October 22, 1999 Federal lawmakers have resurrected a bill that would outlaw most forms of online gambling and would slap Net casino operators with prison terms. The federal wire act already allows states to prosecute certain types of gambling, but it is unclear whether it applies to the Net. Will the bill finally close the door on online casinos? http://2.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?x=dAEgKBKmmwAAguuE No Credit for Web Gamblers Providian Financial wants to bar credit card holders from online gambling. A major credit card company has announced a new way to block its credit card customers from gambling online. Providian Financial plans to use technology to spot illegal bets before they're charged to an account. HTTP://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/cybercrime/news/story/0,3700,2379446,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Spy computers 'spammed' Perhaps you noticed even more cyberfrustration than usual Thursday as e-mails with words like "manifesto," "terrorism," "bomb" and "kill Bill Clinton" were slung around the Net. Not to worry -- it was a bit of a prank meant to irritate government agents who the pranksters say monitor communication for subversion. The system that the pranksters find offensive is known as Echelon, which some say monitors 2 million worldwide communications per hour. So on Thursday "hactivists" sent as many e-mails as they could full of keywords meant to trigger the system in the hopes of overloading it. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2378805,00.html http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/073936.htm http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32039,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Marine Corps computers attacked by virus Computers in the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters were struck with a "worm virus" yesterday afternoon, infiltrating only "unclassified" computer systems and affecting Microsoft programs, CNN said, citing a Marine Corps source. The Pentagon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to keep its computer systems secure from attacks by international enemies, companies, and domestic computer hackers. Marine Corps computer technicians are working with Symantec, and the Marine Corps official said the virus, which left some documents missing, was from "a different strain or a virus we have not seen before," CNN said. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-922651.html?tag=st ExploreZip stings Marine Corps HQ The worm that infected computers at the Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon early Friday was ExploreZip, an especially malicious virus that typically travels by e-mail, according to a Marine Corps spokesman. Symantec Corporation told CNN that Marine personnel called a technical support line at Symantec to report the outbreak. http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9910/22/virus/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Blind brothers, allegedly hackers, disconcert Israel with ‘cybercrimes’ Since Israel is obsessed with security and high technology, the bizarre case of the Badir brothers is even stranger. Israeli prosecutors say Munther and Muzhir Badir, two young and mischievous Israeli Arab brothers, managed to tap into an Israeli Defense Force radio-station switchboard last year and make international phone calls. http://www.msnbc.com/news/325973.asp?cp1=1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AOL 5 deletes network settings Latest software from America Online insists on its own networking protocols. Don’t look now, but America Online (AOL) 5 may have just deleted your network settings. BugNet has confirmed a bug within America Online Inc.’s newest Internet client that selectively eviscerates Windows 98 networking protocols. http://www.msnbc.com/news/325777.asp?cp1=1 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Teacher sues over 'racist' Web review Lawyers for a California college professor filed suit Thursday seeking to block a student-run "review" Web site that they say has turned into an open forum for personal attack and vicious slander. The site, teacherreview.com, features student reports on teachers and classes at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) and San Francisco State University (SFSU). Lawyer Geoffrey Kors said, however, that the site was really an unsupervised free-for-all where teachers like Prof. Daniel Curzon Brown have been anonymously and falsely labeled as racists, sex maniacs and mental health patients. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2378650,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Illinois attorney general sues to block Internet pharmacies Illinois has filed suit against four online pharmacy firms, saying they aren't licensed to practice in the state and therefore can't send drugs here. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in circuit court by Attorney General Jim Ryan, seeks to block the Internet pharmacies from doing business with Illinois residents. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/012424.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Amazon.com says it sues Barnesandnoble.com on patent Amazon.com Inc. said Friday it filed suit against competitor Barnesandnoble.com Inc., alleging that the online book and music retailer copied Amazon.com's patented technology for online shopping. ``We believe the suit to be completely without merit and we will vigorously defend our position,'' Gus Carlson, spokesman for Barnesandnoble.com, said. http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/001291.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Feds name two more digital certificate vendors AT&T Corp. and Verisign Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., are the latest of several vendors chosen to eventually provide digital certification services to federal government agencies through standard Web browsers, allowing both individuals and companies to conduct business electronically with the government entirely on the Internet. http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9910214cert2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Melissa finds more fertile ground IT managers wondering why variants of the Melissa virus are proliferating need only look to the field of agriculture for the answer. Farmers know that too much of the same crop is a recipe for disaster. A blight -- a virus -- can wipe out an entire field in no time. Experts call it a monoculture. And that's what the computing environment has become: a monoculture of Windows desktops, connected by Visual Basic programming and Microsoft Office suite macro commands that are easily exploited by willful programmers. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,1017806,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Aussie censorship snafu A flaw in Australia's Internet censorship legislation - which could affect "tens of thousands" of businesses - has been exposed in a report by the Internet Society of Australia and law firm Phillips Fox. "The provisions of the Broadcasting Services Amendment Act are fairly strong in terms of takedown notices and fines. When it was introduced (the community at large) thought it would affect about 650 companies," Executive Director of the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC.au) Tony Hill told PC Week today. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2379321,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - House subcommittee enhances computer security bill, NIST's role Following advice from federal and industry experts, a House subcommittee on Wednesday expanded the role of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in helping to secure federal information systems, requiring more testing and evaluation of systems and annual progress reports on agency security efforts. http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/1018/web-nist-10-22-99.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Feds short on security 'best practice' studies The United States faces an uphill battle when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure, because government and industry groups have not developed best practice studies and guidelines to show the best way to do so, according to federal experts. Without the guidance that can only come from detailed best practices, agencies and industry will have a hard time developing security architectures that will bring value to their organization, said Jeffrey Hunker, senior director for infrastructure protection at the National Security Council's Office of Transnational Threats. Hunker made the comments on Wednesday at the National Information System Security Conference in Crystal City, Va. http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/1018/web-best-10-21-99.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - U.S. may soften source-code export policy A U.S. Department of Commerce official this week said the Clinton administration may reconsider its restriction on exporting source code for programs using strong encryption. Many commercial software companies don't publish the underlying source code for their programs because they consider it proprietary information. But an increasing number of businesses are using open-source software, such as the Linux operating system, which makes their source code freely available to anyone. http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9910225source - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Web firms say they're ready for FTC child-privacy rules Several companies that run youth-oriented Web sites, including Yahoo Inc., The Walt Disney Co. and Toysmart.com, expressed support this week for new federal guidelines aimed at protecting children's privacy online. The president of a company that produces computer game Web sites, however, voiced concerns about how the rules will be enforced at the individual level. http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9910225ftcrule2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bogus Online Bills SBC Communications Inc.'s Ameritech subsidiary, the Council of Better Business Bureaus and the Yellow Pages Publishers Association have teamed up to warn consumers that the bogus bills often found in the mail have now started turning up in e-mail and online. Central to the problem are what the companies call illicit schemes to solicit Yellow Pages advertising. The primary targets for the campaigns are small businesses. http://www.currents.net/newstoday/99/10/22/news6.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Patch Available "Virtual Machine Verifier" Vulnerability Microsoft has released a new version of the Microsoft® virtual machine (Microsoft VM) that eliminates a security vulnerability that could allow a Java applet to take unauthorized actions on the computer of a web site visitor. Although no standard Java compiler can generate such an applet, a Java applet constructed by hand with a Java bytecode assembler could bypass the sandbox and take virtually any action on the computer that the user would be capable of taking. http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/MS99-045faq.asp. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Hotmail Users Are Spreading Viruses, ISP Says Users of Microsoft Corp.'s free Internet-based e-mail service, Hotmail, have been spreading viruses for the past six months. Microsoft, which has been concentrating on Hotmail security holes, has not fixed the virus problem. A security hole that let anyone read Hotmail users' mail, without knowing their passwords, was revealed late August. Microsoft quickly solved that problem. On Oct. 4 Microsoft proudly proclaimed that all Hotmail flaws had been found and corrected and that "Microsoft also has implemented several quality-control procedures to help prevent future incidents of this kind." http://www.idgnews.net/intl/international.nsf/pages/002565AF0072E40100256812004D6F09?OpenDocument - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Software Firms Fight EU Software Patents Three European software companies have asked the European Commission to think carefully before approving a proposed directive that would allow software programs to be patented. The companies -- German Linux distributor SuSE GmbH; Infomatec AG, a small Augsburg, Germany-based software house; and an Italian open-source software company called Prosa -- met last week with Commission representatives in Brussels to present their viewpoint, according to Hartmut Pilch, a software programmer who represented SuSE at the meeting. http://www.idgnews.net/intl/international.nsf/pages/002565AF0072E401C1256812003BF406?OpenDocument - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Australian Republican Office Systems Attacked In 'Infowar' An Australian Republican campaign office suffered from an attack on its telephone systems on Thursday morning, resulting in its call center and e-mail systems going down and the New South Wales state police being called in to investigate. The Australian Republican Movement is a campaign group promoting an Australian head of state. In several weeks all Australians will vote in a referendum on whether to replace the Queen with a president and become a republic. http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/99/138185.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NK Website Contact to be Restricted At a National Security Council (NSC) meeting Thursday, chaired by Minister for Unification Lim Dong-won, it was decided that communication and exchange with certain North Korean websites would be restricted. A spokesman said that browsing would be allowed freely, but that to exchange e-mail or sign in for membership would require government permission. http://www.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/199910/199910210546.html