March 12, 2002 Pervy N.J. Lady Sexed My Son: QNS. Mom A distraught Queens mom said she is baffled over why city cops refused to track down a 24-year-old woman she claims used the Internet to lure her 15-year-old son to New Jersey for sex, The Post has learned. Milagros Torres- Gotay went to the 102nd Precinct station house in Richmond Hill on Monday to complain that a woman using the Internet moniker "Ditra" had recruited her son for trysts in her Paterson, N.J., home after sending him e-mails and explicit photos. http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/43102.htm - - - - - - - - RCMP ignored pedophile warning Nothing done with report from tipster of child rape images traced to Windsor. The Mounties failed to investigate apparent child-porn trading from a computer registered to someone in Windsor, even though an online tipster had forwarded detailed tracing information to identify the suspect, the Citizen has learned. The electronic trace, which included exact times of trading and the user's Internet Protocol address, was forwarded to Kingston RCMP less than 30 minutes after it was performed on the night of Nov. 27, 2000. http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id={3BC4B1B8-C113-489D-89DA-03FAC38E85AC} - - - - - - - - 'Hi Sexy' SMS scam hits mobile users Definitely not the joy of text. Mobile phone users are being warned over a text message scam that could end up costing them hundreds of pounds. A message saying "hi sexy" is reported to be luring unsuspecting victims into signing up for a premium rate reverse charging service. Simply replying to the message registers the user to the service. Once signed up, the user is then bombarded with sexually explicit texts for which they have to pay. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1129985 - - - - - - - - 3 Web Sites Closed in Spam Inquiry A federal court has ordered the closing of the Web sites of three companies that used e-mail messages to sell an estimated $1 million worth of nonexistent Web addresses, federal officials said yesterday. The court's actions came at the request of the Federal Trade Commission as part of the agency's most aggressive move in its campaign against unsolicited commercial e-mail messages, or spam. (NY Times article, free registration required) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/12/technology/12SPAM.html - - - - - - - - Canal Plus claims rival cracked, distributed its digital TV code Vivendi Universal's Canal Plus Group on Tuesday accused a rival owned by News Corp. of cracking its digital television smart cards and distributing the information on the Internet. In a lawsuit that alleges not only corporate espionage but also conspiracy with criminals, Canal Plus claims NDS Group spent millions of dollars to crack its signal protection scheme to flood the European market with counterfeit cards. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2844809.htm http://online.securityfocus.com/news/350 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-858077.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-858047.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175143.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51005,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/12/digital-tv-suit.htm - - - - - - - - House Subcommittee OKs Internet Gambling Ban A House Judiciary subcommittee today approved legislation designed to curb Internet gambling after the bill's sponsor offered a substitute amendment aimed at addressing concerns raised by Democrats. The Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime approved by voice vote H.R. 3215, a bill offered by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. that would update the Interstate Wire Act to clarify that it is illegal to use the Internet or other new technologies to operate a gambling business. Under the bill, violators of the measure would be faced with fines and up to five years in jail, or both. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175158.html - - - - - - - - Decision On GovNet Proposal Expected Before Summer The Bush administration should decide within the next 90 days whether to pursue GovNet, its controversial proposal to build a secure Intranet that would insulate federal government systems from cyber-attack, according to the White House's deputy security czar. "We should know within the next 60 to 90 days whether this is going to happen," said Howard Schmidt, corporate security officer for Microsoft, who doubles as vice-chairman of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, a panel of top executives from companies that manage the nation's critical infrastructures. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175153.html - - - - - - - - Public-private partnerships called key to cybersecurity Voluntary partnerships between government agencies and the private sector are crucial to protecting the nation's critical infrastructures from increasingly sophisticated forms of cyber warfare, information security experts from the public, private and academic sectors said Tuesday. "We need you, but we don't own you, so we have to have this partnership to make it work," Howard Schmidt, vice chairman of President Bush's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, told industry representatives during a Washington conference organized by the Strategic Research Institute. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0302/031202td2.htm - - - - - - - - Hacking al Qaeda's Secrets The odds are growing that Uncle Sam's cybersnoops are outgunning the terrorist group online as the military is on the battleground. You read it here first: Al Qaeda has been hacked. That's right. Hacked. Compromised. Cracked. Why am I sure of this? No, I don't have any sources divulging top-secret intelligence. But the string of attacks that police and intelligence agencies have averted since September 11 tells a interesting tale. From seizing a bomb-materials cache in Belgium to uncovering a possible plot to gas the U.S. Embassy in Rome with deadly cyanide, the success in thwarting threats has been truly breathtaking. