October 21, 1999 Lloyds of the Net: A new company, INSUREtrust.com, is one of the first insurance firms to indemnify companies doing business on the Net. The Atlanta-based firm provides liability coverage for all aspects of computer operations -- whether they come from a crash caused by a software/hardware breakdown, or from an outside source such as a hacker. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/081054.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Former FAA engineer indicted in software theft A former Federal Aviation Administration engineer has been charged with stealing the only copy of a computer code for software used by flight controllers to guide jetliners through O'Hare International Airport. http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/025365.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Cambodian police arrest U.S. man on porn charges Cambodian police said on Thursday they had arrested an American on charges of operating a website which broke laws on obscenity and exploitation of women. ``We arrested the American named Sandler after a warrant was issued by the municipal court for violating the constitution and the penal code,'' deputy district police chief Nhem Saonol said. http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/075819.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Tips on kids' Online Privacy issues Tips from experts about children being asked personal questions on the Internet: --Youngsters never should give out their full name, address or phone number to anyone they do not know without a parent's permission, says Lawrence Magid, a computer industry columnist who also runs the Safekids Web site, www.safekids.com. ``Everything about you ... is your private information,'' Magid advises. ``You don't have to give that information to just anyone who asks.'' http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/986194l.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MGM battles bogus message on Internet site In another warning sign for investors using the Internet, a bogus posting from someone claiming to be Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.'s former chairman led the film studio to post a note warning investors to beware. http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/988715l.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SEC settles cases in eBay stock auctions The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday it settled charges against three people who illegally tried to auction off stock on eBay Inc. The SEC said it was the first time it filed charges that were based on the sales of securities in an online auction. SEC laws mandate that if securities are offered to the public, even on the Web, they must be registered or have a registration exemption. http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/987655l.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/99/138102.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Stealthy Trojan horse attempts to gather data on Web sites In a scenario not unlike a story line from a Tom Clancy novel, the Systems Administration Networking & Security (SANS) Institute is reporting what appears to be a wide-spread attempt to gather information on proxy servers and send that information to a Russian Web site. Members of the SANS Institute became aware of suspicious network activity on Sept. 30. Essentially, they found a pattern of unusual Internet-wide port scanning of proxy servers. A port scan looks for active or open ports and is usually the first step in an intrusion attempt, which is why it got the attention of the network administrators. http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?991020.iitrojan.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Virtual morality: A workplace dilemma Where do you draw the line.com? The explosion of the Internet into the workplace has empowered millions of employees, in a matter of keystrokes, to quietly commandeer company property for personal use. And ethical questions are mushrooming well beyond the propriety of workers frittering away a morning shopping online or secretly viewing pornographic Web sites. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2377662,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Illegal wiretapping case troubles privacy advocates Police and prosecutors are covering up widespread and illegal wiretapping, the Los Angeles public defender's office charged Wednesday, in the latest round of a growing legal battle that's piqued the interest of electronic privacy advocates. Particularly troubling to electronic privacy advocates is the charge that prosecutors manipulated public wiretap statistics by using a single court order to obtain multiple taps. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2378118,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Lawmakers resurrect Net gambling bill Federal lawmakers revived a bill today to make cybercasinos fold their cards. A bipartisan group of House members has reintroduced a version of the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act to outlaw most forms of online wagering and slap Net casino operators with penalties of up to four years in prison. "Having a casino in one's home only encourages gambling addicts and sparks the interest of children. It is time to shine a bright light on gambling in this country and bring a quick end to illegal gambling on the Internet," Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), a chief sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-921267.html?tag=st.ne.1002.thed.1005-200-921267 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Super-secret NSA transitioning to commercial services model The National Security Agency, the enigmatic signals intelligence arm of the Defense Department, is breaking away from its traditional role of building "black boxes" for encrypting highly classified information in favor of offering security and certification services similar to those in commercial industry. Mike Jacobs, deputy director of information systems at NSA, said that while the agency "will always have a traditional portion of our business building 'black boxes' . . . we are an organization in transition." http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/1018/web-nsa-10-21-99.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Computer security at center of DOE problems, top officials say The former director of the Energy Department's Office of Safeguards and Security today outlined for Congress years of cybersecurity problems at the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, claiming officials were aware of ongoing espionage but failed to do anything about it. Edward McCallum, the former chief of DOE security who is now detailed to the Defense Department as the Pentagon's acting director of the Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office, said DOE officials "knew our greatest secrets were being stolen andÉdid nothing about it." http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/1018/web-doe-10-20-99.