NewsBits for September 8, 2003 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Record Industry Sues Hundreds of Internet Music Swappers In the latest salvo in the recording industry's battle against online piracy, a trade group today sued 261 people in the United States it accuses of violating copyright laws by swapping online files. The lawsuits were filed in federal courts throughout the country and could be followed by thousands more such complaints in the coming months, said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which filed the lawsuits on behalf of its member recording companies. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/08/technology/08CND-MUSIC.html http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-riaalegal8sep08222419,1,791048.story http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6904 http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/09/08/music.downloading/index.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5072564.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43155-2003Sep8.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/963391.asp http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60341,00.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32717.html Users Warned About Anti-Piracy Campaign http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112362,00.asp Judge Says AdWare is Legal http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3073741 DVD copying fight lands in UK http://www.vnunet.com/News/1143479 - - - - - - - - - - Federal Warrant Seeks Computer Hacker A nationally known computer hacker is being sought on a federal arrest warrant stemming from a sealed complaint in New York, a federal defender in California said Friday. Adrian Lamo, 22, has publicly acknowledged involvement in some dramatic computer break-ins at large corporations during the past several years, including The New York Times, Yahoo!, Worldcom and ExciteAtHome. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/6703812.htm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39116177,00.htm http://www.ciol.com/content/news/2003/103090802.asp http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/09/08/hacker.sought.ap/index.html http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,60334,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Police smash UK's biggest credit card fraud ring Three men are facing long jail sentences after pleading guilty, Friday (Sept. 5) to running the UK's biggest ever credit card fraud at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court. The trio stole details of 847 cards of Heathrow Express rail passengers who had paid for their journey by credit cards. They passed on the infor a gang of forgers who cloned 8,790 credit cards for use in the UK and on the Continent. The cloners were able to use only 10 per cent of the numbers, pocketing PS2m for the gang. Police estimate that the gang could have gained PS20m if all the credit card numbers had been used. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/32704.html - - - - - - - - - - Sexual predator on Internet sentenced to 4-year term A sexual predator was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday for targeting children on the Internet, officials said. Jurors in state District Judge Bob Gill's court took less than 15 minutes to convict Rajendra K. Verma, 38, of solicitation of a minor, a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison. Officials said Verma was arrested Jan. 23 at a Fort Worth public library branch, where he had arranged to meet a 16-year-old girl he had met on the Internet for a sexual encounter. http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/6698402.htm - - - - - - - - - - Ex-Red Cross chief gets prison in child porn case The former head of the American Red Cross chapter in Gettysburg will spend at least two years in prison after being sentenced for possessing child pornography. The two-to-four-year sentence was based on a deal Steven James Moore made with prosecutors in May. Without the deal, he could have faced a maximum of 21 years in prison. Moore, 32, of Gettysburg resigned as executive director of the Adams County Red Cross chapter in November, before charges were filed against him. Pleaded guilty: Moore pleaded guilty in May to three counts of sexual abuse of children for possessing sexually explicit pictures. Some of the pictures had been stored on an office computer he used while working for the Red Cross. http://www.yorkdispatch.com/Stories/0,1413,138~10023~1610850,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Ex-policeman sentenced to prison A former LSU police officer who stored pictures of violent child pornography on his work computer, wiretapped his wife's telephone conversations and stole passwords to read other people's e-mail will spend almost six years in prison. U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola on Friday departed from federal guidelines to lengthen the prison sentence for Robert J. Jones Jr. of Denham Springs. He gave Jones five years and 10 months instead of the recommended sentence of up to four years. http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/090603/new_sentenced001.shtml - - - - - - - - - - Cop Charged with Sex Crimes A veteran city police officer has been arrested in connection with an Internet-related sex offense, police said yesterday. Officer Matthew DeGennaro, an 11-year veteran assigned to the Manhattan South Task Force, has been charged by authorities in Linn County, Ore., with two counts of encouraging child sex abuse and one count of using a child in display for sexually explicit content. Police said sexually explicit photos depicting DeGennaro and the 17-year-old high school student were found in a hotel room in Linn County. http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-cop0907,0,2641055.story - - - - - - - - - - Man 'addicted' to pornography jailed A man who claimed to be addicted to pornography downloaded more than 10,000 indecent images of children which a judge described as "disgusting and degrading". Police raided the Mulbarton home of Christopher Aldrich after they were tipped off he had subscribed to an American child porn site and recovered a number of images - including some which depicted the worst type of child abuse, Norwich Crown Court heard. Aldrich, 33, of Woodyard Close, Mulbarton admitted 20 counts of downloading the indecent images of