NewsBits for December 20, 2004
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Pregnant-slay probe followed cyber trail
In the end, it wasn't a fingerprint or a blood
spatter that led authorities to the woman suspected
of strangling a mother-to-be and cutting the baby
from her womb. It was an 11-digit computer code.
Police zeroed in on Lisa Montgomery in the most
21st century of ways, by trolling computer records,
examining online message boards and most important
tracing an IP address, 65.150.168.223, to a computer
at her Melvern, Kan., home.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-12-20-mo-slaying_x.htm
Abducted baby found; woman charged with kidnapping
A missing baby who was cut from the womb of her
slain mother was found safe Friday at a rural
Kansas home, and federal authorities charged
a woman who lives there with kidnapping. Lisa
M. Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., south of
Topeka, is charged with kidnapping resulting
in death. The charge stemmed from the abduction
of the child and the killing of her mother,
Bobbie Jo Stinnett, U.S. Attorney Todd Graves
said. Authorities could not say whether anyone
else would be charged.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/10449152.htm
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/10447485.htm
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Chinese man sentenced to 2 years for Silicon Valley fraud
A Chinese business consultant was sentenced Thursday
to two years in prison after pleading guilty to
unauthorized access into a computer network and
intent to defraud a Silicon Valley company. The
sentencing is the latest in a string of cases in
Silicon Valley_ most still winding their way through
the courts - that revolve around the Economic Espionage
Act of 1996 or attempts by Chinese-born businessmen
to defraud U.S. companies. In one of the most high-
profile cases, Chinese natives Fei Ye and Ming Zhong
were arrested at San Francisco International Airport
in 2001 with suitcases allegedly crammed with trade
secrets and at least $10,000 in equipment stolen from
U.S. tech companies. Prosecutors say the men stole
microchip blueprints and computer aided design scripts
from Sun Microsystems Inc., NEC Electronics Corp.,
Transmeta Corp. and Trident Microsystems Inc., and
they planned to start a microprocessor company with
the Chinese government. Thursday's sentencing hinged
on whether Yan Ming Shan, 35, broke into computer
networks to steal corporate secrets.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/10442610.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-12-18-corp-spy_x.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/yeIndict.htm
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Man Gets 6 Months in NASA Hacking Case
A Portland man was sentenced to six months in
federal prison for breaking into a NASA computer
systems in 2001 and causing more than $200,000
in damage. Gregory Aaron Herns, 21, was a 17-
year-old computer whiz at an alternative high
school in southeast Portland when he hacked
into the computer system at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/10449042.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/nasa_cracker_jailed/
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Teenage British Trojan distributor escapes jail
A 16 year-old Briton was convicted last week for
releasing the Randex trojan, which was used to
relay spam through infected PCs. The teenager
had his six-month sentence suspended on probation
by the South Cheshire juvenile court in Crewe.
He belonged to a group of juveniles from the
US and Canada, which offered spammers access
to a botnet of compromised PCs in change for
money. Because all suspects are juvenile, none
will have to serve a prison sentence, according
to Heise Online, the German website.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/uk_randex_worm_teenager_escapes_jail/
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eBay executive's arrest sparks debate over India's cyber laws
Officials in India's technology industry expressed
anger and concern over the jailing of the CEO of
eBay's Indian subsidiary because of the online
sale of a sex video involving teenagers. The
U.S. State Department has also made inquiries
about the case.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/10459986.htm
http://computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,98414,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/ebay_india_scandal/
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-12-20-india-ebay-arrest_x.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6738069/
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US ISP wins $1bn damages from spammers
A small US ISP has been awarded damages of $1bn
against three spammers by an Iowa judge. The
surreal size of the award was arrived at under
an Iowa law which fines spammers $10 for each
unsolicited emai they send. CIS Internet Services
supplies email services for 5,000 customers in
and around Clinton, Iowa. At one point in 2000
the ISP was receiving up to 10 million spams
a day - mostly directed to non-existent email
addresses.
