NewsBits for October 23, 2003 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Glitch reveals sensitive DOJ report online A politically and racially charged report on workforce diversity issues at the Department of Justice that was supposed to conceal the most sensitive information from public disclosure was posted in full on the Internet this week as a result of a technical oversight by DOJ officials. http://computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/story/0,10801,86406,00.html http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7272 Justice e-censorship gaffe sparks controversy http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/33549.html - - - - - - - - - - Forest Hills Native Busted In Undercover Fed Sting A Forest Hills man faces four years behind bars after being convicted of having explicit online conversations with someone he believed to be a 12-year-old. However, as William Burgess, 43, of 67th Road, later discovered, the young girl he solicited for sex was actually a United State Secret Service agent conducting an undercover sting operation After a one-week trial in Queens Criminal Court, a jury of eight men and four women took only four hours last Thursday to convict the former computer engineer of attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor and endangering the welfare of a child. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10399215&BRD=1863&PAG=461&dept_id=152656&rfi=6 - - - - - - - - - - Man sent to jail for corrupting teen A New York man was sentenced Wednesday to one to 23 months in Franklin County Prison on a charge of corrupting a 13-year-old Arendtsville girl he met over the Internet. Anthony W. Lederhaas, 22, of Port Jervis, was also sentenced to three years on probation, to begin when he is released from prison, and must pay restitution of $2,688. He must have no contact with the Adams County girl and no unsupervised contact with any minor child. http://www.publicopiniononline.com/news/stories/20031023/localnews/507080.html - - - - - - - - - - Man Jailed in Net Sex Case A Pennsylvania man who made plans over the Internet to have sex with a 14-year-old Coram girl was sentenced yesterday to a year in jail. Michael Schaeffer, 30, pleaded guilty in July to one count of first-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor, a felony, and one count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. The charges stem from a sexual encounter he planned with the teenager in February. Schaeffer and the girl, who met in an Internet chat room, arranged to meet at Schaeffer's home, authorities said. When the girl, who told police she was agreeable to having sex with Schaeffer, called for a taxi to take her to the Pennsylvania house, a suspicious dispatcher notified Suffolk police, who found Schaeffer and searched his home and computer. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-linetsex1023,0,5901926.story - - - - - - - - - - Internet Task Force gets first conviction A federal court case in Boise abruptly came to an end Wednesday when 21- year-old Kelly Jenkins changed his plea to guilty. The newly formed Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested Jenkins last December. He was charged with trying to solicit sex from a minor and possession of child pornography. "The vision of this task force was there and this is what we wanted for the protection of our community and now we're seeing that this is going to work," said Lt. Patrick Calley. http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/ktvbn-oct2203-porn.2cc635da.html - - - - - - - - - - Man gets prison on 100 kid-porn counts A 30-year-old Kentucky man who pleaded guilty to 100 counts of child pornography in June was labeled a sexual predator and sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison. Although there's no evidence or allegations that Matthew Cooper of Elizabethtown has had sexual contact with minors, he told a court psychologist that he saw nothing wrong with having sex with minors as long as it was consensual, according to the psychologist's report. Cooper was arrested in May after he contacted an Akron-area woman through a chat room on the Internet and encouraged her to bring her children to his Monroe hotel room for sex. The woman, whose children were under 12, instead contacted police, who arrested him using a photo profile maintained by the chat room. http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/1023predator.html - - - - - - - - - - Man had sex with girl, 14 A Hitchin man walked free from court last week despite having sex sessions with an under-age schoolgirl. David Hipperson, 22, of Chaucer Way, had pleaded guilty to gross indecency with a child and was given a two-year community service order at Leamington Magistrates Court when he appeared for sentencing on Thursday. The court heard how Hipperson had met the girl, then 14, through an internet chat room. But magistrates were satisfied Hipperson thought the girl was 16 when they first made contact and that he did not deliberately seek the attention of children. http://www.thecomet.net/archived/2003/wk43_2003/news/asp/hipperson.asp - - - - - - - - - - Former church youth leader charged with soliciting sex from a minor A former church youth leader has been arrested for allegedly soliciting sex from a teenage boy online with the intent, he said, of preaching to him after gaining his trust. Hewart Lee Bennett, 46, of West Palm Beach, told deputies he was on a mission to tell young people about Jesus after gaining their trust by talking to them about sex in chat rooms. He was apparently trying to meet up with a 15-year- old boy whom he had met online when someone called 911 about 5 p.m. Monday and said a suspicious person in a white Buick was seen around a house near State Road 7 and Northwest 62nd Street near North Lauderdale. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7079393.htm - - - - - - - - - - Man Accused Of Having Sex With Teen Appears In Court A man accused of having sex with a 13-year-old girl he met on the Internet said the relationship was a mistake. Authorities say 45-year-old James Brown is charged with three counts of statutory rape and three counts of first- degree burglary. Brown made his first court appearence Wednesday. Deputies say he met the girl in an Internet chat room and then went to her home in Burke County for sex. Authorities seized computers and other equipment from his home. The computers will be sent to the State Bureau of Investigation. Brown is in the Burke County Jail under a $500,000 cash bond. http://www.wsoctv.com/news/2574240/detail.html - - - - - - - - - - Victoria's Secret fined for Web security flaw Victoria's Secret has agreed to pay a $50,000 fine to the state of New York while promising to improve computer security practices after a glitch on its Web site allowed viewers to browse other customers' online orders. The lingerie stores' Columbus, Ohio based parent company, Limited Brands, said it fixed the problem within days of being notified by a customer in November. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced the fine and settlement with Limited on Tuesday. http://www.startribune.com/stories/789/4170158.html - - - - - - - - - - US Senate cans spam The US Senate voted unanimously yesterday to get tough on spam. The vote gave the green light to a number of anti-spam measures including tagging all emails with an abbreviation enabling punters to filter them out. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33556.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2003-10-22-spam-rot_x.htm http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/22/congress.spam.reut/index.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/984062.asp http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3243-2003Oct22.html http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-spam23oct23,1,2675450.story http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5095408.html AOL quietly changes Windows settings to combat pop-up spam http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/7086508.htm Survey Confirms It: Spam Sucks http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,60935,00.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5095510.html Hotmail tries to fry more spam http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5095720.html - - - - - - - - - - U.S. Gov't Plans Internet Security Ads Consumers who ignore advice about how to protect themselves against hackers, viruses and fraudsters online will soon find it harder to tune out thanks to a nationwide media blitz being crafted by the Department of Homeland Security and a group of high-tech companies. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7600-2003Oct23.html - - - - - - - - - - Internet banking scams crackdown Spam2 UK banks have joined forces to issue safety guidelines for consumers to help protect themselves against the growing problem of financial email scams. The British Bankers' Association (BBA) and the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) have linked up with the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) to offer advice on surfing the net safely. http://www.web-user.co.uk/news/news.php?id=41654 Economic Espionage: hunting for the information http://www.crime-research.org/eng/news/2003/10/Mess2301.htm - - - - - - - - - - Ex-cybersecurity czar Clarke issues gloomy report card Richard Clarke has more bad news for IT execs. During his tenure as White House cybersecurity czar, Clarke was frequently criticized for his "sky-is-falling" attitude. Indeed, Clarke claims that the Sobig attack brought down a chunk of sky and that his warnings should have been taken more seriously. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/Clarke_issues_gloomy_report_card_.html - - - - - - - - - - Hollywood takes anti-piracy message to school As part of its campaign to thwart online music and movie piracy, Hollywood is now reaching into school classrooms with a program that denounces file-sharing and offers prizes for students and teachers who spread the word about Internet theft. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-10-23-download-program-mocked_x.htm Valenti says colleges should teach about "morality" of file sharing http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-10-22-valenti-on-ethics_x.htm 321 fights DVD copier lawsuit http://www.vnunet.com/News/1145535 Hollywood's Cold War on Swapping http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60950,00.html - - - - - - - - - - A program that exploits a software vulnerability Microsoft recently described could spell trouble for companies that haven't quickly patched their system, security experts said this week. Released on a security mailing list earlier this week, the program takes advantage of a flaw in Microsoft's Messenger Service to cause Windows-based computers to crash. The vulnerability affects almost every current Microsoft Windows system, leaving security experts concerned that independent hackers will quickly find a way to take control of a large number of computers by exploiting the flaw. