NewsBits for December 19, 2003 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ Ohio man pleads guilty in Internet piracy sting An Ohio man on Friday became the 15th person to plead guilty to federal charges in an Internet piracy ring that sold million of dollars worth of stolen computer software, games and movies. The Internet piracy ring dubbed ``Rogue Warriorz'' included 21 people from 14 states and Canada. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/7532822.htm - - - - - - - - - - Spammers Surrender to Authorities Two men charged with running one of the most prolific spamming operations in the world surrendered this afternoon to authorities in Loudoun County, Va. Jeremy Jaynes was extradited from North Carolina, while Richard Rutkowski worked out a surrender through his lawyer. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15682-2003Dec19.html - - - - - - - - - - US extradites Ukrainian 'spoof pioneer' A man accused of selling counterfeit software and pioneering Web-spoofing crimes has been arrested in Thailand and will be extradited to the US. A Ukrainian man accused of racking up millions of dollars worth of damage in counterfeit software sales and other computer crimes was ordered to be extradited to the US by a Thai criminal court on Tuesday. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39118692,00.htm http://www.silicon.com/software/security/0,39024655,39117428,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Techie flees with software The cyber crime police have registered a case against an employee of a software firm, who allegedly stole confidential software and source codes of a product the firm is developing. He is now absconding. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/368180.cms - - - - - - - - - - Man, 55, sentenced to 15 years for child porn A 55-year-old Grand Prairie man who was sharing child pornography on the Internet was sentenced to 15 years in prison this week. Lawrence Hale pleaded guilty to three charges of promotion of child pornography. District Judge Elizabeth Berry sentenced Hale after accepting his plea. Prosecutor Marty Purselley said Hale was running a file-sharing program on the Internet that advertised an "extensive child pornography collection." Hale was arrested after authorities in Pennsylvania and Illinois received tips about the Grand Prairie man's business. "Sentences like this will definitely deter others who are trading child pornography," Purselley said. http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/7515649.htm - - - - - - - - - - Forest Hills Man Sentenced To Four Years After Internet Sting A Forest Hills man has been sentenced to up to four years in prison for having sexually explicit online conversations with someone he believed was a 12-year-old girl. However, what William Burgess, 43, of 67th Road did not know, was that the young girl he solicited for sex was actually a United States Secret Service agent conducting an undercover sting operation. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10683458&BRD=1863&PAG=461&dept_id=152656&rfi=6 - - - - - - - - - - Grand jury indicts MI man who fled with British schoolgirl A federal grand jury has returned a four-count indictment against a former Marine from Michigan who fled England with a 12-year-old British girl he met on the Internet, authorities said. U.S. Attorney Margaret M. Chiara and Willie T. Hulon, Detroit FBI Special Agent in Charge, jointly announced Thursday the indictment of Toby T. Studabaker, 32. http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1570643&nav=0RceJlUs - - - - - - - - - - Internet porn leads to arrest A Boynton Beach man, who told police he downloaded child pornography images then dumped them after they questioned him, turned himself in Thursday. Andrew Manning, 33, of Via De Casas Norte, was arrested on charges of possession and transmission of child porn. He was being booked in the county jail late Thursday. Detectives first went to Manning's home Sept. 29 after receiving a Cyber- Tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pporn19dec19,0,2927582.story - - - - - - - - - - Child porn charges 'fatally flawed' A PERTH magistrate is considering whether to dismiss the charges against a former private school principal accused of accessing child pornography on his work computer. John Bednall, the former head of exclusive boys school Wesley College, was due to stand trial yesterday but the case was adjourned after his lawyer, Tom Percy QC, argued it was "fatally flawed". Mr Percy said his client could not prepare a proper defence because the police were unable to specify the date the alleged offence occurred and exactly what material had been accessed. http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,8209362%255E2761,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Name suppression granted to man on child porn charges A Lower Hutt man's identity is being kept secret after he was convicted of importing child porn videos and downloading Internet images of "the youngest victims" Internal Affairs has seen. His name suppression was based on his undergoing counselling. However, an internet watchdog says the counsellor concerned was understood not to be an expert in helping child sex offenders so the counselling might not be effective. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2761540a11,00.html - - - - - - - - - - US demands compensation from hacker The US is demanding PS21,000 in compensation from a teenage hacker who infiltrated computer systems at a US government nuclear physics research laboratory. The compensation demand, believed to be the first time an organisation has used the UK criminal courts to recover the costs of repairing hacked computer systems, could set a precedent for future prosecutions against computer criminals. http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=127341 http://www.silicon.com/software/security/0,39024655,39117433,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - BankRI customer information stolen along with laptop Bank Rhode Island's CEO said today that her IT department plans to install encryption and fraud- detection software on computers after a laptop containing the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of about 43,000 customers was stolen from its principal data-processing provider, Fiserv Inc. http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,88443,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Court rejects subpoenas to ID downloaders The recording industry can't force Internet providers to identify music downloaders, a federal appeals court said Friday in a major decision shielding online privacy while undercutting the industry's anti-piracy campaign. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/7532391.htm http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61670,00.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5129687.html http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/19/music.download.reut/index.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34616.html Dutch Supreme Court rejects suit against makers of Kazaa http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/7532534.htm http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,61672,00.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-12-19-kazaa-dutch_x.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34613.html Music industry promises no P2P let-up http://www.vnunet.com/News/1151673 - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft, Spitzer Sue E-Mail Marketers Microsoft Corp. and New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer filed lawsuits against a group of e-mail marketers that they said were responsible for sending billions of fraudulent spam messages. Defendants in the civil lawsuits include Synergy6 Inc. of New York and Scott Richter, who runs Westminster, Colo.