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/10163
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2004-12-19-spam-suit_x.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732329/
UK's biggest spammer charged with more offences
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/more_charges_for_uk_spammer/
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Dutch companies fined 7k for eBay typosquatting
Dutch graphic design company JustDesign and
customer J. van Dalen have been ordered by
The World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) to pay a fine of 7000 for registering
the domain name e-bay.nl. The name was used
for a website with information on Van Dalen,
a company which inspects buildings.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/dutch_firms_fined_for_ebay_typosquatting/
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Popular BitTorrent site shuts down after flurry of suits
One of the Web's most popular file-sharing sites
has shut down less than a week after Hollywood
announced a flurry of lawsuits against operators
of such Internet servers.
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/10166
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5498326.html
http://news.com.com/BitTorrent+file-swapping+networks+face+crisis/2100-1025_3-5498326.html
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/10461249.htm
The BitTorrent P2P file-sharing system
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/18/bittorrent_measurements_analysis/
Popular file-sharing site shuts down
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6738716/s
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Cyber crime takes Bhubaneswar by storm
Obscene mails seems to be the order of the day
in Bhubaneswar, for now a prestigious management
institute has lodged a cyber crime complaint with
the police. The Xavier Institute of Management
has reportedly told the police that its students
and staff are being flooded with obscene e-mails
from anonymous senders.
http://www.webindia123.com/news/arch_showdetails.asp?id=55582&cat=India&year=2004
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Punters warned over 'matrix' web scam
UK consumers are being warned to be on their guard
against a new scam offering "free" electronic gadgets
in return for buying low-value products over the web.
Described as "matrix schemes", shoppers are promised
the chance of getting a valuable "free gift" - such
as a mobile phone, ipod,or PDA - if they cough up,
say, PS20 for a mobile phone signal booster or
a CD-ROM containing ringtones and games.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/oft_scam_alert/
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Google: We've fixed desktop search tool flaw
Google says it has fixed a flaw that could have
allowed hackers to search the contents of PCs
running the company's desktop search tool.
According to a statement issued Monday by
the Web search company, it has rolled out a fix
for the vulnerability. The flaw in the tool was
discovered in late November by a Rice University
computer scientist and two of his students.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5497885.html
http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,98417,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/google_desktop_flaw/
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Security-Hole-in-Google-Desktop-Search&story_id=29151
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Security vendors facing the big squeeze
Figures on the past quarter's enterprise security
market show the extent to which security and
networking are mixing, to the disadvantage of
companies producing traditional standalone
security devices.
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1160166
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Next-generation security blueprint on the presses
A blueprint for the next-generation of network
security is close to release. The plans are for
a policy-based security architecture of the future,
pitched at becoming an industry model. The Network
Applications Consortium (NAC), which includes major
IT corporations such as Bechtel, Boeing, GlaxoSmithKline
and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance will be
publish on 1 January, and is the result of more than
a year's worth of work. It is titled: "Enterprise
Security Architecture: A Framework and Template
for Policy-Driven Security."
http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=2841&Page=1&pagePos=6
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Increased security measures create a password overload
Before she begins work each morning, Kate Prior must
enter eight computer passwords. Each must contain at
least eight characters, and most require letters and
numbers. Every three months, she must change them all.
How does the 28-year-old monitor of drug trials remember
her passwords? Easy: They're written on a blue Post-it
note affixed to her computer.
http://computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,98426,00.html
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The chip and PIN insecurity card
A supposedly more secure method of authorising
credit cards transactions in the UK may play into
the hands of fraudsters, a leading IT security
expert warns. A banking industry organisation
says such fears are misplaced.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/pin_security_warning/
Government keeps the secrets on ID scheme legal advice
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/goldsmith_idscheme_advice/
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We were sold into porn slavery, cry African islands
The government of the tiny African islands
Sao Tome and Principe has made a terrible
discovery - it has been sold into porn slavery.
The country' infrastructure minister, Deolindo
Costa de Boa Esperanca, was intrigued to find
out what this Internet thing was when the Net's
overseeing organisation ICANN held its annual
meeting in South Africa earlier this month.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/sao_tome_denounces_own_domain/
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New Computer? Six Steps to Safer Surfing
To see the e-mail I get every day from readers
about security issues is to develop a deep
discomfort with the state of computing today.
Keeping a Windows PC safe can demand a high
degree of vigilance -- if cars needed the same
constant care and feeding, the Beltway would
revert to a country byway.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9658-2004Dec18.html
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