NewsBits for June 10, 2003 sponsored by,
Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu
************************************************************
Liquidation Universe owner arrested in alleged eBay scam
The owner of a South Salt Lake computer liquidation
company that allegedly bilked thousands of buyers
on the eBay Internet auction site has been arrested.
South Salt Lake police detective and spokesman Darin
Sweeten confirmed on Monday that the man had been
arrested Sunday, but he said he will not release
additional information until later this week.
The FBI and eBay are cooperating with South
Salt Lake police, he said.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-06-10-liquidation-universe-scam_x.htm
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Government warns banks about virus-like infection
The government is warning financial institutions about
a virus-like infection that has targeted computers at
roughly 1,200 banks worldwide, trying to steal corporate
passwords. The FBI is investigating what private security
experts believe to be the first Internet attack aimed
primarily at a single economic sector. Virus experts
studying the blueprints for the latest threat to Internet
users were astonished to find inside the software code
a list of roughly 1,200 Web addresses for many of the
world's largest financial institutions, including J.P.
Morgan Chase & Co., American Express Co., Wachovia Corp.,
Bank of America Corp. and Citibank N.A.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/6053623.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/06/10/virus.banks.ap/index.html
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59186,00.html
BugBear worm: New kind of crime?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/922529.asp
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Man gets jail time for collection of child porn
A Menomonee Falls father who downloaded hundreds of photos
of child pornography and e-mailed some to Internet porn
clubs has been sentenced to 10 months in jail. Michael
Horvath, 23, also must serve eight years on probation,
register as a sexual offender and attend sex offender
treatment, Waukesha County Circuit Judge James Kieffer
ordered. Horvath, who was arrested after a sting operation
by the U.S. Postal Service told the judge that he was
addicted to all pornography and that child pornography
was only a small part of his collection. "I just wanted
the biggest selection," Horvath said. "I am very ashamed
and sorry for my actions."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/jun03/146964.asp
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Trucker accused of 202 sex charges
An over-the-road truck driver accused of soliciting
parents over the Internet to have sex with their children
now faces 202 felony sex charges. A Warren County grand
jury indicted Michael Cooper, 30, of Elizabethtown, Ky,
Monday with 200 counts of pandering obscenity involving
a minor and two charges of importuning. County Prosecutor
Rachel Hutzel said half of the pandering charges involve
possession of child pornography; the remainder were for
allegedly taking the pictures across state lines in his
laptop. Cooper remains in the Warren County Jail in lieu
of $100,000 bail since his arrest in early May. A wary
mother in Akron, Ohio, called police after she saw Cooper's
request in a chat room, in which he used the screen name
"iwanttobeadad" and sent out messages seeking to meet
parents with kids in the Monroe area. The woman responded
to the messages, saying she had two kids under 12, and
Cooper arranged for her to meet him at the Super 8 Motel
off Interstate 75 in Monroe, police said. Officers found
him there along with a laptop computer that included
2,000 pictures of children in various sex acts.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/06/10/loc_warindict10.html
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N.J. Councilman Faces Child Porn Charges
A Brick Township councilman has been charged with
possessing and transporting child pornography. Steven
Cucci pleaded innocent to the charges in federal court
on Tuesday. Federal authorities say Cucci had images
of child pornography on his home computer and transmitted
them via his America Online account to another computer
user in Toms River in February 2002.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/61003-njchildporn.html
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Lakeland Man Faces Charges in Sex Case
A four-month investigation involving a Polk County sheriff's
detective posing as a 12-year-old girl ended Friday when
a Lakeland man was charged with soliciting a child for sex
over the Internet. George Sulfridge, 39, of Christy Lane,
was charged with four counts of soliciting a child for sex
and one count of attempted lewd battery, officials said.
He posted a $5,000 bail Saturday. Additional charges are
being considered, detectives said. The joint investigation
with the Clearwater Police Department began in January
when a Clearwater detective came across Sulfridge's name
during an Internet investigation.
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030610/NEWS/306100337/1004
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New child porn charges brought about L. Providence man
A Lower Providence man convicted of showing sexually
explicit photos of an underage girl to friends in 1993
will stand trial on new charges he possessed child porn
on his computer while living in Pottstown last year.
