NewsBits for July 8, 2004 ************************************************************ DrinkorDie suspect back in Oz jail The alleged ringleader of a gang of Internet copyright pirates was back in jail last night after US authorities won the latest round in their battle to extradite him from Australia on multi-million dollar software piracy charges. Hew Raymond Griffiths, 41, of Bateau Bay, New South Wales, returned to Silverwater jail after judge Peter Jacobson ruled magistrate Daniel Reiss was wrong to release him on bail in March. He said that Reiss's reasoning was incorrect in concluding that no extraditable offence had been committed. The judgment is a setback for defence efforts to have Griffiths tried in Australia, but it does not mark a definitive ruling. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/08/drinkordie_suspect_remanded_again/ http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5260914.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39159881,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Five Guilty of Computer Sales to Terror Nations A federal jury in Dallas convicted five brothers of illegally selling computers to countries that supported terrorism. The men, who ran a computer company called InfoCom Corp., were convicted of conspiracy to violate export regulations and sanctions against Libya and making false statements on export shipping documents. Defense lawyers said the brothers Ghassan, Basman, Bayan, Hazim and Ihsan Elashi were unfairly targeted for prosecution because of their Middle Eastern background. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-na-briefs8.1jul08,1,7499895.story - - - - - - - - - - Police keelhaul world's thickest DVD pirate An Essex man has secured the title of the world's thickest DVD pirate after walking into a Chelmsford Trading Standards office and offering his illicit wares to the gobsmacked staff. The master criminal apparently didn't notice the sign above the door before making his pitch. Trading Standards' officers very naturally expressed a keen interest in the bootlegged movies, at which point the man belatedly realised his error and legged it. He did, however, leave a memento of his visit - his stash of films and PS210 in cash. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/08/worlds_thickest_pirate/ - - - - - - - - - - Child porn collector gets two-year suspended sentence An Englishman caught at his home in Cork with thousands of pornographic images of children was given a two-year suspended jail sentence today after it was claimed that he had undergone psychiatric counselling and was no longer a risk to others in the community. Mr Ashman admitted last June the offence of knowingly having in his possession on November 19, 2001, child pornography, namely a Gateway computer containing naked images of female children. http://212.2.162.45/news/story.asp?j=109975032&p=yx9975738&n=109975792 - - - - - - - - - - Ex-treasurer of firefighters group sentenced on child porn charge A West Covina firefighter was sentenced Tuesday for stealing money from a firefighters' group to pay for visits to online child pornography sites. As part of a negotiated agreement, Michael Brawn was sentenced to three years of probation and also was ordered by Superior Court Judge Mark Grant Nelson to register as a sex offender. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_valley/9094963.htm - - - - - - - - - - NBI cracks down on hi-tech child porn The National Bureau of Investigation last Saturday arrested suspected members of a child pornography ring operating in Laguna, GMA Network's "24 Oras" newscast reported Monday. The suspects were said to be pimping dozens of children, aged 5 to 16, to foreigners by posting nude pictures on several websites. An operation was set up in Calamba, Laguna in which members of the NBI posed as customers. Some of the suspects brought about 22 boys and girls as"samples," the newscast reported. http://www.inq7.net/brk/2004/jul/05/brkinf_1-1.htm - - - - - - - - - - COP CHIEF PROBED OVER CHILD PORN A POLICE chief is being investigated on suspicion of accessing child pornography on the internet. Officers raided the home of British Transport Police Chief Supt David Bruce, 43, and seized his computer. He is the highest-ranking policeman to be quizzed in the anti- paedophile Operation Ore. Married Mr Bruce, from Milton Keynes, Bucks, had been promoted a week before the raid and was tipped to become a future Chief Constable. Last night British Transport Police said: "Chief Supt Bruce was suspended from duty on Tuesday, June 22, pending an investigation by Thames Valley police." http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14393950&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=cop-chief-probed-over-child-porn-name_page.html - - - - - - - - - - Conway newspaper editor faces child porn charges A local newspaper editor, arraigned yesterday on charges relating to child pornography and using a computer to transmit the images, could face additional charges as the investigation into the case continues. Guy Priel, 38, of Puddin Pond Drive, is the community editor for the Conway Daily Sun. He was arrested last Friday, following an investigation that began in May when Priel allegedly exchanged e-mails with someone court papers described as "a teenage male whose sexual preference" is boys. http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showfast.html?article=40392 - - - - - - - - - - Ex-assistant principal faces child-porn charges A former Lufkin High School assistant principal has been charged with possessing child pornography. Charles Dexter Lewis, 35, was free today on $20,000 bail. He resigned after being accused of sending nude pictures of himself to a 16-year-old female student. Lewis was initially charged with a misdemeanor of displaying harmful material to a minor. But police told The Lufkin Daily News for today's editions that a search of Lewis' home computers found several photos and videos of children engaged in sexual activity. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2667352 - - - - - - - - - - Former foster parent charged in child porn case A former foster parent from Blue Hill, Jeffery D. Myers, has been charged with manufacturing and possessing child pornography and sexual assault of a child. Attorney General Jon Bruning announced the charges - all felonies - Wednesday morning. "He's a child pornographer. He took these kids and he asked them to make movies," Bruning said, holding up a computer disk. "There are hundreds of pictures here that would make you sick to your stomach." http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=1638&u_sid=1142009 - - - - - - - - - - Lawsuit challenges Florida ballot-recount rules Voter rights groups sued Florida election administrators yesterday to overturn a rule that prohibits the manual recounting of ballots cast with touch-screen machines, a lawsuit with echoes of the state's disputed 2000 presidential election voting. http://computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,94401,00.html - - - - - - - - - - LA plans cybercafe teen curfew Los Angeles is to impose a curfew on kids into cybercafes because the venues have become a popular hangout for truants and the focus of serious youth violence in the city. Cybercafes (or PC baangs) with more than five machines will need a police license must install video cameras for security under regulations put forward in Los Angeles City Council yesterday. Children under 18 will be banned from cafes on school days between 08.30am and 13.30pm and after 2200pm Cyber cafe customers will be required to provide identification on request. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/08/la_cybercafe_curfew/ http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-07-08-cybercafes_x.htm http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-cyber8jul08,1,2137421.story - - - - - - - - - - Feds drag feet on cybersecurity, officials say Business and government representatives teamed up in March to recommend steps to reduce the nation's vulnerability to cyberattacks. But they say they have yet to receive a response from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and wonder what is causing the delay. "There has been a 'pregnant pause' waiting for a response," says Rick White, CEO of TechNet, a technology industry trade group and co-sponsor of a December 2003 summit to develop an action plan. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,94391,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Security hole found in Mozilla browser update Developers at the open-source Mozilla Foundation have confirmed that the latest version of their Web browsers have a security flaw that could allows attackers to run existing programs on the Windows XP operating system. The flaw, known as the "shell" exploit, was publicized Wednesday on a security mailing list, along with a link to a fix for the problem. Updated versions of the affected software programs, which include the Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird browsers, have been released. http://news.com.com/Security+hole+found+in+Mozilla+browser/2100-1002_3-5262676.html - - - - - - - - - - Sexual abuse online According to Washington ProFile, every fifth under age user of the Internet runs the risk of online sexual abuse. These statistics are given in the report of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Sexual molestation is a proposal to enter into sexual activity or provide sexual information (images, video). The authors of the survey did not register any case when Internet molestation led to real sexual contact or violation. http://www.crime-research.org/news/08.07.2004/475/ - - - - - - - - - - Fast backs Whitehall copyright clampdown Federation Against Software Theft welcomes DTI intellectual property crime strategy. The Federation Against Software Theft (Fast) has welcomed government moves to clamp down on copyright piracy. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has established the Creative Industries IPR Forum to provide a national strategy for dealing with intellectual property (IP) crime. http://www.vnunet.com/news/1156519 - - - - - - - - - - Government keeps mum on IT project monitoring The government has rejected calls for the Gateway IT project monitoring reports to be published. Treasury financial secretary Ruth Kelly told MPs that the confidentiality of the Gateway process, run by Whitehall buying agency the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), is key to its success. http://www.vnunet.com/news/1156505 - - - - - - - - - - Cybsecurity research underfunded, executives say The National Science Foundation can only fund a subset of the research proposals it receives on ways to better IT system security, an NSF official said at a House technology subcommittee hearing. There are good ideas in the cybersecurity area that were simply not able to fund, Peter Freeman, assistant director of NSFs computer and information science and engineering directorate, said at yesterdays hearing. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26526-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Stolen a film? MPAA wants to know One in four people online has illegally downloaded a feature film--and it's cutting into box-office and DVD sales, the Motion Picture Association of America said in a study released Thursday. A survey of 3,600 Internet users in eight countries showed that as many as 50 percent had downloaded copyrighted content in the last year. Of those people who have downloaded films, 17 percent said they are going to the movies less often, and 26 percent said they bought fewer DVDs, according to online researcher OTX, which conducted the study in partnership with the MPAA. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5262427.html - - - - - - - - - - Postini: Half of all e-mail requests rejected Antispam company Postini Inc. is now rejecting more than half of all attempts to send e-mail to its customers, in part because of increased activity from compromised home computers that have been turned into "zombies" for sending unsolicited commercial e-mail. The company is dropping 53% of all e-mail connections that use the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) without reading the content of the e-mail messages. http://computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/groupware/story/0,10801,94378,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Web app vulnerabilities on the rise Nine out of 10 web applications remain vulnerable to attack even after developers think they have been 'fixed', security experts have claimed. A study by security firm Imperva on the vulnerability of public and private web applications found that, despite periodic penetration testing and subsequent fixes, flaws reappeared over time. http://www.vnunet.com/news/1156498 - - - - - - - - - - Analyst: UN Needs Warriors in Spam Battle An international effort can wipe out spam by 2006, says an agency of the United Nations, the International Telecommunications Union. The group is sponsoring an ongoing anti-spam conference in Geneva that has drawn representatives of more than 60 countries and global organizations. http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Analyst--UN-Needs-Warriors-in-Spam-Battle - - - - - - - - - - Intel to add NX security to Pentium 4 in Q4 Intel will add support for Microsoft's No Execute (NX) security technology to its P4 CPUs in Q4, reports suggest. Taiwanese motherboard maker sources cited by DigiTimes claim the chip giant will introduce support for NX from the end of Q3. A BIOS update will be all that's required to enable support at the mobo level, they add. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/08/intel_nx_support/ - - - - - - - - - - Fujitsu technique hides data in images Fujitsu has developed a method of embedding data invisibly within printed pictures. The procedure, commonly known as steganography, will allow numerical information to be hidden within a color image and accessed via a camera. Steganograghy involves altering an image in a way that cannot be perceived by the human eye, but which can be detected electronically. Fujitsu's technique can apparently hide a 12-digit number in a 1-centimeter square. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5260241.html - - - - - - - - - - Investigating digital images What's real and what's phony? "Seeing is no longer believing. Actually, what you see is largely irrelevant," says Dartmouth Professor Hany Farid. He is referring to the digital images that appear everywhere: in newspapers, on Web sites, in advertising, and in business materials, for example. Farid and Dartmouth graduate student Alin Popescu have developed a mathematical technique to tell the difference between a "real" image and one that's been fiddled with. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2004/07/01.html - - - - - - - - - - Spam can hurt in more ways than one Small businesses that depend heavily on the Web and e-mail to market products are increasingly caught in a spam squeeze. Hackers and spammers hijack their PCs and then Internet providers wrongly shut down the victims' e-mail. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-07-07-spam_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - E-voting security: getting it right As we noted in our previous story - E-voting security: looking good on paper? - the much-celebrated voter verifiable paper trail is useless as a security measure for Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) election systems, and actually introduces far more problems than it solves. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/08/getting_e-voting_security_right/ Wash. state announces safeguards for electronic voting http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-07-08-wash-evote_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Security spending rises, as do risks IT security spending across the world is rising, but so are virus and malicious code attacks. The findings from the Global Information Security Survey, conducted by vnunet.com's sister magazine Computing and its international sister publications, shows businesses are not following best practice security advice, but are increasing security budgets to cope with growing threats. http://www.vnunet.com/news/1156507 - - - - - - - - - - Service Pack Deux? Microsoft should make SP2 available to all users and backport the changes to older operating systems, or they risk putting profits ahead of security yet again. As some of you may have guessed by now, one of my side interests when I'm not sitting in front of a computer is the study of history. http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/254 - - - - - - - - - - Reducing the risk from P2P downloads Each week vnunet.com asks a different expert to give their views on recent virus and security issues, with advice, warnings and information on the latest threats. This week Frank Coggrave, UK regional director of Websense, examines the legal implications for businesses and IT directors of employee use of P2P networks. http://www.vnunet.com/news/1156524 - - - - - - - - - - Terrorists rely on tech tools, researcher finds The Internet has become the new Afghanistan for terrorist training, recruitment, and fundraising, an academic said. Terrorist groups are exploiting the accessibility, vast audience, and anonymity of the Internet to raise money and recruit new members, said Gabriel Weimann, chairman of the communications department at the University of Haifa in Israel. The number of terrorists' Web sites has increased by 571% in the past seven years, Weimann says. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,94390,00.html *********************************************************** 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 2000-2004, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.