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5095935.html - - - - - - - - - - Carnegie Mellon to launch new initiative to ensure cybersecurity Carnegie Mellon University is scheduled today to announce an integrated initiative designed to ensure safety for every computer log-on, including a broad range of home users to small businesses and large corporations. To achieve this goal, the university will combine its existing expertise and related research centers under one umbrella organization called Carnegie Mellon CyLab. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/cmu-cmt102203.php - - - - - - - - - - Fighting Internet Worms With Honeypots Summer 2003 will sadly remain famous for netsurfers because of the propagation of an Internet worm known as MSBlast, which infected millions of hosts running Microsoft Windows. This event is far from unique; other worms such as Slammer, Code Red, Nimda have similarly wreaked havoc in the past. The goal of these roaming computer entities is to autonomously reproduce themselves on every reachable system on the Internet, resulting in ongoing problems with computer security. http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1740 - - - - - - - - - - Digital certificate clearinghouse needs work The mechanism that allows a digital certificate to be used across government agencies must be upgraded before it will be available for the entire government, a federal information technology official said today. The Federal Bridge Certification Authority (FBCA) is the central mechanism that handles digital certificates for transactions secured by any participating agency's public-key infrastructure (PKI). Clients of FBCA participants do not need certificates from every agency with which they do business. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/1020/web-fbca-10-22-03.asp Smart cards get heavy with goods vehicles http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/emergingtech/0,39020357,39117340,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft posts 'revisions' to security bulletins Two software patches Microsoft Corp. released last week caused problems on foreign language versions of the Windows operating system and Exchange e-mail server. As a result, Microsoft yesterday issued "major revisions" to the two patches, MS03-045 and MS03-047, that included new patches for affected customers and additional instructions to get the patches to stick on vulnerable systems. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/holes/story/0,10801,86399,00.html Does Microsoft's Longhorn Mean Security Salvation? http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22542.html - - - - - - - - - - Laws alone can't save the online children While Congress has made efforts to protect children on the Internet, such as the passage of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires verifiable parental consent before personally identifiable information can be collected from children online, parents should not sit back and assume that the law alone will safeguard their children from cyber perils. Rather, parents need to be vigilant in teaching their children well what to do and not do on the Internet. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/ericjsinrod/2003-10-22-sinrod_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Plumbing Depths of Data Mining On this, everyone in the gold-tinged, eagle-frescoed Senate conference room agreed: Federal authorities badly want to be able to comb the data trails of ordinary people in order to spot terrorists. But what -- if any -- limits should be put on that frighteningly invasive power? A panel of lawmakers, think tankers, data miners and civil libertarians assembled here Tuesday couldn't even begin to make up their minds. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,60934,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Talking Internet security During the course of his 15-year career with the company, Muglia has been given such responsibilities as managing the development of the MSN network, the Microsoft Office suite and Windows Server applications. These days, Muglia is running the storage business he started some 22 months ago while at the same time overseeing Microsoft's enterprise management division. http://rss.com.com/2008-7349_3-5089681.html - - - - - - - - - - Be careful in creating passwords I registered with my credit card company so I could view my transactions online, but I typed in the wrong password and checked the "remember my password" box. Now when I try to get to the credit card information, it is grayed out, and the Web site rejects me. http://www.sunspot.net/technology/custom/pluggedin/bal-pl.qa23oct23,0,1204061.story Hackers steal easily guessed passwords http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39117335,00.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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