May 20, 2002 'DrinkorDie' leader heads to prison Another leader of the international software piracy ring has been sent to jail in the US. The leader of "DrinkorDie", one of the oldest and largest international software piracy rings on the Internet, was sentenced on Friday to three years and eight months in prison for conspiring to commit copyright infringement, US officials said. They said John Sankus, 28, of Philadelphia, whose screen name was HellFire spelt backward, received the sentence as part of plea agreement reached with prosecutors in February. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110500,00.html - - - - - - - - UK police launch new paedophile raids More than 30 people in the UK have been arrested on suspicion of accessing US paedophile Web sites. Officers from 30 forces took part in the raids, which were coordinated by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). They were tipped off by US authorities, which passed on details of people suspected of subscribing to paedophile Web sites between May 1999 and summer of 2001. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25364.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110524,00.html - - - - - - - - Internet pharmacy charged with filling Rx's without a license In recent years, busloads of Americans have crossed into Canada to buy cheaper prescription drugs with help from Canadian doctors. Now many of those customers, mostly senior citizens facing large medicine bills, make that trip by the Internet, creating a growing industry that is attracting the attention of regulators. On May 14, the Ontario College of Pharmacists filed the province's first charges against a Web site selling prescription drugs, accusing it of doing so without a license. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/406178p-3235285c.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/05/20/internet-pharmacies.htm - - - - - - - - Ford US in grand theft automated Ford has warned 13,000 US consumers that their credit history has been illegally obtained by identity thieves posing as the motor manufacturer's credit lending arm. The data, believed to include details of Social Security numbers, bank and credit card account information, was obtained by criminals between April 2001 and February this year through enquiries to a credit reference database run by Experian. It's feared information might be used to apply for bogus loans or in credit card fraud. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/25359.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17826.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110498,00.html - - - - - - - - Altnet wakes up as worm spreads through KaZaA A worm is spreading through the KaZaA file sharing network: we hope it's unrelated to today's activation of the controversial Altnet piggy-back P2P network. The worm, dubbed Benjamin, creates a directory accessible to other users of the KaZaA network and regularly copies itself into this directory under a multitude of different names. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/25365.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-917712.html http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131898 http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176684.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176662.html http://news.com.com/2100-1001-918132.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110505,00.html http://online.securityfocus.com/news/428 - - - - - - - - Klez worm refuses to die A month after it started spreading, the Klez.h worm isn't slowing down - plus it's creating a flood of warnings from gateway antivirus software telling the wrong people they're infected. It may only be a matter of time before you're accused of spreading the Klez virus. A month after it started spreading, the Klez.h worm isn't slowing down, said antivirus experts on Friday. Moreover, the worm's technique of forging the address of the sender on each infected e-mail message is creating a flood of warnings from gateway antivirus software informing the wrong people that they are infected. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110497,00.html - - - - - - - - Movie pirates pounce "Shaun" didn't need to wait in line last week to be among the first to see "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones." Instead, he joined hundreds of thousands of digital line-jumpers who downloaded an illegal copy of the movie off the Internet days before the film's official opening. "The quality was poor, but watchable," he cheerfully reports in an e-mail from England. The 30-something Shaun says he has been downloading the film industry calls it stealing movies for years because films released in the United States often take months to reach England. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3301079.htm - - - - - - - - Cyberspace-scouring cops accused of suppressing online expression A Web site devoted to homosexual issues in Egypt includes this warning: ``Guess who's watching? Egyptian State Security!'' Egypt's gays, an ongoing police target, aren't the only Web surfers who should beware. In recent months, Egyptian police also arrested a Web designer who posted a poem deemed politically suspect and a student who used the Internet to spread what officials said were false rumors. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3298224.htm - - - - - - - - Minnesota governor to decide fate of Internet privacy bill Minnesota's House and Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill that backers say would make the state the first to give Internet users control over whether service providers disclose their personal information. Gov. Jesse Ventura will now decide its fate. He has not indicated a position on the bill. Sen. Steve Kelley, a Democrat, described the bill as something that would help consumers without burdening Internet service providers. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/407155p-3246270c.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3296863.htm - - - - - - - - Senate Panel OKs More Cybercrime Dollars The Senate Commerce Committee today voted to increase funding for anti-cybercrime programs, despite claims from software and high-tech groups that last-minute changes to the bill could stifle innovation. The "Cyber Security Research and Development Act," sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), would give $970 million over five years to the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology to improve government computer and network security. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34564-2002May17.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176661.html - - - - - - - - Late changes to a security R&D bill call for NIST cybersecurity office The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee late last week passed an IT security research bill that would create a cybersecurity office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The bill, S 2182, now awaits a vote by the full Senate. During markup, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) amended the Cybersecurity R&D Act, boosting proposed five-year funding from $875 million to $977 million, to better focus government and industry efforts to improve network and software security. Changes in the bill also would give more responsibilities to the Commerce Departments NIST and the National Science Foundation to promote cybersecurity research. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18706-1.html - - - - - - - - Critics Balk At Bill To Hide Companies' Security Data The U.S. Justice Department and public advocacy groups last week raised objections to a bill designed to encourage companies to share vulnerability data, saying it would shield disclosures from the Freedom of Information Act. The Critical Infrastructure Information Security Act of 2001, now before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, would encourage companieswhich generally have been less than forthcomingto share vulnerability information with each other and with the government. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176674.html http://online.securityfocus.com/news/425 - - - - - - - - FBI counting on IT vs. terrorism The FBI is in the midst of a major reorganization to improve its ability to combat terrorism, and it is counting on information technology and technology specialists to better detect and deter terrorist attacks. By the end of summer, the bureau aims to hire 900 new agents, including computer scientists and other IT specialists. The FBI also plans increased use of such technologies as data mining to detect terrorist threats and is setting up an Office of Intelligence in Washington, D.C., to focus on better "strategic analysis" of information collected about terrorists. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0520/web-fbi-05-20-02.asp Agencies find it's not getting the information, it's how you use it http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0502/051702nj1.htm - - - - - - - - State tests info sharing The State Department launched a pilot project last week in India and Mexico to share information across agencies, using technology to plug security holes such as the kind that allowed some of the Sept. 11 hijackers to obtain U.S. visas. The network was in development before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but State sped its deployment after the attacks and amid disclosures that information about some of the terrorists had been available in law enforcement databases. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0520/news-state-05-20-02.asp - - - - - - - - Washington cooks up anti-spam bill Wham bam, thank you Uncle Sam. A bill aimed at curbing the menace of unsolicited email, or spam, has been passed by the US Senate Commerce Committee. The legislation, which had the unanimous support of both Republicans and Democrats, will enable the Federal Trade Commission to prosecute spammers and levy fines of up to $10 per email with a cap of $500,000. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131882 - - - - - - - - Cadets Keep NSA Crackers At Bay Cadets and midshipmen from the nations military service academies faced off last month in real- world cybercombat. They used all their skills to keep production networks up and running while under attack by National Security Agency experts. In the end, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point kept the coveted NSA Information Assurance Directors Trophy it won last year. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176675.html http://online.securityfocus.com/news/427 - - - - - - - - Government buys virus blocking from MessageLabs The Government has signed up managed services firm. MessageLabs to protect Whitehall departments against mass-mailing viruses, in a deal worth over PS1 million a year. The GSI (Government Secure Intranet), which provides the secure network infrastructure for all Government departments, decided to take on additional anti-virus protection due to the recent growth in mass mailing virus outbreaks. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/25351.html - - - - - - - - Microsoft Denies IE Patch Problems Reported flaw in latest security fix may actually be a new hole in the browser itself, software giant says. Problems that researchers claim went unfixed in an Internet Explorer security patch released last week may expose a potential new vulnerability, a Microsoft official says. Scott Culp, manager of Microsoft's Security Response Center, says the issues reported to the NTBugtraq mailing list expose a potential new vulnerability that appears similar "from the outside" to previous vulnerabilities when in fact, it affects a different piece of IE code. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,100144,00.asp http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/05/20/ie.patch.flawed.idg/index.html - - - - - - - - New Internet filing-sharing system to launch Ace Ha and Sammy Brazil of the emerging hip-hop group MaddWest don't mind listeners passing around their music for free over the Internet. They just want a little control. The Altnet file-sharing system launches Monday to give MaddWest and other artists a greater role in the otherwise free-for-all world of peer-to-peer networking. Users could trade music, video and other files among themselves just as they do with KaZaA, LimeWire and others. But with Alnet, songs will be coded with digital rights management technology so artists can limit distribution, or even collect fees before a song will play. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/407128p-3246006c.html http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/2002/05/20/altnet.htm http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,52608,00.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/754753.asp http://news.com.com/2100-1023-917348.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110495,00.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/05/20/legal.file.swapping.ap/index.html - - - - - - - - Bad Company You don't have much choice in anti-virus products if you make your purchasing decisions based on Consumer Reports. In 1991, essayist Paul Fussell wrote, "The current United States can be defined as an immense accumulation of not terribly acute or attentive people obliged to operate a uniquely complex technology, which, all other things being equal, always wins." http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/83 - - - - - - - - Cyber Eye: The Trick To Security: Make It Easy The case of rogue agent Robert Hanssen shows that the FBI apparently forgot two basic rules of intelligence. The first rule: Never trust a spy theyre sneaky. The second: Information security must be user-friendly or the users wont use it. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176683.html - - - - - - - - Tagging Books to Prevent Theft For reference librarians, scanning endless bar codes is as tedious a daily task as dealing with stolen, lost or overdue library books. Now, a wafer-thin, microchip-based tag the size of a postage stamp could ease their workloads. Librarians can affix materials with security tags that contain microchips and an antenna that transmits information to a wireless reader using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52493,00.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.