[iwar] [NewsBits] NewsBits - 02/27/02 (fwd)

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-02-28 18:30:36
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Subject: [iwar] [NewsBits] NewsBits - 02/27/02 (fwd)
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Are Crackers Behind AOL Spree? America Online users, you have unwanted
packages -- due either to the activities of malicious hackers,
aggressive pop-up ads or a sudden widespread epidemic of shopping
amnesia.  AOL has billed thousands of its users for products presented
in pop-up ads after users clicked a "no thanks" button to refuse the
offer, according to a lawsuit filed last week in U.S.  District Court in
San Francisco.  The charges were made public late Monday. 
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50697,00.html

Hack a PC, Get Life in Jail A House panel voted unanimously late Tuesday
to expand the types of hacking crimes that would be punished by life
imprisonment.  Citing the possibility of terrorists wreaking havoc
electronically, the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime voted 8-0 to
rewrite the Cyber Security Enhancement Act and forward a more Draconian
version to the full committee. 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50708,00.html

GPL enforcement goes to court in MySQL case MySQL AB, the originator of
the MySQL GPL database, is taking Progress Software Corporation, the
corporate parent of NuSphere to court because it continues to distribute
a database product that links statically to MySQL's code.  The product
was originally released without the accompanying source code.  The Free
Software Foundation's chief legal counsel, Eben Moglen, is set to
provide expert testimony in a hearing Wednesday at 2 p.m.  in what is
the first court test for Richard Stallman's GNU General Public License. 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24219.html

Justice Wants More Electronic Surveillance Funding - Report A good
portion of the $1.8 billion increase that The Justice Department is
requesting in its 2003 budget will be devoted to funding new
surveillance and electronic security programs, according to a new
report.  "There is a dramatic increase in the amount of money proposed
to be spent next year for monitoring in the U.S," Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC) Executive Director Marc Rotenberg told
reporters in a conference call.  "We do not come out flatly against the
recommended budget, but we have concerns."
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174833.html

Senate Panel To Ponder Digital Copyright Protections The Senate Commerce
Committee on Thursday will examine whether digital content is being
adequately protected in the electronic world.  Commerce Committee
Chairman Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., announced the full committee
hearing, which will feature testimony from Disney Chairman Michael
Eisner, Intel Corp.  Executive Vice President Leslie Vadasz and others. 
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174828.html

Digital Security Fomenting a Feud A Senate committee is stepping into
the middle of an increasingly vocal spat over the future of technology:
how to prevent illicit copying of digital content.  On Thursday morning,
Senate Commerce chairman Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) will convene
a hearing on digital copy protection, which he believes should be
embedded in nearly all PCs and consumer electronic devices. 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50702,00.html

High-Tech: U.S.  Out of Hollywood America's largest and most powerful
tech firms have agreed on one point: Keep Congress far away from digital
content standards.  In a 600-word letter sent to movie studios on
Wednesday afternoon, the chief executives of IBM, Microsoft, Motorola,
Intel and five other corporations said they were eager to work with
Hollywood to find "technically feasible, cost effective solutions" for
protecting entertainment delivered in digital form. 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50716,00.html

Solving the Perfect Computer Crime One FBI veteran told NewsFactor that
one of the most effective techniques for solving cybercrime is the
merger of traditional investigative processes with new technology. 
While the perfect computer crime is one that, by definition, will not be
discovered, heightened awareness of cyber security has helped law
enforcement keep up with the technologies and tactics used to compromise
computers, networks and databases.  But cyber cops still struggle with
such issues as the international reach of the Internet, an increasing
number of combined threats and a wide spectrum of legal hurdles. 
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16502.html

MPAA's Valenti pushes for copy-control PCs Motion Picture Ass.  of
America (MPAA) President Jack Valenti has made a veiled pitch for copy-
control PCs in a letter to the editor published by the Washington Post. 
While much of the letter is devoted to incoherent ranting about some
dastardly cabal of "professors" who are trying to rip the guts out of
Hollywood, and hysterical claims such as "some 350,000-plus films are
being downloaded illegally every day," we do get an interesting wrap-up
where the industry Ass.  President alludes to the need for the PC to be
transformed into a secure content-distrbution device along the lines of
a set-top box.  http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24208.html

Web tunes sound a security alarm In a newly discerned computer security
scenario, you could get an Internet worm for a song.  More precisely,
you could get a worm along with a song played on a number of popular
Internet media players, including Microsoft's Windows Media Player or
RealNetworks' RealPlayer.  That's because the players provide the
ability to embed Web addresses and scripts--key ingredients in
self-propagating, hostile code. 
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-846051.html

