August 9, 2000 Web-porn scandal rocks White House West Wingers downloaded gay, bestial, teen sex videos, jamming firewall system. A consultant hired last year to beef up security for the White House's computer network found massive pornographic video files passing through the system's Internet firewall, WorldNetDaily has learned. Some of the downloaded files were traced back to West Wing officials as recently as the beginning of last year, during the height of the impeachment crisis, say sources who were involved in replacing the firewall system as part of Y2K security upgrades. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_sperry_news/20000809_xnspy_webporn_sc.shtml - - - - - - - - - - U.S. Offers $25,000 Reward in Missing-Laptop Case The State Department offered a $25,000 reward on Wednesday for anyone who helps recover a missing State Department laptop computer that may contain highly classified information. The laptop, thought to hold information on nuclear proliferation, was reported missing from the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research in January, and investigators have not yet discovered whether it was stolen for its contents or merely for its value as hardware. http://www.antionline.org/2000/08/09/-----/0130-2163-Laptop-Reward..html - - - - - - - - - - *** EDITOR'S NOTE - While this isn't exactly a "high tech crime", the investigators used a lot of on-line resources to catch these two fugitives - a very good job! RJL *** It wasn't just that Santa Clara County Deputy DA Stephen Lowney and his top investigator had found and jailed Robert and Kimberly Morgan, suspects in an alleged insurance scam. It was how they tracked them to the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, nearly seven months after the couple disappeared. They did it largely from their offices, crouched over their computers, combing the Internet, working the phones, following leads as tenuous as a wisp of smoke. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/front/docs/trail080900.htm - - - - - - - - - - Visa sets new rules for online purchases Visa, the world's biggest payment card network, said Wednesday it was setting 10 new security rules for transactions done over the Internet by its more than 21,000 member financial institutions and their merchant partners. Visa tied the moves to combating online fraud -- running at more than three times the rate of card fraud overall -- as well as to boosting consumer confidence in electronic commerce. It said it was also eager to head off possible new government regulatory action by policing itself. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/010392.htm - - - - - - - - - - Inter-mediates' sites hacked and down We received word that Inter-mediates' vast network of sites had been hacked and were down. The company, most commonly known for its Special Reserve discount store network confirmed there had been "external interference" but declined to comment on whether it was a denial of service attack or a hack. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/12479.html - - - - - - - - - - Virus lands T-Online customer with giant bill One look at at his T-Online bill and Patrick S, a businessman from Straubing, Bavaria, almost suffered a stroke. The telco was charging him a total of 9,000 deutschmarks (£1,800). "I immediately wrote to the telecom company in protest. Usually my bills amount to roughly 300 deutschmarks a month," the victim explains to ZDNet. Around three weeks later Germany’s largest Internet provider told him the case had been looked into, and that nothing unusual had been found. When the second bill of 15,000 deutschmarks (£4,629) arrived, the angry customer became even more suspicious and turned to the police. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/31/ns-17207.html - - - - - - - - - - Prank leads to fears about mobile security Japan's i-mode mobile phones were hit by a bizarre attack Tuesday which security experts warn may be just the first of many security worries for broadband mobile Internet. Hundreds of Japanese i-mode users were stung by a prank which forced phones to dial "110" -- the police emergency telephone number in Japan -- during an online quiz. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/31/ns-17205.html - - - - - - - - - - Computer Crime Report Released A June 2000 report, called Computer Crime, was released into the public domain on July 5, 2000, by the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation and the Attorney General of New Jersey. It is available at the Commission's Web site. www.state.nj.us/sci - - - - - - - - - - State tracks workers’ downloads State Department officials have issued a directive that bars workers agencywide from using government computers to download music or any other non-official files from the World Wide Web. The department is backing up its words with a software program capable of finding and reporting on unauthorized downloads, according to Steven Toole, marketing director for WQuinn Associates Inc., the Reston, Va.-based manufacturer of software called StorageCentral. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0807/web-mp3-08-09-00.asp - - - - - - - - - - Insider slams Kiwi spam fighters ORBS, an organization in New Zealand opposed to bulk e-mail, appears to be fighting spam with spam. The group takes it upon itself to test networks for bad e-mail filters. Unlike its chief competitor, the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS), ORBS doesn't wait for spam complaints. But the thousands of e-mails needed to poke and prod a system for weak links are apparently considered spam by AboveNet, one of its ISPs. Unless it changes its ways, or switches to another ISP, AboveNet is planning to block ORBS e-mail, sources said Wednesday. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2613660,00.html - - - - - - - - - - NIST readies security, workflow pilot The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology is getting ready to kick off a 100-seat pilot to test security and electronic workflow applications. The E-Approval pilot participants, who are scattered throughout NIST, will begin using public-key infrastructure and digital signatures, electronic forms and workflow applications for "real work" within the next few weeks, said Bruce Rosen, associate director for CIO projects in NIST’s Information Technology Lab. A final training class was held last week. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0807/web-nist-08-09-00.asp - - - - - - - - - - Adobe Closes Security Hole Adobe Systems has released a software update that patches potential security vulnerabilities found in Adobe Acrobat products for Windows. Until now, PDF files were considered safe, posing no risks to users. For that reason and its transmission quality, PDF has become an industry standard for Internet documents. But a vulnerability, discovered by Shadow Penguin Security, could allow malicious code to be included within a PDF file due to a buffer overflow error. So far, no customers have reported any problems. If the vulnerability is exploited, it could cause Acrobat to crash and run arbitrary code. http://www.zdnet.com/sp/stories/news/0,4538,2613033,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Netscape changes download software Web browser designer Netscape Communications said Wednesday it will revise a program for downloading files from the Internet so that it will no longer collect data about users' online activity. The software, called SmartDownload, is the subject of a federal class-action lawsuit that claims it violates a federal law protecting computer users' privacy. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/292349l.htm - - - - - - - - - - Judge rejects Internet Co's request A judge has rejected an Internet polling company's request that it be removed immediately from a nonprofit group's blacklist of businesses that purportedly send unsolicited, bulk e-mails. U.S. District Judge David Larimer also delayed until Aug. 24 a hearing on whether to force a dozen Internet service providers to stop blocking Harris Interactive Inc. from corresponding with more than 1 million of its 6.6 million online panelists. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/292362l.htm - - - - - - - - - - Chasing Hollywood 'Pirates' Produced in limited quantities and only available in navy blue, the T-shirt is a curiously old-world artifact to figure in a storm over the future of the Internet. The problem is on the back of the shirt. Several dozen lines of computer code are printed there, a program that would be incomprehensible to all but the geekiest. Still, it was enough to get the T-shirt maker, a New Jersey outfit called Copyleft, sued in San Jose last week for stealing trade secrets. http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58594-2000Aug8.html - - - - - - - - - - China pegs Web as a danger to communism As Chinese police hunted organizers of the country's first dissident Web site, the Communist Party today said the government must beef up its online presence to combat infiltration by its ideological enemies. The party newspaper, People's Daily, described the Web as an important battleground for public and international opinion. It said China must "work hard to grasp the initiative" online. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2478957.html - - - - - - - - - - Rita Rudner wins Web domain name A United Nations arbitrator has awarded Rita Rudner the right to the Internet domain name ritarudner.com. The comedian won the case against Internetco Corp., of Lehighton, Penn., which had registered the domain name. The World Intellectual Property Organization on Tuesday ordered the Web address transferred to her. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/289845l.htm - - - - - - - - - - Philippine Govt Mulls Ban On Internet Gambling As the country's first Internet-based casino begins operations, the Philippines Government is about to look into the fledgling industry and may pass anti-Internet gambling legislation, according to local media reports. The issue of Internet access to gambling Web sites is one of great concern to governments from the US and Canada to Australia and the Philippines. The US and Australia are both looking to ban Internet gambling, although in one country (Australia) it is already completely legal and popular - many say too popular - offline. However, it is hard to see how a ban at a national level can be effective unless every country has similar laws. http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/153373.html - - - - - - - - - - Content and Privacy Online Some interesting court cases have come up recently. eBay has sued one site for indexing and linking to deep within eBay. The offending site spidered, or sent automated software agents around various auction sites in search of items and prices, making a meta-auction site. Another company has plans to index IRC discussions and make them searchable online. Deja has already indexed a major chunk of Usenet news. http://www.securityportal.com/closet/closet20000809.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. 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