children. http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/News/story.asp?datetime=06+Sep+2003+07%3A10&tbrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=NEWS&category=News&brand=EDPOnline&itemid=NOED05+Sep+2003+19%3A58%3A11%3A823 - - - - - - - - - - Bath resident transmitted porn, cops say Police arrested a 62-year-old borough man Thursday after he allegedly sent computer images of child pornography to an undercover state trooper in July. Using the screen name "Susan_18," Theodore C. Haven of the 600 block of Independence Avenue logged into an Internet chat room and transmitted three pictures showing children nude or engaged in sex acts from his home computer, court records say. Haven and the undercover trooper exchanged text messages in the "100%PreTeenGirlSexPics" chat room for nearly an hour, the records say. Haven sent five pornographic pictures, but only three of them depicted children, records say. http://pennlive.com/news/expresstimes/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1062839116253030.xml - - - - - - - - - - Man held over naked minor photos Police arrested a man earlier this week for allegedly posting naked photos of minors on a Web site in Cambodia that was linked to child prostitution tours he ran for Japanese, the police said Friday. Rikiya Oga, 41, who lives in Phnom Penh, was arrested on suspicion of violating the child prostitution law upon his arrival at Narita airport on Tuesday. Oga operated a business in Phnom Penh transporting Japanese sex tourists to a prostitution district on the outskirts of the city. It is the first time that someone outside the country has been arrested for allegedly violating a provision in the child prostitution law concerning public display. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030906a8.htm - - - - - - - - - - Blame questioned in case of teenage girl's multiple encounters with men Whether she sought it out or not, trouble for the Missouri teen often came with just a few clicks on her computer keyboard. At 14, she had racy online banter with a small-town Missouri policeman. Another time, she posed erotically in a Rolla motel room during what she thought was an innocent modeling session, only to find later that the "professional photographer" was actually a school superintendent. Even as that case played out in court, authorities say, the teen was online again, this time in an alleged cyberspace encounter with an Arizona minister she thought loved her. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/6709805.htm - - - - - - - - - - Security breach at Web host leaves sites at risk An administrative error at Web hosting provider Interland Inc. may have caused thousands of hosted sites to become infected with malicious code. Visitors to those infected Interland-hosted sites were in turn vulnerable to having their systems compromised by code that could allow them to be turned into proxy servers, a security expert said last week. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,84675,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Scientology loss keeps hyperlinks legal The Church of Scientology has lost a courtroom battle to compel a Dutch writer and her Internet service provider to remove postings from a Web site, in a ruling that keeps hyperlinks to copyrighted material legal. On Friday, the Dutch Court of Appeal in The Hague, Netherlands, denied the Scientologists' latest appeal in an online copyright dispute that dates back to 1995. http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5072581.html - - - - - - - - - - Evans takes e-gov helm Karen Evans, chief information officer at the Energy Department, was named as e-government chief Mark Forman's replacement in an unusually swift action last week intended to keep the momentum rolling for the President's Management Agenda. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0908/news-evans-09-08-03.asp http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,84648,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Golden State Highlights Privacy The second California privacy bill, called Shine the Light, has already passed the state Senate, but was voted down by the Assembly in late August. The bill's sponsor, State Sen. Liz Figueroa, (D-Fremont) amended the bill significantly and hopes the bill will pass when the Assembly reconsiders the bill on Monday. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,60326,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Piracy investigator lauds Australia case An Australian case in which three men pleaded guilty to online music piracy has "exploded many of the myths" related to copyright infringement, asserts the head of an investigation firm. Some such "myths" include the view that online copyright infringement is an expression of free speech and that copyright misappropriation is good for the music business, said Michael Speck, head of Music Industry Piracy Investigations. "Increasingly, courts here and around the world are seeing criminal offenses driven by Internet technologies as no different to other criminal acts," Speck said. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5072526.html - - - - - - - - - - Blaster worm could have come from China Last week we reported that the Taiwanese government, in an unprecedented statement, claimed that the Chinese government was responsible for a series of cyberattacks on the island. But now Carey Hogan, a Canadian computer consultant, claims he has evidence that the Blaster worm started appearing in China before it ended up. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11427 - - - - - - - - - - 2003 Worst Year for Computer Viruses? Finnish computer experts warn that this could be the worst year ever for viruses. Virus hunters are on the front lines, while Finlands legal system struggles to catch up to cyber-crimes. Numerous attacks have compromised business websites and personal computers this year. Most viruses and worms are developed simply to create anonymous havoc on the world wide web. But the recent scare of the SoBig virus has set a worrying precedent. http://www.crime-research.org/eng/news/2003/09/mess0801.html Blackout, Viruses Concern Congress http://www.crime-research.org/eng/news/2003/09/mess0803.html - - - - - - - - - - New Efforts to Fight Identity Theft CONSUMERS are losing trust in the Internet, and online companies are taking note. The Information Technology Association of America, a trade group, said last week that it would help create the Coalition on Online Identity Theft, composed of Internet retailers and security companies allied against what has become a significant problem both online and off. Word of the group's formation came eight weeks after the announcement of another industry association, the Merchant Risk Council, which was formed to combat online credit card fraud. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/08/technology/08ECOM.html PayAgent Aims to Curtail Identity Theft Online http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39793-2003Sep7.html - - - - - - - - - - Longer Odds for Online Bookies Football season is here again, and that means betting season has arrived as well. Billions of dollars will be wagered, both legally and illegally, on football from now until the Super Bowl next February. But those gamblers who use online sports bookmaking services to place their bets might find their odds getting longer, as Congress moves to clamp down on Internet-based sports betting. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,60316,00.html - - - - - - - - - - SCO Run-Time License Ready The SCO Group has been threatening corporate Linux users with legal action unless they obtain a license for its intellectual property, but until now, businesses have been unable to buy that license. The Lindon, Utah, company last week began selling its SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux, a run-time license that lets buyers use the company's intellectual property that is contained in Linux distributions, company officials told eWEEK. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1256561,00.asp Users set to ignore SCO's Linux threat http://www.vnunet.com/News/1143421 - - - - - - - - - - Anti-Virus Options on the Rise The enterprise anti-virus market is on the verge of a major shake-up, as Symantec Corp. and Computer Associates International Inc., two of the industry's largest players, are set to introduce significant new products and perhaps permanently shift the balance of power in the anti-virus industry. The result: a bigger variety of more robust anti-virus options to choose from. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1253102,00.asp http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22237.html - - - - - - - - - - Startup touts the Terminator of security appliances Here's something you don't see too often. A product --in fact, an entire company--launching two months ahead of schedule. Although it was originally scheduled to emerge from the startup shadows on November 15, Milpitas, CA-based Protego Networks will officially open its doors earlier than planned after a bit of word-of-mouth advertising sparked some unexpected demand for its MARS line of security appliances. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2914623,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Forgive Me My Trespasses How a recent federal appeals court decision makes virtually everyone a computer criminal. Last month, a federal appeals court in California dramatically and unwarrantedly expanded the scope of the federal criminal law prohibiting "unauthorized access" to computers and electronic mail. This ruling, reported on Security Focus, opens the door for civil lawyers and prosecutors alike to punish as computer "hacking" and "trespass" a whole host of activities that have virtually nothing to do with computer crime. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/183 - - - - - - - - - - TWO YEARS LATER : The Patriot Act Fierce Fight Over Secrecy, Scope of Law Amid Rights Debate, Law Cloaks Data on Its Impact. In Seattle, the public library printed 3,000 bookmarks to alert patrons that the FBI could, in the name of national security, seek permission from a secret federal court to inspect their reading and computer records -- and prohibit librarians from revealing that a search had taken place. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40110-2003Sep7.html Opposition to anti-terrorism package in New York http://www.crime-research.org/eng/news/2003/09/mess0601.html Private-sector IT wary of government intervention http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,84674,00.html http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,84682,00.html Protection of Critical Systems Still Haphazard http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,84673,00.html Two Years After 9/11, Security Still Has a Long Way To Go http://www.crime-research.org/eng/news/2003/09/mess0802.html - - - - - - - - - - Don't Turn That Cheek To Hackers--Be Unchic So what do we do with Jeffrey Parson, the 18-year-old whose Blaster variant attacked 7,000 computers last month? Technically, he faces one count of intentionally causing damage to a protected computer. And if that charge sticks, he could face a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Is that what's deserved by Parson and other loathsome bastards--also known by the inappropriately benign designation of hacker--like him who use their technical skills to attack and damage computers and the organizations those computers support? http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=14700043 Virus attacks--dumb and dumber http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-5072463.html - - - - - - - - - - Malaysian govt buys identity microchip The Malaysian government has acquired rights to chips that can embed identity tags into cash, passports or human bodies. The Malaysian government has bought the rights to tiny chips that can embed IDs into currency notes, bullets, passports and even inside human bodies, reported Malaysian daily The Star. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/emergingtech/0,39020357,39116183,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - EU rattles sabres over US use of airline passenger data The wheels may be coming off the dubious deal cobbled together between the EU and the Department of Homeland Security to give US authorities access to airline data, in the shape of Passenger Name Records (PNRs). The US unilaterally announced that it would require this data on incoming flights earlier this year, and in response the European Commission agreed to supply it on a "transitional" basis. The transitional period would however now seem to be ending, and the two parties have begun singing from somewhat divergent hymnsheets. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32715.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. 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