed porn web master.'' On Tuesday, the 23-year-old Ballwin, Mo., man agreed in federal court in Chicago to stop flooding consumers with e-mails containing innocuous subject lines. The messages tricked thousands of computer users into opening photos of nude women. A civil suit brought by the Federal Trade Commission accuses Westby of operating an Internet fraud scheme to lure people to his Web site, ``Married but lonely.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/5697247.htm - - - - - - - - - - Florida spammers sue anti-spam groups A group of Florida-based porn peddlers, penis enlargement and Viagra spammers has united to file suit against anti-spam organisations. Under the newly-registered name EmarketersAmerica.org, a front set up by notorious spammer Eddy Marin's lawyer Mark E. Felstein, the suit seeks to force prominent anti-spam organisations to stop blocking their spam. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30368.html - - - - - - - - - - Record labels sue VC firm over Napster support Two record labels filed suit Monday against Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, accusing the venture capital firm of contributing to widespread Internet music piracy through its financial support of Napster. Universal Music Group and EMI Recorded Music accused the firm -- and partners John Hummer and Hank Barry individually -- of perpetuating global piracy through its $13 million investment in the controversial file-swapping service. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/local/5688417.htm http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/864872p-6042774c.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/903809.asp http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21323-2003Apr23.html - - - - - - - - - - Man found hanged ahead of Net suicide pact trial A man due to stand trial for assisting the suicide of a man he met through a Net site has been found hanged. Louis Gillies, 36, was due to stand trial this week accused of assisting the suicide of Michael Gooden, 35, who flung himself to his death last June after the pair allegedly formed a suicide pact after meeting through the Web site Alternative Suicide Holidays. After exchanging messages on the site, the two met in a pub near Beachy Head, East Sussex (a notorious suicide spot) to share a "last supper". http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30374.html - - - - - - - - - - Baby DMCAs Punish Copy Crimes A state bill reminiscent of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act may be coming soon to a legislature near you. That is, if it hasn't arrived already. Nearly five years after the federal government enacted the DMCA (a law that makes it a crime to circumvent security protections on copyrighted materials) legislators in several states are proposing bills that place restrictions on devices that aid in copyright infringement. In some cases, those laws are passing. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58572,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Group wants state's secret blocking list A civil liberties group is again trying to gain access to a secret list to determine if Pennsylvania's attempt to block access to child-pornography Web sites is affecting innocuous sites. On Tuesday, the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) appealed the Pennsylvania attorney general's recent decision not to disclose the list of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to sites suspected of featuring child pornography. CDT is seeking the list because it suspects the government's campaign is overly broad and has forced Internet service providers (ISPs) to cordon off unoffending sites as well. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-997935.html - - - - - - - - - - State law makes deceptive info in junk e-mail illegal A bill aimed at unsolicited e-mails, commonly referred to as "spam," was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Brad Henry. Senate Bill 660 makes it illegal to put false or misleading information in the subject line or to use a third party's Internet address or domain name without their consent for the purpose of making it look like the e-mail came from a third party. It would require the sender to include a return e-mail address or a toll-free telephone number so individuals could request that they not receive further communication from the company or individual. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-04-23-spam-ok_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Homeland department gets into the cyberwar game The Homeland Security Department is simulating cyberattacks and biological assaults to help prepare for the possibility of the real thing, deputy secretary Gordon England said. A week ago, I participated in a war game with the Business Roundtable, England told attendees at the U.S. Chamber of Commerces Conference on Critical Infrastructure and Homeland Security today. The Business Roundtable is an association of corporate chief executive officers that makes policy recommendations for economic growth. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/21855-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Christina's aunt becomes Internet safety advocate As a police officer held up a rosy-cheeked portrait of Christina Long earlier this month, Shelly Riling told a roomful of Long Island police officers and school counselors that she had suppressed her protective instincts when discussing Internet use with her 13-year-old niece. "I chose to trust her and not invade her privacy," Riling said. "I thought wanting privacy was normal for her age." Since last month, the 52-year-old Danbury woman has spoken at three Internet safety education seminars, explaining how her niece's unsupervised Internet use led to her meeting Saul dos Reis Jr., a 25-year-old Greenwich man who strangled Christina May 17 during sex in a fast-food restaurant parking lot in Danbury. http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/local/scn-gt-aunt2apr20,0,7274533.story - - - - - - - - - - New ID cards are secure, ready The high-tech identification common access card currently replacing the familiar green ID card worldwide is secure and proven in combat, despite some rumors to the contrary. "Worries are unfounded" that the new ID cards are easily accessible to identity thieves or even hostile forces, said Chief Master Sgt. Ricky Arnold, survival, evasion, resistance and escape program manager at the Pentagon. http://www.af.mil/news/Apr2003/42203156.shtml - - - - - - - - - - Anti-Spammers Get Serious America Online is mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. On Apr. 15, the country's biggest Internet service provider (ISP) announced a round of five lawsuits against notorious spammers. The suits seek at least $10 million in civil damages and court orders to halt the junk-mail barrage. AOL has also sent out over 100 cease-and-desist letters to alleged spammers. On the technology side, it has upgraded its spam-blocking systems to try to prevent much of the unwanted e-mail from hitting customer inboxes and gumming up AOL's servers. "Spammers take note: You can run, but you can't hide," says Randall Boe, AOL's general counsel. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/4145 - - - - - - - - - - Al-Jazeera, the 1st Amendment, and Security Professionals While attempts to disrupt Web broadcasts of Al-Jazeera may seem like a distant concern, they reflect the problems that should concern security professionals everywhere. Here's a site that is definitely worth your time: the Google Zeitgeist. Basically, the uber-search site Google keeps a running compendium of the items people search for using its search engine. As Google helpfully explains on the Web page, "zeitgeist" is a German word meaning "the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era". With Google's fascinating site, you can acquire an exact reading on what's hot and what's not. If you were a betting person, you could use the Google Zeitgeist like a barometer of our culture's obsessions, fads, and fears. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/156 - - - - - - - - - - Schools test eye scanner security The biggest security breach in recent memory in this small central New Jersey school district happened when a parent forgot to sign in at the office before delivering cupcakes to a childs classroom. So it was somewhat of a surprise when the Plumsted districts three schools became the test site for a cutting-edge eye-recognition security system designed to keep out strangers. http://www.msnbc.com/news/904218.asp - - - - - - - - - - CIA, FBI wrangle over threat center A little more than a week before the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) is to commence operations, questions remain over how the organization will be run. The center is intended to be a joint effort between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will serve as a data repository and analysis center for pursuing leads in the war on terror. However, the intelligence agencies do not yet see eye-to-eye on how the TTIC -- which will launch May 1 -- should be run. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0421/web-ciafbi-04-23-03.asp - - - - - - - - - - DNA Fingerprinting for All! Everyone should be DNA fingerprinted to help tackle crime and enhance personal security, the British inventor of the modern forensic technique suggested Wednesday. Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, of the Department of genetics at the University of Leicester, said existing criminal DNA databases were too small to catch criminal suspects. :At the moment, we have a criminal DNA database of about 2 million profiles in the U.K.," he told reporters as scientists met at Britain's top scientific body, the Royal Society, to celebrate the discovery of DNA 50 years ago. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,58600,00.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. For more information see; www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu *********************************************************** 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.