NewsBits for March 29, 2004 sponsored by, Southeast Cybercrime Institute - www.cybercrime.kennesaw.edu ************************************************************ SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT - Arnold Schwarzenegger's new Homeland Security Chief for California, Ron Iden, will be joining other dynamic presenters at this year's annual Silicon Valley Chapter training conference, May 11 - 13, 2004. Registration and blocked hotel room rates are limited. With less than six weeks left, organizers can not guarantee how long the availability will last. Those planning to attend should register on-line soon. On- line registration, conference and hotel information are all available at; http://htciatraining.org ************************************************************ Ukrainian hacker has been extradited to U.S. Government A Ukrainian man wanted in the United States for alleged multimillion dollar computer crimes was moved to a detention center Thursday ahead of his extradition to California to face court proceedings, an official said. Maksym Kovalchuk of Ternopil, Ukraine, smiled at journalists as he was taken in a caged truck from Bangkok Remand Prison to the Special Branch Police Bureau near Thailand's international airport. http://www.crime-research.org/news/27.03.2004/159 - - - - - - - - - - Professor Pleads Guilty in Porn Case A 56-year-old UCLA professor faces time in Ventura County Jail after admitting he used the Internet to send pornographic images to a 13-year-old Simi Valley girl and made sexual advances, authorities said Friday. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-vnporn27mar27,1,3748283.story - - - - - - - - - - Man gets probation in child porn case A Portage man accused of possessing child pornography was ordered to serve three years' probation after he pleaded no contest to the charge this week in Columbia County court. Kenneth W. Midstokke, 20, could face up to three years and six months in prison if he violates probation. Midstokke's attorney, Tim Henney, said prosecutors believed Midstokke's claim that he downloaded the child pornography to trade it for legal adult porn, and agreed supervision was an appropriate sentence. http://portage.scwn.com/articles/2004/03/26/news/news2.txt - - - - - - - - - - Foster dad faces 44 sex-crime charges A 41-year-old foster father accused of sexually abusing six young boys was charged Friday with 44 counts of first-degree child rape, first-degree child molestation and sexual exploitation of a minor. Prosecutors allege Ronald H. Young photographed the abuse and posted some of the photos to the Internet. The investigation began last fall after Tacoma police received tips relayed through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A child pornography arrest in England involved images that originated in Pierce County. Another tip came from a pedophile watchdog group in Ireland. http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/03/27/area_news/news05.prt - - - - - - - - - - Teen girl charged with posting nude photos on Internet A 15-year-old girl has been arrested for taking nude photographs of her self and posting them on the Internet, police said. The girl, whose identity was withheld, was accused of sending out photographs of herself in various states of undress and performing a variety of sexual acts. She sent them to people she met in chat rooms on the Internet, police said. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2004-03-29-child-self-porn_x.htm http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/032704_nw_teenporn.html - - - - - - - - - - Chicago School Principal Charged With Child Porn A Chicago public school principal has been arrested on charges of possessing child pornography on his home computer and elsewhere in his residence, officials said Monday. Joseph Thomas Nurek, 54, was arrested Friday in his home by immigration and customs agents, federal officials said. They said they found about 100 images of child pornography on the computer and more on CD-ROMs, VHS videos, DVDs and floppy discs. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115511,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Officer faces child porn charges A veteran patrolman with the Town of Hamburg Police Department was arrested Friday on felony charges of possessing and receiving Internet child pornography. Federal prosecutors said George Adymy, 45, was caught up in an international Internet child pornography investigation called Operation Predator. He is accused of using his home computer to download numerous images of children engaged in sexual activity. http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040327/1004962.asp - - - - - - - - - - Internet porn case dropped against officer A SENIOR Solihull police officer accused of downloading child pornography from the internet walked free from court this week after the prosecution dropped the case against him. But he remains suspended from duty and his case could be reviewed. Inspector Simon Westwood had denied 14 charges of making indecent images of children under the age of 16 between April and December 2002. http://icsolihull.icnetwork.co.uk/news/local/tm_objectid=14091735&method=full&siteid=91411&headline=internet-porn-case-dropped-name_page.html - - - - - - - - - - Livonia teacher is cleared of child porn charges A Livonia teacher charged with possessing child