December 15, 1999 Briton charged with 'Net murder hire attempt A 32-year-old British man has been charged with threatening to kill for allegedly posting a reward on the Internet for the murder of a Texas couple. Paul Clark, an electrical engineer, yesterday appeared before magistrates in Portsmouth, England to answer the charges, the court confirmed. Clark did not enter a plea. According to numerous published accounts here, Clark offered $25,000 to anyone who could kill Rick and Brandy Arnett, who live in El Paso, Texas. Clark has been accused of building a Web site featuring a wedding photo of Rick and Brandy Arnett. http://www.networkworld.com/news/1999/1215kill.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Malicious programs lie in wait, FBI warns The FBI's nerve center for cyberspace crimes has warned that outlaw hackers may use a new class of malicious software to cripple Internet operations and other computer networks on New Year's Eve. Under a "worst-case but clearly possible scenario," the National Infrastructure Protection Center says the destructive new programs could be used to wreak havoc during the Y2K period. The center issued its alert last week to computer-security professionals throughout the United States. http://www.uniontrib.com/news/computing/991215-0010_1b15fbi.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Innocent-looking computer Christmas game lets the creators know when you are using it. IF you're creeped out by the idea of Santa knowing whether you've been bad or good, how about an innocent-looking game that tells its creator when you're playing it? That's what's happening with an amusing electronic Christmas game -- Elf Bowling -- that has been widely distributed via e-mail this holiday season. When launched, the game, which features Santa trying to knock down a rack of green-shirted elves, secretly makes an Internet connection with the company that created it. http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/business/docs/elf15.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Netscape algorithm not quite a sitting duck, but close: Reliable Software Technologies announced today that it has discovered a flaw in Netscape Navigator's email system that exposes user passwords. The company said the problem affects all current versions of Netscape. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2409537,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Duuuude, that's hella cash! Tellme Networks has announced that it's received $47 million in funding from rival venture capital firms Benchmark Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The new round of investment brings the company's total funding to $53 million. Now here's the kicker: The company was founded by a 21-year-old who was expelled from Phillips AcademyAndover for hacking into its telephone system. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/004316.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - IFPI "boards" pirate Web sites: The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry launched two landmark legal actions in China against pirate Web sites offering Internet music files they say are illegal. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/023665.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Free Y2K Virus E-mail Tools Trend Micro is offering all online PC users access to a free daily e-mail alert on Y2K virus problems. The service, which is available to all PC users worldwide, also includes access to free tools to detect and delete Y2K viruses from their machines. Trend says this is its holiday gift to the global PC community. The Web-based service, located at http://www.y2kvirus.com , will trigger between December 29 and January 3, aims to deliver the most up-to-date, daily Y2K virus information on the Web. http://www.currents.net/newstoday/99/12/15/news15.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Many luxury goods sold on Web could be fakes, survey Holiday shoppers who think they are getting a deal on that Gucci handbag or the Rolex watch they bought on the Internet should think again. As many as four to eight percent sites selling Gucci, Mont Blanc and Rolex products in particular were actually selling fakes, according to a survey released by Arlington, Va.-based market research firm Cyveillance. http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/1189419l.htm - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Large-scale phone invasion goes unnoticed by all but FBI Where have all the hackers gone? That's an understandable question considering the actions that currently pass for a news-making "hack." One might think that the days of Kevin Mitnick's phone hijinks or Robert Morris's computer worm, which disrupted the operations of over 6,000 computers nationwide in 1988, are gone. http://cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/14/phone.hacking/index.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Rep. Lofgren Joins Criticism of Administration's Encryption Export Draft Policy, Writes President Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) from California's Silicon Valley delegation fired off a letter to President Clinton Dec. 6 complaining that the administration's recently released draft of new encryption-export regulations are irrational and counterproductive. "As we discussed in San Francisco," Lofgren wrote, "I'm of the view that the one good thing I can say about the draft regulations on encryption is that they are draft regulations." http://www.lawnewsnetwork.com/practice/techlaw/news/A11533-1999Dec14.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Distributed Attack A new way to mount a denial-of-service attack uses distributed computing to harness the power of more than 1,000 PCs. Hacker groups have frowned upon them, calling them a common game played by bored spammers and hacker wannabes. And security experts concede the concept is nothing new. Still, a denial-of-service (DoS) attack can cripple machines across even the largest networks, resulting in lost business, frustrated users, and a painstaking recovery process. http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/cybercrime/features/story/0,3700,2404608,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - You Are Being Watched A few months ago you hired a promising employee, partly because of his genetic disposition toward perfect health. In fact, you've already given him a raise based on the results of the quarterly keystroke count and electronic badge tracking, which showed that he spent more than 86 percent of his average work day at his terminal and that for 92 percent of his time at the computer he was physically engaged in the act of data entry. He may even get a bonus because random phone call and e-mail monitoring revealed superior written and oral communication skills and not a trace of personal activity. http://www.zdnet.com/pccomp/stories/all/0,6605,2386411,00.html