NewsBits for June 20, 2003 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Man pleads guilty in 'Nigerian Scam' case A career con man has been convicted for tricking investors out of millions of dollars in an Internet fraud scheme. Henry Statz, 61, pleaded guilty Wednesday to fraud charges in a plot that bilked at least $6-million from about 20 investors who were solicited through e-mail to help "free" a fictitious Nigerian fortune. http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030620.gtscamjune20/BNStory/Technology/ - - - - - - - - - - Evesham hijack gang jailed for 99 years Nine men convicted of the gunpoint hijack of a lorry containing thousands of pounds worhth of PC equipment from Evesham Technology were sentenced to prison for a combined total of 99 years at Worcestershire County Court today. Last Summer the gang kidnapped at gunpoint the driver of a lorry with PS171,000 worth of Evesham Technology computer equipment on board. They set up an ambush by disguising themselves as policemen and waved the van off the road. The driver was then bundled into the back of a car and subjected to an eight hour ordeal before being released, badly shaken, by the kidnappers. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/51/31354.html - - - - - - - - - - Prosecutor: Man points gun at wife over Net porn A city firefighter has been accused of pointing a gun at his wife when she tried to stop him from watching Internet pornography. Lavoisier D. Washington, 38, of Pontiac, was arraigned Thursday on charges of felonious assault and carrying a concealed weapon. He was released on $5,000 bond. http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/06/20/porn.threat.ap/index.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-06-20-porn-husband_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Rapist had 16,000 child porn pictures A Walsall man has been jailed for 11 years for raping a young girl, taking indecent photographs of her and downloading child pornography from the internet. Police who seized 38-year-old Paul Houghton's six home computers found 16,000 indecent images of children. Some featured sadistic acts against youngsters, including bondage, and many of the victims were just months old, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told yesterday. Judge David McCarthy said of the rape: "This was a crime so unspeakable that there are really no words that can adequately describe it." http://www.expressandstar.com/artman/publish/article_34932.shtml - - - - - - - - - - Man sexually targets girl; local group comforts her A Virginia man pleaded guilty to sexually targeting a San Antonio teenager who he met on the internet. Gregory Tucker, 48, met the 13-year-old girl in a teenage internet chat room in the summer of 2001. Tucker lived in Virginia and reportedly portrayed himself as a 15-year-old boy. Tucker admitted to traveling to San Antonio in June of 2002 to have sexual relations with the girl. The FBI arrested Tucker in August. Eight months later, he pleaded guilty to the federal charges of interstate travel to have sex with a minor. http://news9sanantonio.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=2337 - - - - - - - - - - Pedophile used internet to dupe a mother A PREDATORY pedophile sexually abused a young girl after winning the confidence of her mother on the internet, a court heard yesterday. The mother had used the internet to seek help for her son who was suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and Asperger's syndrome. The High Court in Glasgow heard how Neil Robertson, 37, who had a previous conviction for abducting a child, replied to the mother by e-mail posing as a psychologist. Within months, he was having sex with the mother and sexually abusing her seven-year-old daughter. http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/20-6-19103-0-9-6.html - - - - - - - - - - Former principal Ring indicted on porn charges The former Newfields Elementary School principal has been indicted by a Rockingham County grand jury on 12 counts of possessing child pornography, stemming from the discovery of images of children engaged in sexual acts on his school laptop computer. Barry Ring, 61, of Main Street, Newmarket, could face a $4,000 fine and from 3 1/2 to 7 years in prison on each of the charges, which are Class B felonies. An indictment is not an indication of guilt, but means that the members of the grand jury found enough evidence to warrant a trial on the allegations. http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/hampton/06202003/news/35195.htm - - - - - - - - - - Connecticut man charged with child exploitation A Connecticut bowling coach has been indicted by a Cheshire County grand jury on charges of sexually exploiting young boys. Joseph Aurora, 42, of Clinton, Conn., was formally charged Wednesday with possession of child pornography and other crimes. He is also charged in his hometown with five counts of risk of injury to a minor child and five counts of voyeurism. Authorities said the alleged abuse began more than a decade ago and ended with Aurora's arrest on May 2 at a Keene motel, where he expected to meet a 14-year-old boy for sex. Police had posed as the teen on the Internet, and said Aurora e-mailed them pornography. http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/state/hc-20012956.apds.m0251.bc-ct--chiljun20,0,2597202.story - - - - - - - - - - Man Charged With Luring Child Over Internet A Massachusetts man is free on bail after being charged with luring a child over the Internet for sex. Matthew Gendron, 21, of Fitchburg, Mass., was released on $5,000 bail after his arraignment in Keene District Court Thursday. He was arrested after police said he traveled to Keene to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old boy. Gendron works as a fitness room supervisor at the Fitchburg YMCA. Police said Gendron pretended to be 13 years old in online conversations with Keene Detective James McLaughlin. He later admitted he