July 13, 2000 Woman Allegedly Gave Son Away A woman who allegedly arranged to give her son to a man she met in an Internet chat room is being charged with child abandonment, endangerment, and failure to provide for a child, police said Wednesday. The child is reportedly unharmed and staying at a Florida foster home. According to the Associated Press, Helen Chase of Vacaville, California, allegedly arranged to give her 10-year-old son to a man she knew only as Gus whom she met through an chat room nearly three months ago. http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/cybercrime/digitaldisputes/story/0,9955,2603441,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - Two accused of hacking NASA computers A 15-year-old high school student and a 20-year-old man have been arrested and accused of hacking into NASA computers. It was not clear whether the cases were linked. The teen surrendered Tuesday for allegedly hacking into two NASA computers in Hampton, Va., and a third computer in Bethpage, N.Y. His name was not released by Suffolk County police. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/017703.htm - - - - - - - - - - - Crackers fell Cabinet Office Web site Crackers brought down the Cabinet Office's Web site Thursday, defacing the site and forcing its hosting company to take it off line. A cabinet office spokesman says that, to his knowledge, the attack was not politically motivated and describes the message posted on the site home page as nothing more than a "silly note". "Everything possible is being done by the company involved and Cabinet Office staff to remedy the situation," he says. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/27/ns-16599.html - - - - - - - - - - - Reno sinks teeth into FBI's email monitoring Attorney General Janet Reno today said she is looking into the FBI's new high-tech "Carnivore" system of email monitoring. Reno said she wants to ensure that both privacy safeguards and the needs of federal law enforcement officials are met. "When we develop new technology, when we apply the Constitution, I want to make sure that we apply it in a consistent and balanced way," Reno told reporters at her weekly news briefing. "I'm taking a look at it now," she said. "If additional regulations are needed, we will pursue those." http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2253114.html - - - - - - - - - - - Big Brother in the black box From Russia to Britain to the US, law enforcement is trying new methods to counter cybercrime. And civil rights activists are up in arms. Governments world wide are attempting to increase surveillance powers in an effort to crack down on Internet-related crimes. However, the latest tool in the war against online crimes and illicit attacks on networks has international privacy advocates up in arms. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/27/ns-16581.html Big Brother in the black box Pt II http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/27/ns-16584.html - - - - - - - - - - - Mexican opposition hires hackers Mexico's centre-left opposition party, the PRD, has employed a computer hacker to gain access to a list of beneficiaries of a bank rescue fund. The fund -- of around sixty-five billion dollars -- was set up by the Mexican government after a sharp currency devaluation in 1994 to help bankers recover defaults on bad or illegal loans. A senior PRD leader, Pablo Gomez, said many credits were illegally awarded to people with links to the governing Revolutionary Institutional Party, the PRI. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_831000/831618.stm - - - - - - - - - - - 'Smash' virus could attack on Friday A virus that launches on the 14th day of the month could hit computers tomorrow, July 14, security experts warn. At the same time, experts are hesitant to overplay the threat of the Windows 95 "Smash" virus (Win95.Smash.10262), as it has not yet been found in the wild. "We wanted to put something out there because some of our clients were reading about it in the media," said Simon Perry, virus expert at Computer Associates International Inc. in Islandia, N.Y. "The bottom line is, if you get it, it's very damaging, but right now it's not likely you'll get it." http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2603459,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - Awareness key for cybercrime prevention The biggest challenges law enforcement officials face when combating child pornography and stalking is public awareness and informing citizens about how to report crimes, officials said Wednesday at the E-Gov 2000 conference in Washington, D.C. Despite statistics that show 20 percent of children have been solicited online and 25 percent have received unwanted pornography online, less than 10 percent of solicitations and three percent of unwanted pornography was reported, according to Ruben Rodriguez, director of the Exploited Children’s Division of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. http://www.civic.com/civic/articles/2000/0710/web-crime-07-13-00.asp - - - - - - - - - - - Cybercrime Treaty Under Fire The biggest names in computer security say an international agreement threatens to leave the criminals holding all the cards. Less than three months after it was released to the public, a proposed international computer crime treaty is coming under fire from a veritable who's who of computer security experts and academicians who warn that it may inadvertently aid computer criminals. http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/?content=/templates/article.html%3Fid%3D58 - - - - - - - - - - - AOL glitch allows teens to access forbidden sites What a difference a dot makes. America Online is scrambling today to patch a hole that allows its Parental Control content filtering system to be subverted, enabling teens to access forbidden Web addresses simply by adding a dot. AOL said it first became aware of the problem today after receiving a call from CNET News.com. "We have recognized a small glitch affecting our mature teen filtering system," AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said. "We're in the process of fixing it." http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2253845.html - - - - - - - - - - - Websites Facing 'Privacy Storm' The Internet advertising industry warned its Web colleagues to get their privacy act together because the times, on desktops and in Washington, they are a-changin'. Members of the Internet Advertising Bureau met Wednesday for a privacy forum where a quartet of industry players fired a warning shot at Web companies. The message: People are worried, politicians are aware of it, and laws are coming. So, be ready. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37547,00.html - - - - - - - - - - - European musicians fight net piracy European music stars urged the European Union Thursday to get tougher with Internet piracy of their works, saying the future livelihood of many artists was at stake. ``It takes a lot of time, effort and money to make a record. The right to have control over our own distribution -- that's all we are asking,'' said Caroline Corr, member of The Corrs, a four-member sibling Irish pop group. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/192919l.htm - - - - - - - - - - - Canadians Support Music Artists and Napster - Survey As debate rages on in the United States about whether music file- sharing Web sites such as Napster and Gnutella hurt or foster the sales of music CDs, a Canadian research company, Solutions Research Group, says that most Canadian Napster users are committed music fans who actively support the music artists they like. http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/152084.html - - - - - - - - - - - Hacker exposes computer security benefits Debra Banning sends mischief and trouble in people's direction every day, and the Air Force pays her to do it. She and her staff are "computer hackers" and they are very good at their work. Banning spoke at the first Information Assurance Symposium at Air Force Materiel Command headquarters here June 7. The symposium brought together both military and civilian leadership and technicians to work information assurance issues such as virus protection, cyber attack and security procedures. "The very thing that gives the information age its power is also a weakness...its openness," said Lt. Gen. Charles Coolidge, Jr., AFMC vice commander regarding the symposium. "We must provide security, but it must be tailored for the users, streamlined and transparent." http://www.af.mil/news/Jul2000/n20000713_001064.html - - - - - - - - - - - 'Love Bug' suspect nixes job offers The Philippine computer college student accused of releasing the ``ILOVEYOU'' virus has declined several job offers on the advice of his mother, his lawyer and family friends said Thursday. Onel de Guzman was charged last month with theft and other crimes for allegedly spreading the ``Love Bug,'' which crippled e-mail systems worldwide in May, causing an estimated $10 billion in damage. De Guzman has acknowledged he may have released the virus by accident, but refused to say whether he authored it. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/191996l.htm - - - - - - - - - - - Future of Internet gambling bill murky Two key Republican lawmakers say a House bill to outlaw online casinos will not inadvertently expand other gambling on the Internet, but their assurances may not be enough to gain passage. Skeptics maintain the legislation would help some gambling interests reach bettors through home computers, particularly horse racing. Those critics, plus others who say the bill would unfairly restrict state lotteries and unwisely regulate the Internet, could scuttle a movement that appeared to be gaining momentum when the Senate approved an Internet gambling bill last year. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/018170.htm - - - - - - - - - - - Forget the FBI’s snooping: What about your boss? Lots of people have their knickers in a knot over this unfortunately named surveillance program the FBI is using called "Carnivore." (Sounds like a sequel to Survivor, but in actuality, it’s a sniffer that tracks the e-mail of criminal suspects.) The notion of the FBI forcing an Internet Service Provider to check out the e-mail of some bad guy isn’t such a terrible idea, on the face of it, though it certainly isn’t as sexy as a high-speed chase or something out of Shaft. Remember, folks, though it’s easy to forget: Law enforcement is actually good for society, and technology can aid and abet in the quest for law and order. http://www.msnbc.com/news/432143.asp - - - - - - - - - - - A love-hate relationship Arrest of noted ‘white hat’ exposes murky intersection of federal investigators, hackers. The world of computer hackers divides itself into good and bad by hat color, and the good guys are supposed to wear white. So when the owner of "whitehats.com" was arrested earlier this year, it sent shudders through the secretive security community. Max Vision, regarded as a classic upstanding white hat and, it turns out, an FBI informant was indicted for breaking into government computers. The case illustrates the often awkward love-hate relationship between hackers and law enforcement agencies. http://www.msnbc.com/news/430186.asp - - - - - - - - - - - Jailhouse Net Inmates with e-mail? It could happen at some state prisons experimenting with technology behind bars. Scott Spangler was used to spending most of his time in a cell at San Quentin State Prison, but the day we met he was sitting at one of the two computers available to the nearly 2,000 inmates at California's oldest penitentiary. Even without seeing what his wiry fingers were working on, officials knew he wasn't downloading something illicit from the Web: the PCs for San Quentin's inmates are configured to only allow word processing and research on a few encyclopedia CD-ROMs. http://salon.com/tech/feature/2000/07/13/prison/index.html - - - - - - - - - - - Security group going to the dogs after hoax alert Ordinarily it's hard to find people more serious than the technicians, academics and bug experts who vigilantly comb the world for potential attacks on computer networks. But not this week. In a parody of the warnings issued by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), an anonymous correspondent posted a joke warning on Bugtraq, an electronic mailing list frequented by computer security professionals. The hoax alert, disguised as an official CERT announcement, warns that hackers have devised a way to remotely take over Sony's Aibo robot dog and command it to attack, among other unpleasant actions. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-2249491.html - - - - - - - - - - - - Default Passwords and What You Can Do About Them This is a rather large security issue that has been (until lately) largely ignored and swept under the carpet. Many vendors have a dirty little secret: they ship software and hardware with default usernames and passwords, some of which they do not tell customers about. Once an attacker knows these default settings they can typically access the software remotely and gain administrative control. This can be extremely dangerous. http://securityportal.com/topnews/pwd20000713.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, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.