NewsBits for July 22, 2004 ************************************************************ 19 Los Alamos employees put on leave Fifteen employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory were placed on leave amid an investigation into the disappearance of two computer disks containing classified information,the director of the nuclear weapons lab said Thursday. Four other employees also were placed on leave by Director Pete Nanos in a separate investigation involving an intern at the lab who suffered a serious eye injury from a laser. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5490093/ - - - - - - - - - - Cottage shop games pirate, spammer and pornographer jailed A prolific counterfeiter was sentenced to three- and-a-half years imprisonment at Cardiff Crown Court this week, after he was caught with an estimated quarter of a million pounds worth of pirated merchandise. John Lamb, 45, of Llanharan near Bridgend, South Wales pleaded guilty to 22 counts of Trade Mark offences and five Video Recording offences involving the production of pirated copies of games, films and business software applications. Another 35 offences were taken into consideration in sentencing. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/22/welsh_pirate_keelhauled/ - - - - - - - - - - German software pirate sent to prison A German software dealer was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in jail Thursday for selling cheaper versions of products at inflated prices, which the court said cost Microsoft euro 4.5 million (US$5.5 million) in lost revenues. Ralf Blasek, 38, a software dealer in the west German town of Willich, purchased cheaper education- ally priced versions of software in Belgium, then mislabeled them to sell at higher prices to dealers in Bochum, according to prosecutors. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/9216381.htm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39161411,00.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-07-22-german-ms-pirate_x.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/22/german_ms_dealer_jailed/ http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,94689,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Advertiser Charged in Massive Database Theft Federal authorities yesterday charged an online advertiser in Florida with tapping into the computer system of a large database marketer in Arkansas and stealing "vast amounts of personal information" about Americans in what they described as one of the largest network intrusions in recent memory. In an indictment filed in the Eastern District of Arkansas, federal prosecutors charged Scott Levine, 45, of Boca Raton with 139 counts for allegedly exploiting network links his company had to Acxiom Corp. in Little Rock to secretly download millions of names, e-mail and home addresses and other details. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9189 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39161298,00.htm http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5481403/ http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-07-22-axciom-hack-charges_x.htm http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/22/acxiom_hack_charges/ http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,94673,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Judge hands paedophile 10-year Net ban A convicted paedophile was banned from Internet chat rooms for ten years yesterday after pleading guilty to possessing images of child abuse involving boys as young as 18 months old. Christopher Dunkley, 36, from Great Yarmouth, was also jailed for two-and- a-half years after admitting 19 charges of making and six charges of distributing indecent images of children. In sentencing, Judge Simon Barham told Dunkley: "This is necessary to protect the public from you." Dunkley served two years in jail following a conviction for indecently assaulting a boy in a public toilet 10 years ago. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/22/paedo_net_ban/ BT on child porn stats http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/22/bt_ispa_cleanfeed/ - - - - - - - - - - Man forced to plead guilty to possessing child porn We write and publish stories on child porn. We speak about monsters that abuse children having sex with them, making, selling their images, videos and etc. The story of "Jack" is different. Have you ever heard of browser hijackers? Browser hijackers are software programs that are doing more than just changing homepages settings in your browsers. They are also changing some peoples' lives for the worse. http://www.crime-research.org/news/22.07.2004/506/ - - - - - - - - - - Judge fines Philip Morris for deletion of e-mail A federal judge fined tobacco giant Philip Morris USA and its parent company, Altria Group Inc., $2.7 million Wednesday for deleting e-mails that may be relevant in the government's lawsuit against the cigarette industry. ``A monetary sanction is appropriate,'' U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said in her ruling. ``It is particularly appropriate here because we have no way of knowing what, if any, value those destroyed e-mails had to plaintiff's case.'' http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/9209289.htm - - - - - - - - - - Senator wants to ban P2P networks The chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary said Thursday that a ban on file-trading networks is urgently required but agreed to work with tech companies concerned that devices like Apple Computer's iPod would be imperiled. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he intended to move ahead with the highly controversial Induce Act despite objections from dozens of Internet providers and Silicon Valley manufacturers. TheInduce Act says "whoever intentionally induces any violation" of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5280384.html http://news.com.com/Senator+wants+to+ban+P2P+networks/2100-1027_3-5280384.html US anti-piracy law gathers strength http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39161296,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Australian law claims spam success Legislation designed to cut back on junk emails and texts appears to be having some success Down Under. The Spam Act 2003 has led to the closure of several major Australian-based spammers, the Australian communications Authority (ACA) claimed today. Acting ACA chairman Dr Bob Horton said that the thwarted spammers had reacted to an ACA warning in late March that the Act was due to come into force in April and that they would need to comply with it. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39161303,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Criminal gangs blackmail Web users with porn threat Email demands for relatively small amounts of money coupled with a threat to inform on non-existent child pornography are a growing problem, warns a security expert. While criminal gangs are more widely associated with threatening denial of service attacks unless they get a kickback of thousands of pounds, it seems some are taking a more small-scale approach to extortion: now average PC users are being targeted. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39161410,00.htm Cyber blackmailers are nabbed in Russia http://www.crime-research.org/news/22.07.2004/512/ - - - - - - - - - - All eyes on virus protection at Athens Olympics Terrorism isn't the only security threat officials are worried about at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens. They're also concerned about viruses and worm attacks that could cripple the Olympics' data network. "Our biggest concern is that somebody could intentionally or by mistake infect one of the networks and create severe damage," said Jean Chevallier, executive vice president at Atos Origin, the Paris- based company in charge of building the data and broadcast networks for the Olympic Games in Athens. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5280158.html http://news.com.com/All+eyes+on+virus+protection+at+Athens+Olympics/2100-7347_3-5280158.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/07/22/olympic.cybersecurity.ap/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/21/cyber.theft/index.html http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,64308,00.html - - - - - - - - - - Corporates hiring people to read staff email Companies are employing staff to read electronic communications because of fears that trade secrets and intellectual property are being leaked. Large companies are now so concerned about the contents of the electronic communications leaving their offices that they're employing staff to read employees' outgoing emails. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39161409,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - Microsoft donates to national cyber forensics center Microsoft Corp. has assigned a full-time analyst and donated more than $46,000 worth of software to the National Cyber-Forensics Training Alliance, a public-private partnership in Pittsburgh. The alliance was established in 2003 as an outgrowth of the Pittsburgh High Tech Crimes Task Force, a collaboration of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. NCFTA is a mechanism to let law enforcement tap into the expertise of industry and academic institutions. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26678-1.html - - - - - - - - - - Nokia releases 'bluesnarfing' fix More than six months after acknowledging a Bluetooth security flaw in a number of its mobile phones, Nokia said it has released a software upgrade that fixes the vulnerabilities in some of its products. In February, Nokia and Sony Ericsson admitted that some of their Bluetooth- enabled phones were vulnerable to "bluesnarfing," which means that an attacker could read, modify and copy the phone's address book and calendar without leaving any trace of the intrusion. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5279854.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39161309,00.htm - - - - - - - - - - A rounded approach to security Each week vnunet.com asks a different expert to give their views on recent virus and security issues, with advice, warnings and information on the latest threats. This week Dr RK Raghavan, consulting advisor for Tata Consultancy Services, stresses the importance of treating security as far more than simply a technological issue. http://www.computing.co.uk/news/1156791 - - - - - - - - - - The weakest security link? It's you In the late 1960s, Warren Moore was a young man working in the IT department at apparel giant Genesco. As a prank, Moore rewrote some code for the company's IBM mainframe to allow him to send anonymous messages to co-workers. But his joke inadvertently resulted in his message being inserted into a sales forecast report, which was about to be presented by a Genesco vice president. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5278576.html - - - - - - - - - - 9/11 report urges info sharing, biometrics A long-awaited report from the bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks calls for better information sharing among government agencies, adoption of biometric technologies and the completion of a visitor tracking system as soon as possible. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0719/web-911-07-22-04.asp *********************************************************** 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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