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Justice Department plan could curtail FOIA The Department of Justice is cultivating controversial plans to avoid or repeal portions of the Freedom of Information Act because of concerns the law might keep businesses from playing a crucial role in the Clinton Administration's computer network security plans. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1099/102199b3.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - House panel approves bill to boost computer security Pointing to the dreaded Melissa computer virus and several recent hacker-attacks on federal Web sites, a House Science subcommittee on Wednesday approved bipartisan legislation to help federal agencies better protect their electronic information systems. The bipartisan Computer Security Enhancement Act of 1999 (H.R. 2413), which quickly cleared the Technology Subcommittee by voice vote, would modify the Computer Security Act of 1987. The 12-year-old law requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology to provide federal civilian agencies with standards and guidelines for guarding sensitive but unclassified electronic data. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1099/102199b2.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft Takes On 10 Alleged Software Pirates In its continued effort to curb the flow of alleged counterfeit software, Microsoft Corp. has filed software piracy lawsuits against a total of 10 companies. The 10 companies - four in California, three in Virginia, two in West Virginia and one in Nevada - are charged with copyright violations and trademark infringements. "We gave each of the resellers a warning not to distribute the illegal software and they have chosen not to change their ways so we had to take stronger action," Microsoft corporate attorney Anne Murphy told Newsbytes. http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/99/138098.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Internet Porn King Says His Books Are Clean Seth Warshavsky, the 26-year-old Internet porn mogul, runs one of the best-known entities in the fast-growing world of e-commerce. Last week he was listed 40th on Time magazine's list of "technology's 50 most important faces." He now courts Wall Street and hopes to take his company public in the near future. An aggressive entrepreneur, Warshavsky is best known for his media coups - including distribution of the home video of actress Pamela Anderson Lee and husband Tommy Lee having sex, and nude photos of talk show shrink Laura Schlessinger. His successes have brought his company, Internet Entertainment Group, both windfall profits and near-constant press attention. http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/99/138068.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - E-mail Hack Protection Have you ever sent a sensitive e-mail and been worried that someone else might see it? Well, a new e-mail service allows messages to arrive at its destination without being compromised. CertifiedMail.com assures its users that messages they send will not be hacked or pirated during transmission. The company also tracks the e-mail and confirms that the recipient has received it. http://www.currents.net/newstoday/99/10/21/news6.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Preserving The Y2K Committee Senate Year 2000 Committee Chairman Robert Bennett, R-Utah, is hard at work making sure that his committee does not outrun its usefulness, and other members of the high-tech industry and Congress are making sure the committee transforms itself into a cyber-crime outfit. Bennett unveiled a new report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) that says anticipated computer failures relating to the Year 2000 problem will be "a major test of the nation's ability to protect its computer- supported critical infrastructures." http://www.currents.net/newstoday/99/10/21/news15.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Fed Official Urges Companies Not To Delay PKI The head of the federal government's public-key infrastructure initiative said the benefits of PKI far outweigh difficulties in implementation, and now is the time for government agencies as well as enterprises to begin plans for deployment. In his keynote address Wednesday at the Electronic Messaging Association's Fall '99 Solutions Summit, Richard Guida, chairman of the federal PKI steering committee, called PKI the best method for meeting the government's high security needs. He outlined the government's plan to deploy PKI in several agencies including the Department of Defense, and to use the technology to let the public securely interact with government over e-mail and the Internet. http://www.planetit.com/techcenters/docs/security/news/PIT19991021S0020 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Danger Of Stealth Executables Doug Findlay, a reader from Canada, recently had an eye-opening experience that's instructive to us all: I recently came across something that concerned me VERY much--and could possibly be used to cause damage or execute viruses on a user's machine. Recently, a friend sent me a harmless executable file (it was a sound bite), but it was embedded in an MS Word 97 document. To hear the sound bite was frustrating, requiring me to load Word and then double- click on the embedded file. So, in MS Word, I selected the executable that was embedded in the document, copied it, and pasted it to my desktop. Not surprisingly, it showed up as an MS Word "Scrap," file. The file extension for scrap files is ".shs." For some reason, Windows hides this file extension. http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hundreds Robbed By ATM Bandits Hundreds of expatriates have received letters from their banks abroad warning them that their bank cards have been compromised by someone able to steal PIN codes through Moscow's ATM machines - and according to card payment system officials, the theft of PIN codes now under way in Russia is occurring on an unheard-of scale. http://www.moscowtimes.ru/21-Oct-1999/stories/story1.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Cyber savvy cops to go up against hackers The National Police Agency (NPA) said yesterday that it will launch next month a special team to tackle the rising number of online crimes. At the core of the new team are the agency officials with computer expertise who have been working against computer hackers. For the new team, which will build on these computer savvy cops, the agency said that it will recruit five network specialists and computer security programmers from outside the force. http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/news/1999/10/__02/19991021_0212.htm