April 25, 2002 CIA Warns of Chinese Plans for Cyber-Attacks on U.S. Analysts fear government and private efforts to sabotage federal Internet sites. U.S. intelligence officials believe the Chinese military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Taiwanese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage, according to a classified CIA report. http://www.latimes.com/la-042502china.story http://www.msnbc.com/news/743518.asp China not thought capable of hacking sensitive U.S., Taiwanese documents http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3136610.htm - - - - - - - - Britain cracks down on child porn Police carry out over 70 search and arrest operations. Police carried out more than 70 search and arrest operations around Britain as part of a crackdown on Internet child pornography. http://www.msnbc.com/news/743485.asp http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/379405p-3031826c.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25023.html - - - - - - - - FTC goes after bait-and-switch spammers The Federal Trade Commission is trying to shut down a multimillion-dollar e-mail scam that tricked consumers into visiting a pay-per-view adult Internet site by telling them in an e-mail they had won a Sony Playstation 2. According to the FTC, the defendants in the case sent e-mails to consumers telling them they were winners of a Yahoo Sweepstakes and would receive the much sought-after game system. http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO70524,00.html - - - - - - - - Is a ban on Net access fair punishment? The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case, United States v. Sofsky, on March 28 reversed part of a child pornography conviction that prohibited computer and Internet use without probation officer approval. The 2nd Circuit held that such a prohibition would unfairly encroach on the convict's liberties. Of course, one could argue that such liberties were sacrificed by virtue of the criminal conduct at issue. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/ccarch/2002/04/25/sinrod.htm - - - - - - - - Workers fired for racy e-mails Six workers at the state labor department have been fired and at least 14 others are being investigated for excessive use of work computers for personal e-mail, much of it sexual in nature, officials said. Hundreds of sexually explicit messages ranging from banter to planning for a sex party were found, agency officials said. "We have very clear policies that we don't tolerate this kind of behavior. It's a level of abuse that I didn't expect," said Eva Santos, the department's deputy director for operations. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/2002/04/25/racy-email.htm - - - - - - - - Klez Infection Spreading Across The Net The W32.Klez virus and its variants still are loose in the wild, and Symantec today upgraded it to a "level 4" virus threat. The company rates viruses on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most dangerous. Symantec said it is receiving more than 3,000 submissions a day regarding W32.Klez and its variants. At the peak of the SirCam virus, the company received about 1,500 submissions per day. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176151.html Help & HowTo: Klez.H The latest Klez worm is continuing to spread fast across the Internet and attempts to disable antivirus software when activated. Another member of the Klez worm family is spreading fast across the Internet. Klez.H (w32.klez.h@mm, also known as Klez.g and Klez.k) is a significant variation of existing worms Klez.e and Klez.a. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109157,00.html - - - - - - - - Lack of reporting hits cybercrime fight Police and industry are caught in a catch-22 over reporting of cybercrime; to break the cycle, police are introducing confidentiality agreements and online tools. A reluctance by UK industry to report cybercrime incidents to police is resulting in a lack of statistics and intelligence which is in turn hampering the fight against cybercrime. It's a vicious catch-22. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109168,00.html - - - - - - - - More cybercrime laws will be counter-productive, says thinktank An influential thinktank says current cybercrime law is in urgent need of updating, but this time the industry must be involved. More laws to fight cybercrime are likely to be counter-productive, but existing laws must be urgently updated if cyber-crime is to be effectively tackled, according to a leading IT thinktank. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109136,00.html - - - - - - - - House tackles digital piracy As U.S. House lawmakers on Thursday prepare to hear a progress report on discussions to solve digital content-protection issues, one consumer electronics maker said legislation to resolve the problems was "premature." The transition to digital has been slowed partly because of limited availability of digital programming, high-priced equipment needed to receive the signals, and the particularly prickly issue of potential piracy of content. http://news.com.com/2100-1023-892154.html Senators Urge Companies To Curb Privacy Bill Protests http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176142.html Long-Time File-Swappers Buy More Music, Not Less http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176141.html Feuding Industries Reach DTV Piracy Accord Entertainment and consumer electronics industry leaders have struck an agreement on standards for protecting digital TV broadcasts from piracy, industry representatives told Congress today. Executives from AOL Time Warner, News Corp., and Panasonic/Matsushita Electric today asked receptive House lawmakers for legislation to codify their agreement, expected to be finalized by an industry working group as early as May 17. The standards would prevent the unauthorized redistribution of digital TV programming, and would move broadcasters a step closer to meeting Congress' deadline for shifting to digital programming by 2006. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176149.html - - - - - - - - DoubleClick case teaches a lesson in online privacy DoubleClick, a New York-based Internet advertising services firm, announced it reached an agreement to settle all federal and state class-action privacy litigation lawsuits against it. The lawsuits stem from complaints that DoubleClick collected Internet users' clickstream data from its network of partners and began tying such information to the users' personal identities (names and addresses). http://www.techrepublic.com/article_guest.jhtml?id=r00620020424ern01.htm - - - - - - - - HHS awards contract to iDefense for cyberthreat protection The Health and Human Services Department has awarded a $100,000, one-year contract to iDefense Inc. to help safeguard its systems from threats such as viruses, worms and hackers. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18454-1.html - - - - - - - - Dr. Damn cleans house for file-swappers The record companies had their Napster, and the stream of file-swapping companies that followed. The file-swapping companies now have their "Dr. Damn." For the past several weeks, the pseudonymous programmer, who says he's a male college student and declines to give his real name, has been releasing versions of popular file-swapping programs online with the advertising and user-tracking features stripped out. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-891761.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109138,00.html http://news.com.com/2100-1023-891724.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/743475.asp - - - - - - - - Microsoft Yanks Office Tools After Security Report Microsoft has removed a collection of tools for its Office suite following an independent report that the tools may open security vulnerabilities. According to a series of April 8 advisories from Israel's GreyMagic Security, the latest versions of Microsoft's Office Web Components (OWC) can enable malicious Web sites or e-mails to perform several attacks. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176138.html - - - - - - - - Creeps, crime and online dating Web no more risky than the real world when looking for love. A recent news report out of Japan finds that crime linked to online dating sites is on the rise. Headline news analysis: Creeps and weirdoes may log on, yes, but hey, they dont dwell only on the Internet. Dont blame the pixels. http://www.msnbc.com/news/743744.asp - - - - - - - - PDA virus protection: Are your users' devices safe? Some PDA devices function as a cellular phone, pager, or even a laptop replacement, which provides more connectivity and power, but puts users at an increased risk for virus infection. Three bits of malicious code in particular have targeted Palm devices: the Liberty Crack Trojan horse and the Phage and Vapor viruses. This article will explore existing mechanisms for virus transmittal over PDAs and look at three different antivirus products available for the PDA. http://www.techrepublic.com/article_guest.jhtml?id=r00320020422crd01.htm - - - - - - - - Ignorance hampers e-government drive The National Audit Office warns that one in six government departments still aren't online, and urges the e-envoy to focus on e-government implementation. The government is ignorant about the costs and benefits of putting public services online, and is not doing enough to learn from the experiences of people who are using existing government Web sites, according to an official report released on Thursday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2109139,00.html Knowledge Management Worst http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0422/web-know-04-25-02.asp E-Gov Theme: "Collect Once Use Many" http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0422/web-egov-04-25-02.asp *********************************************************** 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. 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