After a pretrial hearing in Montgomery County Court last
week, a trial was ordered for Christian J. Genuardi, 29,
of the 2700 block of Egypt Road, who is charged with five
counts of sexual abuse of children by possessing child
pornography in connection with a May 17, 2002, incident
in Pottstown.
http://www.pottstownmercury.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=8268606&BRD=1674&PAG=461&dept_id=18041&rfi=6
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Police crack down on Net pedophiles
Investigators recently went to the home of a man accused
of sexually abusing his grandson, looking for subtle clues
that could support the allegation. They did not have to
look long. "When we went to his home, the grandfather
had a child pornography picture as the screen saver on
his computer," said Capt. Darrell Stayton, head of the
Arkansas State Polices Crimes Against Children division.
"Not everyone is that helpful."
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/story_Arkansas.php?storyid=32423
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Universal Sees Red Over 'Hulk' Bootleg
In the Universal Pictures movie "The Hulk," mild-
mannered scientist Bruce Banner transforms into a
fearsome creature when seized with rage. Universal
executives had good cause to vent anger of their
own this weekend after a rough, early version of the
movie made its way onto the Internet just two weeks
before the June 20 premiere.
(LA Timnes article, free registration required)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-hulk10jun10,1,3527420.story
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Japans chilling Internet suicide pacts
New trend highlights social problems, mental health
crisis. The discovery Sunday of the bodies of four
young Japanese men in a car at a vista point near
Mount Fuji appears to be more evidence of a grim
new trend in the prosperous country group suicides
of strangers who meet over the Internet. The suicide
pacts, which have resulted in at least 18 deaths
since February, are shocking to experts, even in
a nation plagued by an astronomical suicide rate.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/922190.asp
Web falls short on suicide prevention
http://www.msnbc.com/news/924292.asp
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China tightening control over Internet cafes
China said on Tuesday it had given licenses to 10
local firms to open Internet cafe chains, a move
analysts said was designed to squeeze out smaller
players and tighten control of sensitive political
information. Most of the franchise licenses were
given to state-owned companies such as China
United Telecommunications, parent of China
Unicom, Great Wall Broadband Network Service
or those affiliated with the Ministry of Culture.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2003-06-10-china-net-cafes_x.htm
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Appeals Court May Hear Copyright Case
A federal appeals court may soon consider the
entertainment industry's copyright-infringement
claims against two popular online file-sharing
systems. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson
in Los Angeles cleared the way for the major
record labels, music publishers and movie studios
to appeal his preliminary ruling in favor of
the Morpheus and Grokster file-sharing networks,
without having to wait for a final decision in
the case.
(LA Times article, free registration required)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-rup10.9jun10,1,4057336.story
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High Court Refuses Sex.com Suit
A $65-million judgment will stand in a case over
a stolen domain name. The U.S. Supreme Court refused
to revive an adult-entertainment executive's bid to
avoid paying $65 million to the owner of the Sex.com
Web site for stealing the Internet address. The
justices turned down Stephen Michael Cohen's
argument that he should be allowed to appeal the
order that he pay Sex.com owner Gary Kremen for
acquiring the domain name through fraud.
(LA Times article, free registration required)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-sex10jun10,1,5692365.story
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Against the odds: Congress tackling online gambling
Forget porn; the hottest action online these days
is gambling, with an estimated 1,800 Web casinos
and gaming sites offering the promise of easy
money -- and all the action of Las Vegas or
Churchill Downs -- right from a personal computer.
With Congress about to vote on a federal law that
would halt the practice, more sites keep going
online, trying to lure customers with discounts,
bonus bucks, easy credit-card betting and even
free satellite-TV systems. The latest draw was
last Saturday's Belmont Stakes, with online sites
offering wagers on Funny Cide's eventually
unsuccessful bid to take the Triple Crown.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/6051310.htm
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1015475.html
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DOJ Net Surveillance Under Fire
The Justice Department's statements -- and what
it did not say -- in a congressional inquiry on the
use of broadened surveillance powers authorized after
the Sept. 11 attacks is raising a red flag among civil
liberties groups. A central concern is the lack of
clarity regarding the scope of Internet surveillance
powers granted in the controversial USA Patriot Act.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,59150,00.html
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Police to sign up IT special constables in war on hackers
Home Office plans on cybercrime strategy will pool
expertise from police, government and business.
The government will ask IT professionals to join
the police force as special constables to help
police track down hackers and virus writers,
if plans for a new national computer crime
strategy being considered in Whitehall get
the go-ahead. The Home Office is leading the
development of the strategy, which will look
at ways businesses, government bodies and law
enforcement agencies can pool resources to
fight the rising tide of computer crime.
http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=122475
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Spammers exploit Hotmail hole
Junk mailers breach WebDav implementation to generate
more automatic spam. Spammers are exploiting a little
known vulnerability in Microsoft's Hotmail service
to send more junk mail automatically. According to
an advisory posted last weekend by Chip Rosenthal,
of US systems developer Unicom, spammers have cracked
the Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDav)
interface which is used to send email to the
Hotmail servers.