Clinton calls for IT to fight terrorism Addressing a gathering of over
1800 delegates from over 55 countries at the 2002 World Congress on
Information Technology, former U.S.  president Bill Clinton called for
developed nations to use IT to bridge the digital divide, and use
technology to make partners--not terrorists--of developing nations. 
"You can make a compelling argument for technology having created a more
interdependent world, but so far we have failed to create a more
integrated world," Clinton said. 
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-846191.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2105187,00.html

Critics squash bug-reporting plan A draft protocol designed to lay down
guidelines for a responsible method of reporting security bugs will let
software vendors off the hook and stigmatize those who report bugs, say
critics.  The draft document, published earlier this month by the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is drawing criticism on several
fronts, not least because one of the authors is Scott Culp, manager for
Microsoft's security response center.  It was Culp, who in his call for
more responsible reporting, decried the information and example code
released by some companies and independent security consultants as
"information anarchy".  http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-846217.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2105133,00.html

ITAA survey: Security supersedes e-gov Security and how it relates to
developing a government-wide enterprise architecture overtook
e-government as the single most pressing issue facing federal CIOs,
according to a survey released yesterday by the Information Technology
Association of America.  In the industry trade association's 12th annual
Survey of Federal CIOs, dealing with Sept.  11 fallout is front and
center for many CIOs. 
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/18039-1.html

Perception of e-gov shifting The terrorist attacks of Sept.  11 have
altered the public's perception of electronic government.  Americans now
see e-government as a key tool for catching and prosecuting terrorists
and for coordinating government responses to bioterrorism attacks,
according to a newly released poll. 
http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2002/0225/web-egov-02-27-02.asp

UK Web sites face new accessibility rules Companies providing services
online are subject to new accessibility laws, following the publication
of a Code of Practice.  Lawyers expect a test case soon.  A Code of
Practice addressing discrimination against people with disabilities in
the UK has removed some of the uncertainty surrounding Web site
accessibility, but it does not go far enough, say lawyers, and the issue
is now likely to be settled in court. 
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2105208,00.html

Cell phone tracking raises privacy issues The nation's cell phone
service providers will soon know exactly where every one of their
customers is, at all times, and privacy rights groups are asking what
they plan to do with the information.  All U.S.  carriers are under
Federal Communications Commission orders to make it possible for police
to locate cell phones calling 911, something police can't do now. 
Carriers plan to use the same systems to sell services like helping
stranded motorists even if they don't know their location, or finding
the closest restaurant.  http://news.com.com/2100-1033-846744.html

How can we prepare for the next big virus? Viruses often take us by
surprise, but really they should not.  Frequently they use well-known
tricks that we should be prepared for.  Two years ago, the Melissa virus
wreaked havoc using a Microsoft Word macro, when macro viruses were
common.  And the ILOVEYOU worm caused Microsoft Outlook to give away its
address book at a time when other Internet worms were already doing
this.  The latest version of Outlook 2002 no longer allows you to open
certain types of attached files, such as macros, and stops malicious
code from stealing your Outlook address book to send out multiple
e-mails.  http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-846099.html

Sniffers: What They Are and How to Protect Yourself Have you ever
thought about how your computer talks with others on a network? Would
you like to listen to, or "sniff", the conversation? Network engineers,
system administrators, security professionals and, unfortunately,
crackers have long used a tool that allows them to do exactly that. 
This nifty utility, known as a sniffer, can be found in the arsenal of
every network guru, where it's likely used everyday for a variety of
tasks.  http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1549

Invasion of the AOL e-mail spammers My mother just left AOL.  This may
surprise you, as nearly everyone else I know has a mother on AOL.  In
many ways, the service seems ideal for non-geeks who need e-mail to keep
in touch with relatives in foreign countries (like my brother) or who
spend far too much time online (like me).  She is going to another
service, driven away by the levels of spam she encountered and the
complications of AOL's system for dealing with it.  And also by a
strange encounter with pro-gun lobbyists in Chicago.  When the spam
started she laughed it off: "Why are they trying to sell me Viagra? I
can't use it." But that joke wore thin pretty quickly, and several other
spams were not funny at all.  http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-846106.html

Software Screens Out Terrorists See how US companies avoid selling
technology to criminals.  American tech companies have joined the war on
terrorism by refusing to sell their products to suspect individuals and
organizations.  Using specialized software, companies are now able to
identify potentially dangerous customers before their technology falls
into the wrong hands.  Vastera, based in Washington, DC, is one of
several companies behind the terror-fighting software. 
http://www.techtv.com/news/culture/story/0,24195,3373854,00.html

Gun Owners Rally Around Man Denied Computer By Dell Some gun owners are
outraged over Dell Computer's initial refusal to sell a notebook
computer to a Pennsylvania man because his company deals in combat
handguns.  According to Jack Weigand, his Feb.  13 telephone order for a
Dell Inspiron notebook PC was automatically canceled days later by the
computer maker's export department because his company's name, Weigand
Combat Handguns Inc., raised a red flag. 
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174830.html


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