NewsBits for September 21, 2004 ************************************************************ Norway to block child porn sites Norwegian police and a state-controlled telecommunications group on Tuesday announced a joint project to block access to child pornography websites on the Internet. Starting next month, the Telenor ASA group will filter hundreds of sites that the national crime police, Kripos, deem to contain child pornography. Anyone in Norway attempting to access such illegal sites will instead see a page informing them about the filter, and a Web link to Kripos. http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040921.gtchildsep21/BNStory/Technology/ - - - - - - - - - - Court Overturns PA Law Aimed at Blocking Child Porn on the Web A Pennsylvania law-unique in the nation-that forced Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to child pornography web sites was struck down by a federal court on the grounds that it also forced the ISPs to block a range of other sites. The law says that the state attorney general or any county district attorney can ask a local judge for an order declaring certain Internet content may be child porn and thus requiring any ISP serving Pennsylvania citizens to block the content. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA454108?display=NewsNews&industry=News&industryid=1986&verticalid=151 - - - - - - - - - - Ex-teacher jailed over child porn A former PE teacher and cricket coach from Sussex has been jailed for four-and-a-half years for distributing child pornography on the internet. Peter Watts, 37, of Upper Dicker, near Hailsham, admitted nine charges of distributing the images and 35 of making indecent images of a child. Police found more than 3,500 child porn images on his computer when they raided his home, Lewes Crown Court heard. He was given a non-custodial sentence for similar offences in 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/southern_counties/3674280.stm - - - - - - - - - - Teacher in child porn case dismissed Gary C. Mochnick, the Lakeland high school teacher suspected of downloading sexually explicit images of children on his computer, was fired, according to a letter from the Polk County School Board. The termination came after Mochnick of Wakefield Drive in the Hill n' Dale section of Hernando was arrested on Friday and charged with possession of child pornography, a third-degree felony. In a letter dated Friday, Polk County school superintendent Jim Thornhill wrote that he was exercising his option to fire Mochnick, 52, before his probationary period ends. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/09/21/Hernando/Teacher_in_child_porn.shtml - - - - - - - - - - CONMAN'S CHILD PORN A CLERK who stole PS300,000 from his accountancy firm to live the high life was only caught when child porn was found on his computer. Over six years Justin Barber, 32, siphoned the money from his bosses to buy fast cars, luxury holidays and pay his bills. But he was arrested in the Operation Ore crackdown on child porn last July and sacked by accountants Larking Gowen of Norwich, Norfolk. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14665404&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=conman-s-child-porn-name_page.html - - - - - - - - - - Police search residence for child porn Village of Hartland - Police seized more than 100 videotapes, more than 60 CDs, and a computer hard drive that may contain child pornography from a residence Sept. 15. According to a search warrant filed Sept. 15 in Waukesha County Circuit Court, police received an anonymous phone call Aug. 23 stating a 34-year-old man who lives on North Avenue was in possession of child pornography. The anonymous caller stated she had a friend who had been at the residence recently and saw a picture of two young children engaged in a sexual act, the warrant said. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1399&dept_id=173065&newsid=12965163&PAG=461&rfi=9 - - - - - - - - - - Child porn charges filed against orthodontist King County prosecutors filed child pornography charges Friday against a man whose job has him around children all the time. The charges against Mark Joondeph come after several months of investigation by sheriff's detectives rising out of complaints from young girls. "He asked me if I had a boyfriend," one 11-year-old told KING 5 News. The girl said Joondeph made lewd comments to her last year. "He also asked if I would like having an old guy as my boyfriend," she said. Investigators say he made inappropriate comments to young girls both online and in person. Three of the girls were Joondeph's patients. http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_091704WABchildpornchargesJK.128e0776e.html - - - - - - - - - - Housing boss had child porn The longtime executive director of the Lehigh County Housing Authority was charged Friday with having hundreds of images of child pornography on his office computers. John C. Seitz, 56, of Indian Creek Road, Upper Milford Township, faces 12 counts of sexual abuse of children for allegedly having the images and 12 counts of criminal use of a communication facility for allegedly using his office computers to search for and get images of nudity or sex acts involving minors. http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5housingsep18,0,1920197.story - - - - - - - - - - House takes on piracy, 'video voyeurism' The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Tuesday legislation aimed at curbing software piracy and stopping "video voyeurism." The first bill makes it a crime to sell "counterfeit labels" attached to copyrighted material including DVDs, CDs or computer programs. The second bill, already approved by the Senate, punishes those who "capture an image of a private area of an individual without their consent." http://news.com.com/Briefly+House+takes+on+piracy%2C+video+voyeurism/2009-1014_3-5219580.html - - - - - - - - - - AOL to Sell Security Devices to Members America Online, a unit of Time Warner Inc., signed a deal with Internet security company RSA Security Inc. to launch its AOL PassCode, a service designed to add an additional layer of protection to member accounts. PassCode users will be provided with a small hand-held six-digit numeric code key. To log on to an AOL account equipped with the service, users will have to type in six digits, which refresh on the device every 60 seconds, on top of using the regular password. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0904/092104c1.htm http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-rup21.5sep21,1,6169509.story AOL now offering one time passwords http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=3401 - - - - - - - - - - Anti-spam firms hit back at Gartner claims Gartner's claim that the level of unsolicited bulk email is falling has been rejected by users and anti-spam companies. Anti-spam vendors hit back on Tuesday against analyst firm Gartner's claims that the level of spam is falling. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39167412,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Academics get NSF grant for Net security centers The National Science Foundation announced Tuesday that it has granted more than $12 million to academic researchers for the creation of two centers to investigate infectious code and study the Internet's ecology. The funds set aside for the centers are part of the NSF's Cyber Trust program, through which the foundation has granted a total of $30 million to 33 projects focused on researching ways to provide better information security. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5376474.html - - - - - - - - - - Hackers are after your money, warns Symantec Unpatched and vulnerable systems are open to hackers seeking financial gain, Symantec has warned in its latest report. E-commerce has emerged as the "single most targeted industry" according to the latest Internet Security Threat Report from security software provider Symantec, with hackers now appearing to be motivated by economic gain rather than notoriety. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39167302,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - USPTO expands signature options U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officials issued a final rule today that would allow two alternatives to traditional signatures on patent documents. The regulation includes 140 pages of policy changes meant to simplify patent filing procedures. Among other things, the rule not only permits electronic signatures for applications filed using USPTO's electronic filing system but also allows for s-signatures, in which the signature is typed between two forward slashes. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0920/web-uspto-09-21-04.asp - - - - - - - - - - Merger creates world's biggest IT security services firm IT security firms TruSecure and Betrusted are to merge in order to create the "biggest security services company in the world". Ubizen, Betrusted's mostly owned subsidiary, is also folding into the new company, which is to be called Cybertrust. Subject to regulatory approval the agreement is expected to finalise within the next 30 days. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/21/trusecure_betrusted_merge/ http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=TruSecure--Betrusted-Merge-To-Form-Cybertrust&story_id=27085 - - - - - - - - - - Will cell numbers be listed with 411? Cell phone owners currently enjoy a kind of privacy through obscurity: Wireless numbers aren't listed with directory assistance. But now that Cingular Wireless, Sprint, Nextel Communications and other large carriers are planning to compile a publicly accessible list of certain wireless phone numbers, politicians in Washington, D.C., are threatening to step in and regulate any such effort. http://news.com.com/Will+cell+numbers+be+listed+with+411/2100-1039_3-5376592.html - - - - - - - - - - WLANs go feral in corporate undergrowth Frustrated employees are taking IT into their own hands by installing DIY Wi-Fi access points (APs) in their offices while their IT departments don't even notice, according to Gartner. A rogue access point can leave an organisation's network wide open and once on the network, an unauthorised user could go undetected. Speaking at the IT Security Summit in London yesterday, John Girard, Gartner research veep, told delegates that organisations must make sure that employees or hackers do not install unauthorised wireless APs on their networks and that their APs are configured securely. Monitoring WLAN traffic "in the air" is the most effective means of detecting unauthorised systems, he added. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/21/diy_wifi_security/ - - - - - - - - - - Would you hire a hacker? The news that teenage hacker Sven Jaschen may have got a job at a German security company won mixed reviews at Gartner's IT Security Summit in London. The 18-year-old virus writer facing criminal charges for creating the Sasser worm has been offered a job by a German IT security firm, a move that divided the opinion of security industry experts at Gartner's IT Security Summit in London on Tuesday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39167417,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - OpenOffice: A legal Trojan horse--but for whom? The Internet went all abuzz last week when a report by Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer posited that Microsoft was keeping open its legal options against licensees of OpenOffice.org. Commonly known as OpenOffice, the software is a freely downloadable open source productivity suite that constitutes a significant portion of Sun's commercially offered StarOffice. It also exemplifies the threat that the open-source movement poses to Microsoft. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5375070.html - - - - - - - - - - When outsourcing, don't forget security, experts say When it comes to outsourcing IT operations to countries such as India and China, companies often focus on slashing costs and gaining productivity but fail to take into account cultural differences that may affect their security, according to experts attending the Gartner IT Security Summit in London today. http://computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,96074,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Government will order airlines to turn over passenger data Everyone who took a commercial flight within the United States in June will have his travel information turned over to the government so it can test a new system for identifying potential terrorists, federal officials announced Tuesday. The Transportation Security Administration plans to order airlines to turn over the information in November. Passenger names will be checked against watch lists maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which is administered by the FBI, as part of a new screening system called ``Secure Flight.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/9723490.htm http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5376365.html http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0920/web-tsa-09-21-04.asp http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0904/092104c1.htm - - - - - - - - - - Former CIA director sees slow creep toward nationwide fingerprinting American citizens face the prospect of having to submit fingerprints to the government to make it easier to fight terrorism, former CIA director James Woolsey says. Taking a high-level overview of the challenges facing the United States in pursuing terrorists globally, Woolsey said biometric technologies will play a key role in striking a balance between security and liberty. Woolsey, a vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. of McLean, Va., spoke yesterday at the 2004 Biometric Consortium Conference in Arlington, Va. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/27362-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Pro-Chechen websites targeted September 14, 2004 leading websites of Chechen separatists Chechen Press and Caucasus Center became unavailable to visitors. It happened after Lithuanian government refused a Russian request to shut down a pro-Chechen Web site that published a $20 million reward for assistance in the capture of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying it cannot take action without a court order. Servers of Chechen Press were hacked on September 4, the next day after the assault on a school in Beslan, where terrorists held more than 1,200 of hostages for more than 2 days. http://www.crime-research.org/news/21.09.2004/643/ *********************************************************** 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.