July 30, 2002 Ex-Cisco exec pleads guilty to fraud A former Cisco Systems Inc. executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges he diverted about $50 million of Cisco-owned stock and company funds into personal accounts in the Bahamas. Robert Gordon, 43, of Palo Alto pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose to two counts of wire fraud and one count of insider trading in connection with the multimillion-dollar embezzling scheme. Gordon could face up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 29, but as part of a plea agreement, prosecutors and defense attorneys indicated they will seek a five- to nine-year term allowed under federal sentencing guidelines. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/483644p-3861070c.html - - - - - - - - MD man snaps up al-Qaida Web site for FBI use, but agency misses chance Internet pro hijacks al-Qaida web site When Web operator Jon Messner gained control of one of al-Qaida's prime Internet communication sites, he offered it to the FBI to use it for disinformation and collecting data about sympathizers. What followed, he says, was a week of frustration. FBI agents struggled to find someone with enough technical know-how to set up the sting. By the time they did, the opportunity was lost as militant Islamic Web users figured out the site was a decoy, said Messner of Ocean City, Md. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/483377p-3859830c.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18828.html http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134041 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3767249.htm - - - - - - - - Princeton chief condemns Web snooping Princeton University's president has condemned the unauthorized visits from admissions office computers to a Yale University Web site for prospective students. In a message posted Monday on Princeton's Web site, President Shirley Tilghman said "basic ethical principles of privacy and confidentiality are at stake here. Violations of these principles ... must not, and will not, be tolerated." Yale officials have found 18 unauthorized log-ins to their site that were traced to computers at Princeton, including 14 from computers in its admissions office. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/482949p-3857039c.html Princeton Apologizes for Web Breach http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18705-2002Jul29.html - - - - - - - - Recording industry Web site swamped after anti-pirating proposal In an apparently deliberate denial-of-service attack, an onslaught of traffic crippled the Web site for the Recording Industry Association of America over the weekend. The disruptions began Friday, a day after Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed giving the entertainment industry broad new powers - including deliberately interfering with file-sharing programs - to try to stop people from downloading pirated music and movies. http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/483384p-3859845c.html - - - - - - - - UK hospital page becomes porn site Webmaster mistakenly shifts Internet address Patients trying to view the Web site of a United Kingdom hospital instead found themselves watching hardcore German pornography. Instead of information about Queen's Hospital in Burton upon Trent, visitors unwittingly downloaded adult material after the site's webmaster in the United States reallocated its Internet address to another company. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/07/30/porn.reut/index.html - - - - - - - - Copyright thieves face tougher law Copyright thieves, including those producing decoding technologies, are to face harsher sentences in the UK. A Bill extending the maximum penalty for copyright theft from two years to 10 years, gained Royal Assent last Friday after its introduction in April. It is set to become law in the autumn. The Copyright, etc. and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Bill was introduced by Liberal Democrat MP and shadow Trade and Industry Spokesman, Dr Vincent Cable, and was well received by the Commons and the Lords. http://www.vnunet.com/News/1134048 - - - - - - - - Internet Companies Seek Insurance against 'Denials of Service' American International Group, a known name in the field, has issued more than 2,000 policies, but if you ask companies about cyberinsurance, many will say they've never heard of it. In February 2000, online hackers launched what's known as a "denial of service" attack, shutting down eBay, Amazon.com CNN.com and other major Web sites for as long as three hours. By some estimates, the event cost the companies $1.2 billion. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18804.html - - - - - - - - Internet privacy: The danger of good intentions The government's preferred method of dealing with the challenges posed by technology by simply passing new legislation is now spilling over into the debate over Internet privacy. Even though legislation on this issue is not likely to be passed this year, the outcome of the ongoing conversation will have a significant impact. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-947161.html - - - - - - - - Assessing Internet Security Risk, Part Three: This article is the third in a series that is designed to help readers to assess the risk that their Internet-connected systems are exposed to. In the first installment, we established the reasons for doing a technical risk assessment. In the second part, we started to discuss the methodology that we follow in performing this kind of assessment. In this installment, we will continue to discuss methodology, particularly visibility and vulnerability scanning. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1612 Assessing Internet Security Risk, Part One: http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1591 Assessing Internet Security Risk, Part Two: http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1607 - - - - - - - - VPN users: The weakest link Virtual private networks have generated their share of security concerns, but the focus has been primarily on flaws in VPN protocols and configurations. Although those issues are important, the most significant security threat in any VPN setup is the individual remote telecommuter making a VPN connection from home or an employee on the road with a laptop and the ability to connect to the corporate office via VPN. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2875784,00.html - - - - - - - - Protect against "ghost" workers Ghosts of millions of former workers populate the databases of corporate America. The workers have moved on, but their ghosts linger, awaiting a hacker intent on using the ghost's identity to damage the company's network systems. These electronic ghosts include former employees and contractors who are no longer on the payroll but still have access to company resources, systems, and accounts. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2875323,00.html - - - - - - - - What do Boy Scouts have in common with hot gay sex videos? Type in "Boy Scout" in the query box of the UK web site of Ask Jeeves and up pops an ad for "hot gay sex videos". Hit the refresh button and you get another ad promoting a hardcore gay pornography website and another and another. We clicked on the ads and some of the pictures on the front pages of the web sites were very explicit. Ask Jeeves, a family web site which advertises its services on British television, joins a long, ignoble list of Internet portals promoting pornography to children. By mistake, granted. But bad ad targeting is no excuse. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26445.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. 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