pornography was cleared of criminal charges Friday. A 35th District Court judge dismissed charges against Lary Howard, 56. The six felony charges of possessing sexually abusive material involving children carry a maximum sentence of 24 years in prison. The prosecutor's office was unable to determine that pornographic pictures found on Howard's computer were images of children. http://www.freep.com/news/locway/teach27_20040327.htm - - - - - - - - - - Romanian hacker is on trial Romania has enacted tough laws to protect its emerging reputation as a hub of skilled programmers for Western companies and erase any connection with cybercrime syndicates that law enforcement officials say are being run out of Eastern Europe. As the trial begins, the Ciobanu case has reignited an international debate on appropriate justice for cybercrimes, particularly one that until recently was dismissed as the handiwork of tech-savvy teenagers showing off. http://www.crime-research.org/news/27.03.2004/157 - - - - - - - - - - Israeli hackers attack Islamic portal A main Islamic Internet portal blamed Israeli hackers on Friday of an attack following its presentation of a file on slain Palestinian militant leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. "The attack by the Israeli hackers began after the presentation of interviews that we had done previously with Sheikh Yassin," Abdel Hadi Abu Taleb of www.islamonline.net said. http://www.crime-research.org/news/29.03.2004/160 - - - - - - - - - - NetSky-Q worm targets Kazaa and eDonkey NetSky-Q, the latest worm in the ever-expanding NetSky series, is programmed to launch a DDoS on sites run by popular file-sharing services such as KaZaA and eDonkey from infected Windows PCs. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/36629.html http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/virus/story/0,10801,91751,00.html NetSky variant a greater threat than thought http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5181476.html Witty Worm Broke Speed Records http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Witty_Worm_Broke_Speed_Records&story_id=23559 Heartless Bagle.U worm on the loose http://www.vnunet.com/News/1153876 5 years ago... US firms reel as Melissa virus spreads http://www.silicon.com/software/security/0,39024655,39119623,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Congress Moves to Criminalize P2P Congress appears to be preparing assaults against peer-to-peer technology on multiple fronts. A draft bill recently circulated among members of the House Judiciary Committee would make it much easier for the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecutions against file sharers by lowering the burden of proof. The bill, obtained Thursday by Wired News, also would seek penalties of fines and prison time of up to 10 years for file sharing. http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62830,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Powergen vs whistle-blower case adjourned A civil trial between Powergen and a customer who highlighted a serious breach in consumer security at the utility more than three years ago has been adjourned until 16 June. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36596.html - - - - - - - - - - Voicenet Files Lawsuit You heard about it first on Action News last month. Our exclusive investigation revealed that law enforcement had raided a local Internet company looking for evidence of child pornography. Now, that company has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Pennsylvania Attorney General, two local district attorneys and their investigators. http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/32904-voicenet-update.html - - - - - - - - - - UK small.biz is lousy at virus protection Britain is the worst country at updating virus software - or the most honest when talking to researchers. Only 39 per cent of British small businesses update virus protection once a week, compared with 51 per cent of German companies and 73 per cent of Spanish companies. Some 20 per cent of respondents did not know that a virus can forward itself via contacts in your address book and 48 per cent did not know that viruses can store pornographic content on your machine without your knowledge. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/67/36626.html http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-5181017.html Net Viruses Hobble Europe's Small Business Sector http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=4688569 - - - - - - - - - - Security product flaws are magnet for attackers The software vulnerability exploited by last week's Witty worm is only the latest in a growing list of flaws being discovered in the very products users invest in to safeguard their systems. "This is a new realm of risk that users must confront: the security of security products," said Andrew Plato, president of Anitian Enterprise Security, a systems integration and consulting firm in the US. http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=129588 Code attacks Cisco vulnerabilities http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5181557.html http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,91748,00.html Extra headaches of securing XML http://news.com.com/2100-7345_3-5180510.html - - - - - - - - - - Organized crime may be behind phishing Last year, EarthLink, the big Internet access provider, went hunting for phishers. It started a campaign to track down people who were sending e-mail messages that pretended to be from EarthLink, but were actually fraudulent attempts to steal customers' passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information. What it found was that of the dozen or so people it could clearly identify as engaged in the practice known as phishing, more than half were under 18. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/29/BUG8F5S1011.DTL - - - - - - - - - - ICF to develop infrastructure plan ICF Consulting Group Inc., a management, technology and consulting firm, has been awarded a $2.7 million contract by the Homeland Security Department to help create a national critical infrastructure protection plan for assets, such as communications systems, power grids and transportation networks. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0329/web-icf-03-29-04.asp Group aims to set data-sharing standard http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0304/032904td1.htm Group issues specs for secure data-sharing network http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/25421-1.html GAO: Feds unprepared for calamity http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0329/web-gao-03-29-04.asp http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0304/032904c1.htm - - - - - - - - - - World Community Against Computer Crime and Cyber Terrorism The Third International Seminar "World Community Against Computer Crimes and Cyberterrorism" finished its work on March 26. Valeri Savin, Rector of the Zaporozhye State University, Professor, Doctor of physical and mathematical science, addressed to all participants of a seminar with a welcome speech. http://www.crime-research.org/news/03.29.2004/158 Cybersecurity may ensnare execs http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39149958,00.htm http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62843,00.html Frontline Defenders http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,91629,00.html - - - - - - - - - - How to hack a network in nine easy steps Grey hat hackers have released proof of concept code to exploit a wide variety of previously- announced security vulnerabilities to Cisco Systems' networking kit. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36603.html - - - - - - - - - - Auditing the mind of a hacker Security consultants are teaming up with clinical psychologists - including behavioural scientists from the FBI - to gain a better understanding of what drives and motivates hackers. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36587.html - - - - - - - - - - How E-Voting Threatens Democracy In January 2003, voting activist Bev Harris was holed up in the basement of her three-story house in Renton, Washington, searching the Internet for an electronic voting machine manual, when she made a startling discovery. http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,62790,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Campaigners fight biometric passports Civil liberties and privacy groups have launched a campaign against airline industry plans to create a massive international database of passport holders tied together with "flawed" biometric technology. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36625.html - - - - - - - - - - Database tools help lawyers track clients Lawyers in many states can now track down the names and addresses of prospective clients within hours of their legal entanglements with the help of electronic records and information vendors. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4623826/ http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/29/lawyers.databases.ap/index.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-03-28-database-chasers_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Cops missing out on IP benefits With the growing use of Internet Protocol inside telephone networks, 911 operators could have life-saving information at their fingertips. But those gathered here for the Spring 2004 Voice on the Net Conference & Expo warn that the nation's 2,300 emergency call centers are missing out on a technological breakthrough touted as on par with the invention of police car radios. http://news.com.com/2100-7352-5181099.html - - - - - - - - - - Beehive IDs Ease Sting of Thievery A flatbed truck drives down a dirt road that pierces a blossoming almond orchard. It stops suddenly in front of a cluster of unguarded white boxes propped on crates, home to hundreds of thousands of honeybees. It's the middle of the night, and the bees after a full day of pollinating the fields have settled into their hives. It's the perfect time to steal. (LA Times article, free registration required) http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-bees28mar28,1,5240541.story - - - - - - - - - - Mobe-deprived teen attacks mother with knife A crazed 14-year-old girl from Hong Kong had to be subdued by police with pepper spray, after she attacked her dear old ma with a knife and wooden pole and chased her around their flat. This must rate as the Godzilla of all teen strops. The mother had - clearly ill-advisedly - decided to confiscate her daughter's mobile phone. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/36617.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. 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