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141514
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Is a new Trojan horse at the firewall?
IT security professionals have found evidence that
a stealthy new Trojan horse is infecting networks.
Traffic apparently generated by the as-yet-unnamed
malware was first reported in May by a security
analyst for a Defense Department contractor, said
Chris Hovis, director of product marketing for
Lancope Inc. of Atlanta. Lancope announced Monday
it had confirmed the behavior of suspicious packets
on its own honeynet and on the network of a large
university.
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/22371-1.html
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Hackers develop tools to thwart forensics
Anti-forensics tools and skills to thwart investigators
are emerging in the underground hacker scene. One example
is a class of programs called the Loadable Kernel Modules
(LKM) which, if used by hackers, can hide data even from
forensics experts. LKMs are files that contain components
that can run dynamically. Normally, LKMs are used to load
hardware drivers. Hackers can create LKM rootkits that
can access the kernel directly, while hiding processes,
connections, directories and files without modifying
the binaries of any program. A rootkit is a collection
of programs that a hacker uses to mask intrusion and
get access to a computer.
http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=122503
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Phone Networks Open Doors for Hackers
Corporate America spends untold amounts of time and
money every year to ensure that its data systems are
secure from cyberattacks, but there's one relatively
low-tech flank that is often lightly guarded -- office
telephone systems. Federal law-enforcement officials
said last week that they are tracking numerous reports
of hackers who gain access to corporate voice mail
and telephone systems to launch Internet attacks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39426-2003Jun10.html
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Spam Fight Unites Liberal, Conservatives
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York liberal who supports
gay and abortion rights, is teaming up with an unlikely
ally as he takes on annoying spam e-mails - the Christian
Coalition. For Schumer, the pragmatic alliance makes
sense to tap the conservative group's formidable clout
on Capitol Hill. For the Christian Coalition, it's a
chance to broaden its appeal to the political mainstream.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40537-2003Jun10.html
AOL spam petitions cut both ways
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-1015385.html
Yahoo sets up spam roadblock
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1015247.html
UK government urged to give spam the boot
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2135840,00.html
Spam will cost business $20.5bn this year
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141508
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Media chiefs express fears of digital piracy
For all of the new ways that digital technology and
high-speed Internet connections are making music and
movies available, many of the nation's media giants
remain profoundly fearful that online distribution
will open the door to massive piracy. At the National
Cable & Telecommunications Association annual meeting
here yesterday, AOL Time Warner chief executive Richard
D. Parsons and Viacom Inc. president Mel Karmazin --
appearing with the heads of Microsoft Corp. and Comcast
Corp. -- said solutions are urgently needed but may
take considerable time to be developed.
http://boston.com/business/tech_innovation/news/2003/06/10/digital_piracy.htm
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Wi-Fi Is Boost, Not Bane, to Secure Networks-Intel
High-speed wireless computer networks, or Wi-Fi,
are notoriously vulnerable to unauthorized intrusion,
but that may actually help to sell companies on the
need to embrace the technology. That counter-intuitive
logic, put forth by a leading promoter of the technology,
reflects a trend at many companies where employees are
taking part in the Wi-Fi computing craze whether their
employers are ready or not.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=2908076
Wireless Security Not an Oxymoron
http://wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/21700.html
Mobile spam: Is the next plague upon us?
http://silicon.com/news/165/1/4599.html
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Microsoft to Offer Own Antivirus Product
Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday it will acquire antivirus
technology from a Romanian software company and develop
its own antivirus product, stepping into a market it has
long ceded to others specializing in software security.
Microsoft signed an agreement to buy the intellectual
property and technology assets of antivirus software
and consulting firm GeCAD Software Srl. of Bucharest
for an undisclosed amount. Some of the company's software
developers will join Microsoft, but details haven't been
finalized, said Mike Nash, corporate vice president of
Microsoft's security business unit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40960-2003Jun10.html
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-1015096.html
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1122744,00.asp
http://www.msnbc.com/news/924836.asp
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59196,00.html
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2003-06-10-microsoft-antivirus_x.htm
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Industrial security gets a Linux lock
Control-system specialist Verano has introduced
a service and software package to help companies
protect their critical infrastructure from digital
attacks. The product, dubbed Industrial Defender,
aims to close holes in the security surrounding
control systems used by utility companies,
manufacturers and other industries. Verano
announced the first piece, a network monitoring
appliance and service, on Tuesday.
http://news.com.com/2100-1009_3-1015389.html
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Apple patches two Mac server holes
Apple Computer warned users on Monday that
security vulnerabilities had been found in the file-
sharing server software and the directory-services
software that are provided with the Mac OS X Server
operating system. When the server shares files that
use the network file system (NFS) or the Unix file
system (UFS) through the Apple File Service, a flaw
could allow a remote user to overwrite arbitrary
files, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company said.
