December 4, 2002
Bush signs child Net safety law
President George W. Bush on Tuesday signed into
law legislation to create a new kids-safe "dot-kids"
domain on the Internet. "Every site designated
'dot-kids' will be a safe zone for children,"
Bush said in a small Roosevelt Room signing
ceremony for the domain legislation. "We must
give our nation's children every opportunity
to grow in knowledge without undermining their
character. ... We must give parents the peace
of mind knowing their children are learning
in safety."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/12/04/kids.internet.ap/index.html
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56703,00.html
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/659378p-4947354c.html
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L.A. man charged with scamming eBay buyers
A Los Angeles man was charged Wednesday with
defrauding eBay buyers on six continents in
what prosecutors called one of the largest
Internet auctions scams uncovered. Chris Chong
Kim, 27, was charged with four counts of grand
theft and 26 counts of holding a mock auction
for allegedly failing to deliver the high-end
computers and computer parts he sold on his
eBay business site, Calvin Auctions.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4664869.htm
http://www.msnbc.com/news/843312.asp
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-12-04-ebay-scam_x.htm
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UK government minister joins pirate raids
The culture minister has joined a raid by Trading
Standards on a suspected distributor of pirated
games software UK culture minister Kim Howells
has attended a dawn raid on an address used to
distribute pirated games software. In the early
hours of Wednesday morning Kim Howells, culture
minister for the UK, joined a raid being led by
Cardiff Trading Standards on an address in Cardiff,
Wales. Further raids have also been conducted
across the UK today at addresses in Barking,
London, Oldham, and Blaenavon.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2127032,00.html
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Gov't: ElcomSoft software for thieves
A government attorney kicked off the ElcomSoft trial
Tuesday by characterizing the company's software
as a tool for thieves. "This case is about selling
a burglar tool for software in order to make
a profit," assistant U.S. attorney Scott Frewing
told jurors in a federal courtroom in San Jose,
Calif. The Russian company is charged with five
counts of offering and marketing software designed
to crack Adobe's eBooks, actions prosecutors say
violate digital copyright laws.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-975916.html
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56703,00.html
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Backed by court order, Danish anti-piracy group bills file-swappers
A Danish anti-piracy group has sent invoices
to hundreds of people whose names it obtained
by court order, demanding payment for music,
movies and games they downloaded from the
Internet. The AntiPiratGruppen, a Copenhagen-
based organization funded by Danish entertainment
companies, billed more than 150 private users,
schools and companies that it said downloaded
material from file-sharing sites like KaZaA
and eDonkey last month.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4659175.htm
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2127007,00.html
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1137330
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/12/04/file.sharers.ap/index.html
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Random House settles e-book lawsuit
Random House has settled a lawsuit against an
e-book publisher that was selling digital versions
of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and seven other
popular titles. RosettaBooks will continue publishing
the disputed works, which predate the rise of the
Internet, and will collaborate with Random House
on additional books. But the settlement announced
Wednesday leaves unresolved the issue of whether
authors or publishers control e-rights to books
when the contract has no specific language about
the electronic format.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002-12-04-ebook-rights_x.htm
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/659194p-4946407c.html
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A Move to Muzzle E-Mail
A court may decide if a fired employee's mass
messaging to Intel workers is legal or electronic
'trespassing' on the firm's system. Ken Hamidi lost
his job at Intel Corp. after a long fight over
a worrkers compensation claim, but he did not go
quietly. The engineer, 55, formed a support group
for current and past Intel workers. He then sent
six waves of e-mails critical of the company's
labor practices to thousands of the firm's employees.
(LA Times article, free registration required)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-email4dec04004441,0,483904.story
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"Security warning" ads draw lawsuit
Web advertisements that masquerade as pop-up
"security alert" windows generated by a surfer's
computer or browser are the subject of a new class-
action lawsuit, which aims to rid the Internet of
the deceptive banners. The lawsuit, filed Nov. 25
in the Superior Court of Washington State, is one
of the first to bring public discontent over some
type of Internet advertising to the courtroom.
It charges San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based Bonzi
Software with hoodwinking millions of Internet
users into clicking to its Web site via the ads.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-976090.html
http://www.msnbc.com/news/843365.asp
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28422.html
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Burglars target 'out of office' emails
Thieves using 'out of office' auto-reply emails
to find empty homes. Thieves are using information
contained in 'out of office' auto-reply emails
and cross-referencing it with publicly available
personal information to target empty houses.
