NewsBits for May 28, 2004 ************************************************************ Peeping Taiwanese Trojan author is arrested Taiwanese police have arrested a man for writing and distributing a Trojan that was apparently used by Chinese hackers to steal and destroy information on government-owned computers in Taiwan. Wang An-ping, 30, an engineer from Kaohsiung, has admitted to writing Peep, which allows hackers to steal and destroy data stored on infected computers. According to the China Post, Wang spent his free time designing software and had intended to sell Peep for commercial purposes, but eventually decided to give it away for free on his Web site. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5222536.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-05-27-taiwan-virus_x.htm - - - - - - - - - - Spam Sentence Carries as Much as 7 Years A man who sent 850 million junk e-mails through accounts he opened with stolen identities was sentenced in Buffalo to as much as seven years in prison for forgery, identity theft and falsifying business records. Atlanta-based Internet service provider Earthlink Inc. said it hoped the sentence and an earlier $16.4-million civil judgment against Howard Carmack would deter other spammers. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/05/27/tech.spam.reut/index.html http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-na-briefs28may28,1,4749693.story http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Trojan-Virus-Writer-Faces-Slammer&story_id=24278 http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2004-05-27-spammer-to-slammer_x.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/28/buffalo_spammer_jailed/ - - - - - - - - - - Police Officer Fired After Exposure, Child Porn Charges A police officer accused of exposing himself to children, and having child pornography on his computer, was fired Friday. According to a statement from Elizabethtown Police Chief Ruben Gardner, Brian Leasor was fired for violating the department's "general orders," WLKY NewsChannel 32 reported. http://www.thelouisvillechannel.com/news/3358997/detail.html - - - - - - - - - - Athens man indicted in alleged teen sex solicitation and porn A federal court in Birmingham has indicted an Athens man on charges of possession of child pornography and attempting to entice a child to meet him for illegal sex acts. Charles Wayne Graviet, 48, of Airport Road allegedly went to Birmingham on May 12 to meet a teenager he had communicated with over the Internet, according to Athens Police Chief Wayne Harper. The teen was actually a Birmingham police officer. When Graviet arrived at the scheduled meeting place, authorities arrested him. Harper said Birmingham police conducted a sting along with the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service. http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/040528/porn.shtml - - - - - - - - - - NEC Unit Admits It Defrauded Schools Criminal investigations into corruption and waste in the E-Rate program, a federal plan to bring Internet access to poor schools and libraries, yielded their biggest legal settlement to date on Thursday. NEC Business Network Solutions, a subsidiary of NEC, the computer giant, agreed to plead guilty to two federal felony counts, one for wire fraud and one for antitrust violation, and to pay $20.7 million in fines and restitution. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/technology/28net.html http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-05-27-nec-sub-settle_x.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/28/nec_defrauds_us_gov/ - - - - - - - - - - Insane hacker blackmailed Yandex Regional court of Volgodonsk, Russia considers a hacker case -- an employee of Volgodonsk nuclear power plant blackmailed Yandex, the biggest Internet portal of Russia, and two volleyball players. Law enforcement focused on the intruder when he delivered an ultimatum to Yandex management: "Give me money or I will tell everyone how to hack your e-mail accounts". http://www.crime-research.org/news/28.05.2004/299 - - - - - - - - - - 'Pirate Act' raises civil rights concerns File swappers concerned about getting in trouble with record labels over illegal downloads may soon have a major new worry: the U.S. Department of Justice. A proposal that the Senate may vote on as early as next week would let federal prosecutors file civil lawsuits against suspected copyright infringers, with fines reaching tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. http://news.com.com/%27Pirate+Act%27+raises+civil+rights+concerns/2100-1027_3-5220480.html - - - - - - - - - - Web-cheat student to sue university A student who was booted off his degree course for plagiarism is to sue the university. He says tutors at the University of Kent should have spotted what he was doing and stopped him sooner. Michael Gunn, a 21-year-old English student, freely admits using material downloaded from the Internet to complete his assignments. He told the Times: "I hold my hands up. I did plagiarise. I never dreamt it was a problem." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/28/plagarist_student/ - - - - - - - - - - FDIC info security lacking, GAO finds Weaknesses in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s information systems place sensitive information at risk of unauthorized disclosure, disruption of operations or loss of assets, according to the General Accounting Office. Congressional auditors found that the corporation had resolved almost all the computer security weaknesses from 2001 and 2002. But the 2003 audit found new vulnerabilities in its information systems. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0524/web-fdic-05-28-04.asp http://www.securityfocus.com/news/8796 - - - - - - - - - - U.S. data mining remains unchecked Nine months after Congress shut down a controversial Pentagon computer-surveillance program, the U.S. government continues to comb private records to sniff out suspicious activity, according to a congressional report obtained by Reuters. Privacy concerns prompted Congress to kill the Pentagon's $54 million Total Information Awareness program last September, but government computers are still scanning a vast array of databases for clues about criminal or terrorist activity, the General Accounting Office found. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5222254.html Defense committee urges data mining framework http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26063-1.html GAO: Data mining popular with agencies http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26062-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Koreas battle in cyber war SOUTH KOREA'S top military intelligence chief says North Korea is operating an elite military unit specialising in hacking into South Korean computer networks. Song Young-Keun, commanding general of the counter-intelligence Defence Security Command (DSC), told a conference that North Korea was building up its "cyber-terror" capability on orders from its leader, Kim Jong-Il. "Following orders from Chairman Kim Jong-Il, North Korea has been operating a crack unit specialising in computer hacking and strengthening its cyber-terror ability," he said. http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9682180%5E15397%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Viruses on Rise, But Are Companies Liable? Six of the top-10 attack types Symantec saw, including viruses, worms, and targeted attacks, exploited flaws in Web applications, which are attractive targets because traditional firewalls block traffic in certain applications but allow most Web traffic. Computer viruses designed to steal victims' personal and financial information -- names, addresses, and credit card numbers -- are becoming increasingly widespread on the Internet, according to an Internet-security trends report by security software maker Symantec Corp. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/34093.html http://news.com.com/Week+in+review%3A+Net+threats/2100-1083_3-5222189.html - - - - - - - - - - Spam surge 'turning Britain into e-pariah' Criticism of the UK's spam laws is growing nearly as quickly as the problem of junk mail itself. The government's failure to give businesses protection from unsolicited commercial email risks turning the UK into an Internet outcast, according to one of its political opponents. Michael Fabricant, the shadow minister for economic affairs, claimed this week that Britain's anti-spam laws need to be strengthened, given the continued rise in the amount of junk mail being received by email users. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/ecommerce/0,39020372,39156157,00.htm Jail time could raise the bar for spammers http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26065-1.html Spamhaus assaults 'Great Wall of Spam' http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/28/spamhaus_china_opens/ - - - - - - - - - - G-8 to use counterterror system Homeland Security Department officials have implemented their secure Internet-based counterterrorism communications system for the Group of Eight (G-8) Summit that will be held at Sea Island, Ga., June 8-10. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0524/web-g8-05-28-04.asp - - - - - - - - - - Court weighs terrorism allegations against free speech A bespectacled computer whiz sits at the center of what civil libertarians are calling a confrontation between the First Amendment and the war on terror. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a Muslim graduate student at the University of Idaho, has spent the past six weeks on trial on charges he provided material support to terrorist groups -- not with cash or arms, but with computer expertise. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/8786401.htm - - - - - - - - - - 'Smart bullet' reports back wirelessly A "smart bullet" that can be fired at a target and then wirelessly transmit back useful information has been developed by US researchers. The projectile, created at the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, is 1.7 centimetres in diameter can be fired at from an ordinary paint-ball gun. The front is coated in an adhesive polymer that sticks it to the target. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995054 *********************************************************** 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. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however copies may not be sold, and NewsBits (www.newsbits.net) should be cited as the source of the information. Copyright 2000-2004, NewsBits.net, Campbell, CA.