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2002/nf20020312_9960.htm - - - - - - - - 3G phones will increase fraud New security features in 3G cell phones should protect owners against handset theft, say industry experts. But the phones' beefier features heighten the risk of Net-based fraud. Third-generation (3G) mobile devices equipped to surf the Internet will present operators with added security against handset theft but far more potential for online fraud, industry experts warned on Monday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2106379,00.html - - - - - - - - AOL searches for copy-protection leader AOL Time Warner is beginning efforts to add copy protection to CDs, underscoring the company's desire to limit unsanctioned digital distribution of its musical works. The media giant is searching for a senior project manager to lead a software initiative that the company calls "AOL Time Warner's answer to prevention of illegal CD copying/ burning," according to a posting on job listing site Monster.com. The notice added that the company has partnered with others in the industry to create a standard and to "develop the first of its kind player." http://news.com.com/2100-1023-858181.html - - - - - - - - Canada Eyes New Tariffs On Digital Recording Media Canadian music fans dreaming of memory-packed digital audio players like the 6-gigabyte Nomad Jukebox from Creative Labs, or maybe SonicBlue's 30-gigabyte RioCar device for automobile dashboards, may want to buy before the Canadian Copyright Board sets new tariffs on recording media. The tariffs - royalty fees already added to the manufacturer's price for audio cassettes and, more recently, recordable compact discs - are paid out to performers and record companies as compensation for consumers' rights to make private copies of music. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175156.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50995,00.html - - - - - - - - IM: No longer a haven from spam Growing incidents of spam attacks on some instant messaging networks are raising vexing questions about the future of one of the fastest-growing applications on the Internet. Unsolicited commercial appeals on instant messenger are still uncommon, but they are becoming prevalent enough that some IM fans worry their networks are vulnerable to the seemingly unstoppable marketing deluge that has long flooded e-mail in-boxes. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-857658.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2106407,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-857637.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/722886.asp - - - - - - - - *Nix security pandemic - major zlib/libz vuln A flaw in the zlib/libz data compression/ decompression libraries could enable an attacker to mount a denial of service attack against any Linux or AIX firewall, database server, mail or Web server. It's also possible that arbitrary code could be run on a remote machine. Because these shared libraries are used by hundreds of packages on numerous platforms, the bug is on a par with the DHCP, SNMP and Sun vulnerabilities recently reported. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/24387.html - - - - - - - - Americans suspicious of national ID, survey finds Despite heightened security concerns after Sept. 11, two out of five Americans oppose a national identification system to keep better track of U.S. citizens and visitors, a research firm said Tuesday. Research firm Gartner Inc. said it found that 41 percent of U.S. citizens opposed the creation of a national identity database, while 26 percent said they supported such a move. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/2844259.htm http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175149.html - - - - - - - - Army securing wireless LAN The Army this week announced that it has selected a security solution to protect the mission-critical business systems of the Combat Service Support Automated Information System Interface (CAISI) project, a wireless local-area network with about 85,000 users. The Army has awarded Fortress Technologies a three-year "multimillion-dollar" contract for its AirFortress wireless security suite. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0311/web-fort-03-12-02.asp - - - - - - - - Going to the Source: Reporting Security Incidents to ISPs My interest in abuse notifications began when Warez pirates started using my trustingly anonymous FTP server as their personal playground. I realized that my system needed to be locked against this type of intrusion and that I had failed to provide adequate safeguards. But I still felt violated these people were intruding into a place where they knew they had no business. I complained to the service providers of several of the pirates, but did not get very satisfying results - just a few form letters with no follow-up. It seemed like they did not care, and that I had wasted my time. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1555 - - - - - - - - Savoring spam: A true story I had an epiphany last month while deleting spam. Although I filter about half of the 300 daily junk e-mails I receive, I spend an hour a day spurning spam that sneaks past filters. That's nearly 11 days per year. But spam seems to be a necessary evil--and, if my inbox is any indication, a mounting one. So I decided to reprogram my anti-spam bias. I decided to savour--not spit out--the next slice of spam I received. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-857730.html *********************************************************** Search the NewsBits.net Archive at: http://www.newsbits.net/search.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 2000-2002, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.