The warning comes from UK blue chip user group
The Infrastructure Forum (Tif), which uncovered
details of the scam from a meeting of its members.
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1137316
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16 U.S. agencies flunk computer security review
In a scathing report released Friday, the U.S.
congressional Subcommittee on Government Efficiency,
Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations
flunked 16 federal agencies on their computer
security efforts, while giving barely passing
grades to a host of other agencies. "It is
disappointing to announce that the federal
government has received a failing grade on
its security efforts," Subcommittee Chairman
Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.) said in his opening
remarks upon presenting the annual computer
security report card.
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,65589,00.html
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Preparing the Net for terrorist attacks
The Internet's resilience after the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks may make the system appear
invincible to physical damage, but experts
warn that the Net must be a part of any
disaster recovery plan. While Americans
struggled with jammed telephone networks,
backup systems compensated for crucial
Internet facilities damaged in the attack
in Manhattan, and e-mail and Internet traffic
flowed well, says a report released in late
November by the National Academy of Sciences,
a private, nonprofit research group.
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,76371,00.html
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Security Firm Rewrites Rules on Disclosing Flaws
After being criticized for releasing information
too early, Internet Security Systems will change
the way it reports software problems. Internet
Security Systems, which has been criticized for
publicly releasing information about security
problems in software before giving application
developers time to deal with holes, has issued
a revised set of guidelines for how it will
handle security warnings.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,107573,00.asp
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Sybase patches three security holes
Sybase Inc. has issued a security patch for three
vulnerabilities affecting the newest versions of
its database software that could allow a malicious
hacker to gain control of a Sybase server and run
arbitrary code on it. Sybase said it wasn't aware
of any systems that have been affected by the
problem, but advised customers to download and
install the patches, which were made available
on its Web site last week.
http://www.idg.net/ic_968602_5055_1-2793.html
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'Jurassic Park' author wins control of Internet name
Best-selling author Michael Crichton, who wrote
Jurassic Park and created the television series
ER, has won control of the Internet name
www.michaelcrichton.com in a ruling by a United
Nations panel. The panel ordered the transfer
of the domain name to Crichton after he complained
to the World Intellectual Property Organization
that it was being used illegally.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2002-12-04-crichton-site_x.htm
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Vendors complete tougher ICSA 4.0 firewall tests
ICSA Labs, which provides one of the most important
certifications firewall vendors strive for, said
yesterday it has completed the first wave of tests
of product against version 4.0 of its certification
criteria, writes Kevin Murphy. For the first time,
ICSA has also split its certification into three
categories and is awarding three different
certification logos - for residential, small and
medium business, and corporate firewall products.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/28417.html
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Does Cybercrime Still Pay?
Jeff Moss, a.k.a. The Dark Tangent and founder
of DefCon, the largest annual hacker convention
in the United States, said companies no longer
hire hackers who have a police record. It is the
stuff of IT lore -- a hacker Latest News about
hacker is caught breaking into a company's systems
and is given two options: Take a job with the
company or face prosecution. But are such tactics
still in use, or do malicious hackers now face
nothing but a career dead end?
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20146.html
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Holiday E-Cards: Handle With Care
As an experienced intellectual property lawyer,
Thomas Parent is no stranger to the perils of
computer viruses sent through e-mail. Usually
he won't bother to read an attachment if it comes
from an unfamiliar source, fearing that the e-mail
may be corrupted. This time, however, Parent let
his guard down. When he received an electronic
greeting card recently from one of his trusted
clients, he opened it immediately and clicked
on the end-user agreement without reading the
fine print.
http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,56462,00.html
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An Inside Look at China Filters
We now know what China's "Great Firewall" looks
like, brick by brick. As expected, pro-democracy,
Taiwanese and Tibetan sites are strictly off-limits
to Chinese Internet users. So are health sites,
Web pages from U.S. universities, online comic
books and science-fiction fan centers and the
Jewish Federation of Winnipeg's Internet home.
"We found blocking of almost every kind of content,"
Edelman said. "If it exists, China blocks at least
some of it."
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,56699,00.html
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