When logging into the server's directory services,
the software could send the password in clear text,
not encrypted, as it should do.
http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1103_2-1014892.html
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DOD to pilot facility access card
The Defense Department is close to launching a
pilot program that would arm DOD employees and
contractors with a single access card for entering
any DOD facility. The pilot program is part of the
department's Defense Cross-credentialing Identification
System, which will consist of a collection of shared
government and contractor databases of personnel
information. The shared information will make it
easier for the department to manage who has access
to their facilities.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0609/web-dod-06-10-03.asp
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Hackers: who is who?
More than 80 thousand cases of cyberattacks have
been fixed in 2002 (hackers' attacks, information
thefts, etc.). Their number has sharply increased
in comparison with 2001, by then it has been fixed
about 58 thousand such infringements (hardly more
than 20 thousand - in 2000). The piracy copying
music, software, video and texts from the Internet
are expected to bring in an illegal income 112 billion
dollars by 2005. Unfortunately, the current official
statistics do not allow to get authentic data on
criminals attacking computer systems.
http://www.crime-research.org/eng/news/2003/06/Mess1001.html
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Whose Job Is It, Anyway?
Should there be a federal standard for encryption,
and if yes, who should enforce it--government or
industry? The debate rages on. (Well, sort of.)
One of the hottest topics in the digital economy
these days is intellectual property. It's amazing
how much passionate debate there is over copyrights
and patents. Advocates for the creators of digital
information and entertainment see threats to their
livelihood with every unauthorized download. Populist
consumer advocates see greedy profiteers every time
someone tries to stop them from accessing the info
they think should rightly be theirs.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/washington/0,15704,370982,00.html
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Net security becoming corporate priority: Survey
Internet security is slowly creeping up as a priority
among top corporate executives, a new study reveals.
The study, called Pulse of Internet Security in Canada,
shows that 73 per cent of Canadian "C-level" executives
are investing more in security than they were 18 months
ago.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030610.gtsecurityjune10/BNStory/Technology/
Survey: Security cuts both ways on IT plans
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0609nw500.html
Bugwatch: Integrating IT security
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141419
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Wired Slammed For Publishing Slammer Code
Some security experts are criticizing the decision
by Wired magazine to publish the complete source
code to the SQL Slammer worm in its July issue,
which hits newsstands Tuesday, saying it amounts
to an algorithm on how to wreak havoc on IT systems
worldwide. The Slammer worm struck the Internet
on Jan. 25, infected about 75,000 systems in about
10 minutes, and, according to several researchers,
cost an estimated $1 billion in damage and clean-up
costs. It was the fastest-spreading worm in Internet
history and struck unpatched Microsoft SQL Servers
or systems running Microsoft SQL Server Desktop
Engine 2000.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10300664
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Radio ID tags get Microsoft backing
update Microsoft is enlisting in a venture designed
to help develop standards for radio frequency tags
intended for use by retailers and manufacturers to
track goods. The software maker said Tuesday that
it will work with Auto ID, a joint venture of the
Uniform Code Council and EAN International, to
develop commercial and technical standards for
radio frequency ID (or RFID) tags.
http://news.com.com/2100-1020_3-1015058.html
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Surveillance video a `gift' to police in kidnap case
Surveillance cameras like the ones that gave police
critical details in the Friday kidnapping of a
9-year-old San Jose girl are no longer limited to
the wealthiest neighborhoods. Today, a four-camera
system similar to what neighbor Karen Kamfolt has
can be purchased and installed for about $1,500,
a bargain over high-end commercial systems that
can run tens of thousands of dollars.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6053107.htm
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Buck Stops for Web Panhandlers
Karyn was saved from a mountain of credit card
debt. Now Michel has gotten her boobs. Cal State
senior Michel (she wouldn't give her last name),
who launched giveboobs.com six months ago, stands
as the second notable Web celeb to have reaped
a financial windfall through so-called cyberbegging.
While Karyn Bosnak scored $13,000 through donations
to pay off her credit cards, Michel earned $4,500
to fund breast augmentation for her self-confessed
"itty-bitty" 34A chest.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59165,00.html
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