NewsBits for September 15, 2005 ************************************************************ Demon founder pleads guilty to email hacking Cliff Stanford, founder of Demon Internet and Redbus, has pleaded guilty to email interception charges. Stanford along with co-defendant George Liddell were accused of conspiring to intercept emails sent to Redbus chairman John Porter (son of Dame Shirley Porter, the disgraced former Conservative leader of Westminster council) during a boardroom battle at the London-based hosting firm. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/15/redbus_stanford_sentencing/ http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39218357,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Web sites hosted by S. Korea's leading internet portal hacked Unidentified computer hackers have attacked a score of Web sites hosted by Daum Communications Corp., South Korea's second most-popular Internet portal, causing a barrage of spam e-mail to their members, a computer security company said Tuesday. http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20050913/660000000020050913214344E8.html - - - - - - - - - - Another Maryland game pirate sunk The owner of a Maryland-based retailer has been sentenced to five months in prison and fined $247,237 for selling modified Xboxes that let players play pirated games, the Entertainment Software Association said on Thursday. Biren Amin, owner of the Pandora's Cube chain, is the fourth person associated with Pandora's Cube to be convicted and sentenced for game piracy. Last month, Hitesh Patel, a store manager, was sentenced to four months in prison, four months under house arrest and two years of probation. http://news.com.com/Another+Maryland+game+pirate+sunk/2100-1043_3-5867765.html - - - - - - - - - - Stolen UC-Berkeley laptop recovered Computer had personal information on 98,000 students. A stolen laptop computer holding personal information of more than 98,000 California university students and applicants has been recovered, but it uncertain whether the information had been tapped, the University of California, Berkeley said Thursday. The laptop, which stored names and Social Security numbers, disappeared in March from a restricted area of the university's graduate division offices, forcing the university to alert more than 98,000 students and applicants of the theft. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9357500/ http://news.com.com/Laptop+with+personal+data+of+98%2C000+recovered/2100-1029_3-5867702.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/12654766.htm - - - - - - - - - - Cox Mistake Leads to Botched Child Porn Arrest The Wichita Eagle (via Techdirt) reports that Cox gave law enforcement the wrong IP information during a child-porn investigation, resulting in the arrest and multi-hour interrogation of an innocent couple. A Cox employee typo led to the confusion, and now the couple is suing Cox for "invasion of privacy, breach of contract, defamation of character and 'outrageous conduct,'" according to the Eagle. http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/67427 http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/news/local/crime_courts/12620843.htm - - - - - - - - - - Man pleads guilty to 50 child porn charges A former Suffolk man, who now lives in Chesapeake, pleaded guilty Wednesday to 50 counts of producing child pornography and four counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor. James Edward Haidle, 39, was arrested in May and originally charged with 214 counts of possessing child pornography of two 16-year-old girls and sexually abusing them when he was living in Suffolk last year. http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-85740sy0sep15,0,3934265.story - - - - - - - - - - Monk Accused of Using Internet to Lure Minor A Franciscan monk from Mexico City has been arrested in San Diego on charges of using the Internet in an attempt to lure a minor to have sex with him. Earl John Place, a 61-year-old U.S. citizen, is also accused of trying to transfer obscene material through the mail and Internet to a minor, according to the two-count indictment unsealed Wednesday. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-sbriefs15sep15,1,7542490.story - - - - - - - - - - Senate attention could compute to prison time for cyber perverts U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts said he needed time to study the issue while Missouri's senators wasted no time in proposing legislation aimed at helping law enforcers prosecute cyber crime perverts. Roberts said he is aware of the case, but needed to review the matter before taking a position. Much of his Senate work focuses on leading the Intelligence Committee. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15210920&BRD=1459&PAG=461&dept_id=155725&rfi=6 - - - - - - - - - - Click-clack of keyboard could be security risk Forget about watching, Big Brother may be listening. Sounds from typing on computer keyboards are distinctive enough to be decoded, allowing security breaches caused by "acoustic snooping," University of California, Berkeley researchers said Wednesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9353833/ http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11318 - - - - - - - - - - Cyber Crime Fears Grow Minister Sears made the comment after giving opening remarks at the Caribbean Cyber crime workshop at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel in downtown Nassau. Drawing scores of participants from countries like St. Lucia, Belize, Antigua & Barbuda, the United States, Grenada, Jamaica, Belize and Jamaica, the three-day seminar is aimed at providing essential background information to help improve cyber crime investigations. http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=45&a=5151&sid=2038e098e44dea720bb7f4c7f24569a5 - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft Talks Vista Security In Online Chat Microsoft Thursday provided some incremental insight into the security features it's planning for its upcoming Windows Vista operating system, via a public, online chat on its MSDN developer network. The chat was hosted by Mike Nash, the vice president of the software giant's security business unit. http://www.it-observer.com/news.php?id=5481 - - - - - - - - - - Former White House adviser urges high standards for ID cards President Bushs former counterterrorism chief yesterday called for the government to establish a system of open-source and transparent standards for a federated identity card system, noting that Americans continue to face the dual threats of identity theft and terrorist attack. http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/?f=nationalidsystem-resources.html - - - - - - - - - - Citadel Security to offer software insurance for companies It's teaming up with AIG to offer the program Citadel Security Software Inc. today announced an insurance plan under which customers that use its Hercules vulnerability remediation product will be reimbursed for the cost of restoring systems or data if their networks are attacked and Citadel fails to meet its service-level agreements. http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,104647,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Hacking's a snap in Legoland When Lego executives recently discovered that adult fans of the iconic plastic bricks had hacked one of the company's new development tools for digital designers, they did a surprising thing: They cheered. Unlike executives at so many corporations, who would be loath to let their customers anywhere near the inner workings of their software tools, the Lego honchos saw an opportunity to lean on the collective thinking of an Internet community to improve their own product while bolstering relations with committed customers. http://news.com.com/Hackings+a+snap+in+Legoland/2100-1046_3-5865751.html - - - - - - - - - - Porn and secrets thrown out with the rubbish Companies and consumers are failing to take note of the importance of properly cleaning data off their hard drives before selling or discarding them. And with a proliferation of removable storage media such as compact flash cards and SD cards falling in price the problem of sensitive data being discarded is getting worse. http://software.silicon.com/security/0,39024655,39152309,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Why Cyber Crime Persists in Nigeria "While agreeing that greed forms a major causative factor in the spread of cyber crime in Nigeria, one cannot actually shy away from the fact that the harsh economic situation in the country, which has created mass unemployment and of course the high rate of corruption in the society is the fuel that fans its embers." This was the verdict handed down on the causes of cyber crime, especially in an Information Technology developing country like Nigeria, by the Chief Executive Officer of Buildwell International, a Facilities Maintenance Management company, Engineer Afolabi Adedeji. http://allafrica.com/stories/200509150114.html - - - - - - - - - - Techies don't get security either Heads of information security functions are more likely to be business managers than techies in future as companies take a more strategic approach that balances IT security threats against business drivers. That's according to analyst house Gartner which predicts security will evolve into an element of a wider risk management strategy. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11317 Are IT Departments Security Risks? http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170703348 - - - - - - - - - - Identity federation: Is it time to move now? While there is high interest in identity federation, the technology is still in flux and will likely be more expensive and time-consuming to implement today than three years from now, an expert in identity and access management said today. Roy Wagner, a research vice president with Gartner Inc., told delegates at the company's IT Security Summit 2005 in London that identity federation -- the term for linking identities of users across multiple accounts without storing the information centrally -- is mostly being used for single sign-ons across different domains. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,104649,00.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. 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