April 22, 2002 Former Head of Sotheby's Sentenced to a Year in Prison Former Sotheby's Chairman A. Alfred Taubman was sentenced Monday to a year in prison and fined $7.5 million for taking part in a price-fixing scheme that scandalized the auction industry. Taubman, 78, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels in Manhattan for overcharging Sotheby's sellers $43.8 million over six years. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Auction-House-Sentencing.html - - - - - - - - Varian Internet Defamation Case On Hold A California appeals court has granted a temporary stay in both the contempt and appeal proceedings in the case of two people who were found guilty of Internet defamation in December. Jon Eisenberg, the attorney for defendants, today told Newsbytes he asked for the stay until his clients' appeal is heard. Eisenberg said he believes the lower court's finding was unconstitutional and will be overturned. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176033.html - - - - - - - - Klez virus passes confidential info The Klez.H variant is continuing to spread via email, and one antivirus vendor says it has the ability to release sensitive documents. The latest variant of the Klez worm sometimes chooses to hitch a ride on sensitive documents, resulting in victims' confidential information spreading with the malicious program, Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky Labs said on Friday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108843,00.html - - - - - - - - Etch-A-Sketch site fined over children's privacy Federal regulators on Monday fined the Web site operator for the Etch-A-Sketch toy and sent warning letters to more than 50 other Internet operators regarding children's privacy online. The Ohio Art Company, which makes the children's doodling toy, has agreed to pay $35,000 to settle charges it violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, the Federal Trade Commission said. The site was collecting information from children before obtaining parental or guardian consent, the FTC said in a statement. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1106-888281.html - - - - - - - - Google Runs Into Copyright Dispute Google, the company behind the popular Web search engine, has been playing a complicated game recently that involves the Church of Scientology and a controversial copyright law. Legal experts say the episode highlights problems with the law that can make companies or individuals liable for linking to sites they do not control. And it has turned Google, whose business is built around a database of two billion Web pages, into a quiet campaigner for the freedom to link. (NY Times article, free registration required) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/22/technology/ebusiness/22NECO.html - - - - - - - - Beware of 'bogus' Web site renewal invoices Internet users are being warned to be on their guard for "bogus" invoices after Nominet UK received more than 100 complaints concerning an alleged scam. The demand for PS225 is for inclusion in a Web directory run by London-based Central Web Pages Register Ltd. However, the wording on the invoice is confusing with many people believing that unless they pay up they will lose their domain names. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24963.html - - - - - - - - Army proxy server closes Web back door As part of a larger effort to scour the Internet for sensitive information, the Army has set up a "proxy server" on which it can host its Web sites for public viewing without opening a back door for hackers. Lt. Col. John Quigg, branch chief for the network security improvement program under the Army's director for information assurance, likened it to a museum setting up a monitor that would allow visitors to look through a historical document, while the document remains in safekeeping. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0422/news-army-04-22-02.asp http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/fcw1.htm - - - - - - - - Federal Cybersecurity Agency Gets New Name The U.S. Department of Commerce said today that its Bureau of Export Administration had been renamed the "Bureau of Industry and Security," to spotlight the agency's heightened role in the Bush administration's cybersecurity and homeland security efforts. The bureau is best known for ensuring that certain cutting-edge technologies - such as high- performance computers and other items with both military and commercial uses - aren't bound for countries hostile toward U.S. interests. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176030.html - - - - - - - - Court ruling not stopping investigators Investigators with Bedford County's Operation Blue Ridge Thunder are not happy with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down a federal ban on "virtual child pornography," but they say the decision won't stop their mission. In a 6-3 decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled two provisions of the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Act unconstitutional on free speech grounds. The now-defunct sections had made sexual images of minors or images that "appeared to be minors," including computer-generated images that involved no real children, punishable with years in prison. The law had also made illegal advertising that implied a film or series of photographs contained child pornography, even if all the actors were adults. http://www.newsadvance.com/MGBE10FQB0D.html - - - - - - - - Task force fights pedophiles successfully Friday's arrest of a Rantoul man was the latest move by the Illinois Internet Child Exploitation Task Force to fight Internet-related sex crimes. Terry Lee Gordon, 32, was apprehended in the parking lot of an Urbana church where, officials believe, he intended to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex. Instead, Gordon found members of the task force and the Champaign County Sheriff's Office. http://www.dailyillini.com/apr01/apr17/news/stories/news03.shtml - - - - - - - - In the Name of Homeland Security Telecom firms are operating under new powers to combat terrorism, law enforcement agencies are making unprecedented demands on the telecommunications industry to provide information on subscribers, company attorneys say. These companies and Internet service providers face an escalating barrage of subpoenas for subscriber lists, personal credit reports, financial information, routing patterns that reveal individual computer use, even customer photographs. http://www.newhouse.com/archive/story1a041002.html - - - - - - - - Government secrets on the Web Want to read long ago secret government files? There's no shortage of declassified information on the Internet. Some of the sites are actually run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Some are run by other federal agencies. A few are run by educational institutions. And in case you're curious, you can find out what the government files contain about you, if anything. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/ccarch/2002/04/22/komando.htm - - - - - - - - How Teens Still Hack Million-Dollar Security Systems More than 26,000 computer intrusion incidents were reported to CERT in the first three months of this year, surpassing the total for all of 2000. As awareness of information security and the threat of cyber terrorists increases, U.S. government agencies and businesses have beefed up security in order to thwart system outages and intrusions in mission-critical operations. But even as bills are introduced that call for more severe penalties for those who break into computer systems, causing monetary damage and potentially putting people at risk, high-profile teen hacker cases persist. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17371.html - - - - - - - - Media industry prepares to repel pirates Multimedia giants join forces to develop copy protection. Vivendi Universal and Thomson Multi- media have announced a joint initiative to fight digital piracy. The deal will cover copy protection over a range of delivery mechanisms, including DVDs, broadband and video-on-demand services. The two companies will also be speaking with standards bodies on wider adoption of copy protection. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131143 - - - - - - - - Navy first to use e-signatures on smart cards for travel The Navy is the first department in the Defense Department to use Common Access smart cards for the Defense Travel System. I put my claim in, and its all done electronically in a few days, said David Wennergren, deputy Navy CIO and chairman of DODs Smart Card Senior Coordinating Group. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18434-1.html - - - - - - - - U.S. mulls online ID systems The U.S government is considering using online ID systems from Microsoft, Entrust, RSA, and VeriSign among others to track the identity of visitors to a dozen new federal Web sites launching later this year, a federal official said Friday. Mark Forman, who oversees the federal government's $45 billion IT budget, said he is talking to the companies about how their online identification technologies might give agencies a standard way to let the general public access private information on the Web. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-887986.html - - - - - - - - SMS spam canned European Union companies may have to get permission from mobile users before sending commercial messages via SMS, following the progress of legislative plans in Brussels last week. At the moment, there are no restrictions on the use of SMS as a promotional tool, but that may change if plans by European legislators come to fruition. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/24966.html - - - - - - - - Big firms pay bulk e-mailers for referring new customers Some of the biggest names in corporate America, including General Motors, are indirectly contributing to the spam epidemic. The roster includes at least two Silicon Valley companies: eBay of San Jose and Netflix of Los Gatos. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3107709.htm - - - - - - - - The ethics of spam: `There's lots of money in it' A prolific spammer tell why he does it. Ronnie Scelson is not your ordinary spammer. He returns reporters' calls, for one thing. For another, the Louisiana native admits many people probably hate him for what he does -- even if, as he insists, he tries to follow what few laws apply. Anti-spam crusaders, however, call him the ``King of Cajun Spam.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3107708.htm - - - - - - - - E-mail users plagued by rising tide of junk Susan Guberman-Garcia dreads retrieving her e-mail. Every day, she wades through unsolicited messages pitching online gambling, get-rich schemes and sex sites. ``When I see `live nude teen girls,' enough is enough,'' the Fremont attorney said. Like millions of e-mail users, Guberman-Garcia has lost control of her in-box. As much as 40 percent of all commercial e-mail today is spam. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3108519.htm Weak anti-spam laws make fighting back hard http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3107707.htm - - - - - - - - Keeping e-mail encryption alive Phil Zimmermann knows a thing or two about adversity. His invention for encrypting e-mail, Pretty Good Privacy, was so good that the government considered it munitions subject to tough export controls. Prosecutors threatened him with criminal charges when others leaked it overseas. The government ultimately backed off. But now, the company that makes the most popular version of PGP is the one pulling the plug. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/04/21/encryption.future.ap/index.html - - - - - - - - Privacy software reveals intrusive 'Web bugs' Internet bugs - tiny, hidden images that can cue your computer to send information on you to advertisers, are being caught and dissected by a new software program called Bugnosis, one of a number of Privacy Enhancing Technologies or PETs discussed Friday at the 12th Annual Conference of Computers, Freedom and Privacy. Other technologies presented during CFP and a sister conference, Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2002, included methods to hide the names of persons making Internet queries and new ways to send private messages through mechanisms like message timing information. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/369905p-2979546c.html - - - - - - - - Privacy tools find a new home While technologies to protect personal online privacy have stalled in the world's richest nations, they're still in grave demand from human rights workers in other countries, experts said at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference that ended here on Friday. Five years ago there was a burgeoning consumer personal privacy market in North America, with a growing list of software and services that allowed people to maintain their anonymity on the Internet, said Ian Goldberg, chief scientist at Zero-Knowledge Systems, a Montreal-based Internet privacy provider. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-887942.html FTC cracking down on Net privacy issues http://news.com.com/2100-1023-888340.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/742072.asp ISPs oppose Minnesota Web privacy bill http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/04/22/privacy.bill.idg/index.html A Bad Year for Privacy http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,51987,00.html Dan Gillmor: Want privacy? Take action http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3105957.htm US exporting personal Internet privacy technologies http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2108853,00.html - - - - - - - - Closing the Spycam Sniffer Loophole Those cheap wireless video cameras hawked by annoying pop-up ads can be intercepted by anyone with a few hundred dollars and a voyeristic bent. There's no federal law against it, but there should be. You are browsing the Web when a pop-up ad appears advertising a COLOR video camera. IT'S FUN screams the ad -- for less than $200 you can set up a network of cameras throughout the house, the office, or other places, which will transmit video images from a wireless, self powered miniature camera either to a central receiver, or even through that receiver to the Internet. http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/76 - - - - - - - - Virtual rights and wrongs I feel conflicted by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn the congressional ban on child pornography. As a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, I'm against censorship and strongly in favor of free speech rights on the Internet, even when that speech is detestable. But, as a board member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, I'm highly sensitive to the role that child pornography can play in the exploitation of children - even children who aren't used to produce that material. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/372006p-2993920c.html - - - - - - - - Monkey-wrenching activists to hold tech seminar ``The Man'' better watch his back -- there will soon be some well-trained, high-tech activists ready to make his life miserable. The Ruckus Society -- as in ``raise a ruckus'' -- is a group of left-wing protesters who have taught scores of other activists how to blockade police, hang banners off buildings and generally monkey with the ``corporate machine.'' Now, the Oakland based society has scheduled its first ``Tech Toolbox Action Camp,'' a training seminar to show demonstrators how to use the most modern technology to fight the world's capitalist overlords. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3113471.htm - - - - - - - - Software sniffs out delinquent taxpayers Delinquent taxpayers beware -- if your local tax collector doesn't get you, a new computer system will. U.S. states are using computers and information technology to increase revenue and fee collection, showing the traditional tax man how to do a better job. After hiring a firm that uses advanced computer software to make revenue collecting more efficient, four U.S. states already have dug up an extra $912 million overlooked by human staffers. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-888279.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.