was 21, and police said the online conversation quickly escalated to plans for a sexual encounter. "On the Internet he found a 14-year-old boy from New Hampshire that he wanted to meet specifically to have sex with," McLaughlin said. "Through e-mail and real-time chat, it culminated in his arrest on Ivy Drive." http://www.thechamplainchannel.com/wnne/2280466/detail.html - - - - - - - - - - Man arrested after soliciting sex from a sheriff's detective A 39-year-old Port St. Lucie man was arrested after soliciting sex from a sheriff's detective posing on the Internet as an underage child, according to a St. Lucie County Sheriff's report. Dennis Reffner of 2755 S.E. Howell Ave. was arrested Wednesday on charges of solicitation for sexual activity with a minor and attempted lewd and lascivious battery. Reffner began sending e-mail to the detective posing as a boy this month, the report said. Deputies arrested Reffner after he arrived Wednesday at a store on Midway Road to visit with the boy, according to the report. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/auto/epaper/editions/friday/martin_stlucie_e32fc737219a329f00ab.html - - - - - - - - - - Another chat room user charged A Billings man accused of using an Internet chat room to entice a minor to have sex appeared Tuesday in federal court. Michael Adrian Lee, 19, was arrested Monday by investigators with the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force when he arrived at a meeting place arranged through an undercover agent. Lee thought he was meeting an underage female for oral sex, according to a criminal complaint. http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/2003/06/19/build/safety/safety-internet-sex.php - - - - - - - - - - Child porn images linked to Russian orphanage, court told Child abuse images found on a Christchurch man's computer have been traced back to an orphanage in St Petersburg, Russia, Christchurch District Court was told yesterday. Clinton John Gooch, 23, one of three child-porn traders bagged by the Department of Internal Affairs, was found with pictures known as "the kindergarten series", which includes photographs of children aged between two and six being sexually abused. Crown prosecutor Pip Currie told Judge Colin Doherty the series originated at the unnamed orphanage in St Petersburg. An inspector of publications for the Internal Affairs Department in Christchurch, Paul Duke, said later the department received information about the source of the pictures from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2544970a10,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Fortnight F worm has porn payload Worm variant uses three-year-old security hole to add 'Nude Nurses' to browser. Reports are coming in of a new variant on the Fortnight worm spreading via Outlook email. An alert for Fortnight F has been released by Sophos and firms are starting to come across infections, even though Microsoft released a security patch three years ago to fix the hole that the worm uses. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141755 - - - - - - - - - - Mysterious Net traffic spurs code hunt Worm? Trojan? Attack tool? Network administrators and security experts continue to search for the cause of an increasing amount of odd data that has been detected on the Internet. Security software firm Internet Security Systems (ISS) on Thursday declared victory, saying that a new hacker tool that scans for paths into public networks was responsible. But many other security professionals--including those at Intrusec, the company that originally tracked down the hard-to-find code--believe that ISS jumped the gun. http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1019759.html - - - - - - - - - - Free car spam a growing problem Protection agency: Consumers pay $10-$50 and get nothing in return. The spam offers sound so absurd its hard to imagine who might actually fall for them. They come with brash promises like Get Your New Car for Just $17.95. But, like many inviting sales pitches, it holds a grain of truth. Some lucky people really are getting paid to drive, and in rare cases, receive a free new car as an advertising promotion. So the New York State Consumer Protection Board is warning consumers that Web sites selling information on how to get a free new car are really just taking Web users for a ride. http://www.msnbc.com/news/928722.asp - - - - - - - - - - New bill injects FBI into P2P battle A bill introduced in Congress on Thursday would put federal agents in the business of investigating and prosecuting copyright violations, including online swapping of copyrighted works. HR-2517, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003, instructs the FBI to develop a program to deter online traffic of copyrighted material. The bureau would also develop a warning, with the FBI seal, that copyright holders could issue to suspected violators. And the bureau would encourage sharing of information on suspected copyright violations among law enforcement, copyright owners and ISPs (Internet service providers). http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1019811.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/929428.asp - - - - - - - - - - Govt eyes law enforcement treaty with U.S. The government is planning to conclude a treaty with the United States this summer on cooperation in criminal investigations aimed at enabling Japanese and U.S. law enforcement agencies to promptly respond to international terrorism and cybercrime, among other crimes, government sources said Thursday. According to the sources, a main point of the planned treaty is that investigators of one country can directly request assistance from investigators of the other country, bypassing diplomatic channels. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20030620wo02.htm - - - - - - - - - - Falwell gets rights to Web addresses Jerry Falwell says he has won the rights to two Internet domains that use his name after he threatened to again sue the man who set up the parody Web sites. Falwell said Wednesday that an Illinois entrepreneur decided to turn over jerryfalwell.com and jerryfallwell.com rather than face further legal action. The sites spoofed Falwell's views on the Bible and his fund- raising methods. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-06-20-falwell-strongarm_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Government purse key to breaking spam curse The government has been urged to make sure that the Information Commissioner has the financial muscle to prosecute the worst spammers. The UK government can only hope to win its war on spam if it provides the Information Commissioner with the necessary financial muscle, according to the organisation that handles some 96 percent of the Internet traffic flowing in and out of the UK. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136337,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14366-2003Jun19.html Spammers face lawsuits and jail http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136323,00.html US plans blitz on spam http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141756 - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft attacks spam at the source As part of its current global campaign against unsolicited commercial e-mail or spam, the software giant says it will use better filtering, legal action and IT security education. It says it will also offer help to Asian authorities drawing up antispam laws. According to reports, a large portion of the world's spam--some say as much as 90 percent--comes from Asia, from countries with relatively less developed antispam laws such as China, Korea and Taiwan. Weak security, such as mail servers with relays left open for exploitation by spammers, has also been blamed for the flood of junk mail from the region. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-1019528.html - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft Demos Next-Generation Security Software Users of Microsoft's forthcoming security software will have the ability to turn its protection on and off at will, the company says. But applications making use of the security features won't be able to support video or other sophisticated interfaces. http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml%3Bjsessionid=BSIBZE5ZME5EKQSNDBCSKH0CJUMEIJVN?articleID=10700659 - - - - - - - - - - Friend or foe: Which are your employees? Security practitioners and management alike are increasingly inundated with surveys and claims that insiders are the greatest threat to security in the enterprise. There is no doubt that many widely reported incidents have been perpetrated by corrupt or disgruntled employees, ex-employees or contractors who have both motive and opportunity to do harm. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,82134,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Some aspects of investigating computer crimes One of the top-priority goals of the modern society saturated with information computer technologies is to fight computer crimes. According to interrogations, materials, hearings and scientific researches, the world society faces serious problems in this sphere. Thousands cybercrimes are committed in the developed countries and economic losses inflicted by them make up billions US dollars. According to US expert statistics, in the USA an average damage is $3.2 thousand (a physical bank robbery), $23 thousand (a swindle) and $500 thousand (a computer crime). The imperfectness of laws and state system on fighting cybercrimes aggravates all this. http://www.crime-research.org/eng/library/Belousov0603.html - - - - - - - - - - Meet Stumbler: Next Gen port scanning malware Security experts are tracking the spread of a mysterious piece of malware which has been linked to an upsurge in distributed port scanning on the Internet. Little is known about the malware - dubbed 55808 because of its Windows size, or Stumbler - other than that it appears to be a client capable of scanning and receiving network mapping data from other similar clients distributed across the Internet. The code is filed with errors which make it incapable of propagating automatically, according to ISS. However the security tools firm warns that further development of Stumbler to lead to the creation of potent denial of service attacks tools. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/31341.html http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,82362,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Japanese police tune biometrics for foreign suspects Faced with the difficulty of identifying non-Japanese criminal suspects, Japanese police researchers trialled their facial-recognition technology on Australians. Japanese police have turned to Australian scientists to help develop facial- recognition technology capable of distinguishing between people of non-Japanese extraction. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136313,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Database is a crimestopping hit with law officers In Alabama, investigators are flocking to a database on a site created by University of Alabama scientists. The site offers quick assists on suspects when police have no photo or other background on the person they're hunting. Walker County's sheriff credited the Law Enforcement Tactical System, or LETS, in the search for a suspect in the triple slayings at Bell Funeral Home in Sumiton. Investigators had a name, 30-year-old Christopher Shane Hyde, but no photo of the suspect. The computer provided a likeness of Hyde. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-06-20-crime-database_x.htm Counties asked for emergency info for Web database http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-06-20-terror-db_x.htm *********************************************************** 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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