-based Optinrealbig.com. Richter rejected the claims; representatives from Synergy6 declined to comment. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/7524483.htm http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-rup19.1dec19,1,1123219.story http://www.securitypipeline.com/news/showArticle.jhtml%3Bjsessionid=ZH0LUBW5P0BU0QSNDBCSKHY?articleId=17000373 http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/12/19/spam.suit.ap/index.html http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22896.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-12-18-spam-suits_x.htm http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2003/dec/dec18b_03.html - - - - - - - - - - Chinese gamer wins suit over 'virtual theft' A Chinese court has ordered an online video game company to return hard-won virtual property, including a make-believe stockpile of bio-chemical weapons, to a player whose game account was looted by a hacker. Li Hongchen, 24, had spent two years, and 10,000 yuan ($1,210) on pay-as-you-go cards to play, amassing weapons and victories in the popular online computer game Hongyue, or Red Moon, before his "weapons" were stolen in February, the Xinhua news agency said on Friday. http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1105_2-5129676.html http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/fun.games/12/19/china.gamer.reut/index.html - - - - - - - - - - Australia's Spam Act to become law in April Australia's Spam Act will come into law on April 11, 120 days after receiving Royal Assent, the federal government announced Friday. The Minister for Information Technology and Communications, Daryl Williams, said in a statement that the legislated grace period will give businesses "time to adjust their practices where necessary." http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5129683.html - - - - - - - - - - Cayam Worm Angles For eBay Account Info Another phishing expedition appeared on the Internet Thursday, this one dubbed W32/Cayam and targeting eBay users. Cayam, which poses as a message from eBay with a subject heading reading 'Verify your eBay account information,' actually contains a worm in its attached file. When that attachment is opened, the worm displays several legitimate- looking screens that ask the user to enter his eBay user ID and password, then complete a seemingly official form. http://www.internetweek.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml%3Bjsessionid=FBI114QGTLOLWQSNDBGCKHQ?articleID=17000361 - - - - - - - - - - Sober worm resurfaces The Sober worm, which caused a big headache for companies at the end of October, has returned. W32.Sober.B@mm is virtually identical to its predecessor and has been rated as low to medium risk. However, the opportunity remains for major e-mail problems if system administrators are unprepared. The worm, which was released from Germany and affects Windows operating systems, relies on classic user curiosity. While Sober.A pretended to come from an anti-virus company, headings for Sober B include "George W. Bush plans new war" and "Have you been hacked?". http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=127323 - - - - - - - - - - The Most Destructive Viruses of All Time With the SQL Slammer virus, more than 500,000 servers worldwide were infected, there was a general slowdown all over the Internet, and many corporations took their systems offline altogether. South Korea was hit so badly that much of the nation's fixed-line and mobile Internet users were unable to access Web sites for about 12 hours. http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/32422.html - - - - - - - - - - FinCEN data sharing yields leads on financial crimes An information-sharing program that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network administers has provided many leads, some of which have led to indictments, for terrorist financing and money laundering, the Treasury Department said today. Through Treasurys FinCEN, federal law enforcement agencies can reach more than 29,000 financial institutions to locate accounts and transactions of persons or groups that may be involved in terrorist financing or money laundering. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/24474-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Now accepting new soldiers for Internet crime ring Taking advantage of unemployed and some gullible people, worldwide Internet crime rings are recruiting new members using online job postings. Many online job search sites have postings for "correspondence manager" openings and responders unknowingly end up taking part in a ring of identity theft, auction, and credit card fraud. http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1071722982.html - - - - - - - - - - Open-source IE patch hits trust barrier An open-source Web site has published a patch that could fix a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, but software developers and analysts are suspicious. Openwares.org, an open-source software development Web site, has posted a patch that purports to fix a critical vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, but software developers and analysts are advising against installing it. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39118696,00.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34610.html Open source IE patch withdrawn for further patching http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/34618.html - - - - - - - - - - Mitnick calls for hackers' war stories Notorious hacker Kevin Mitnick is collating tales of hackers' 'art' into a book. Famed hacker and master social engineer Kevin Mitnick has been commissioned to write a new book following the success of his first text The Art of Deception. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39118685,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Fears, abuse accompany proliferation of Internet maps Serial killer Maury Travis used an online mapping service to show a newspaper reporter where he dumped a body. A former Las Vegas exotic dancer convicted of stalking and harassing her ex-lover posted a map on the Web with directions to the married man's home. Internet mapping services are powerful and simple: Type a phone number into Google or other sites for a map with door- to-door directions. Finding someone has never been easier. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7693 - - - - - - - - - - Year in review: Linux under attack The SCO Group launched a lawsuit against IBM in 2003 that ballooned into a frontal assault on Linux and its legal foundations. Rumblings about the suit began in January, when struggling and unprofitable SCO started describing its SCOsource plan to derive money from its Unix intellectual property and the announcement that it hired high-profile attorney David Boies. But it wasn't until March that the company stunned the industry with a lawsuit against the Linux proponent with the loudest voice and the deepest pockets: IBM. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5128801.html *********************************************************** Computer Forensics Training - Online. An intense, 150 hour, instructor lead program that teaches you computer forensics and helps prepare you for the Certified Computer Examiner exam. For more information see; www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu *********************************************************** 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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