Tuesday, June 12, 2001

Supreme Court ruling on thermal-imaging scanners In the Kyllo case, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that using an Agema 210 thermal-imaging device to scan for unusual heat sources in someone's house (i.e., searching for marijuana growing activities) is unlawful search if carried out without a warrant, violating the Fourth Amendment. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00slipopinion.html http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.ZS.html http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44444,00.html ["Peter G. Neumann" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 47] 0:00 # G!

And you thought Keith Lynch was kidding! (Re: RISKS-21.42) http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/curios/48565...29443.html One of the strangest consequences of the DMCA is that it would seem to outlaw possession of certain integers. The above URL gives the decimal form of a prime number whose HEX form just happens to be the gzip-ed C source code for DeCSS (which breaks the DVD Movie encryption -- see RISKS-21.37). This observation is due to Phil Carmody. [Thanks to Mark Brader for the Subject: line!] ["Peter G. Neumann" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 47] 0:00 # G!

California power grid hacked Reuters reported on 11 June 2001 that the California Independent System Operator's flow-control computer systems had been hacked for at least 17 days before it was detected on 11 May 2001 -- in the midst of the ongoing power crisis. Although they attacks did not noticeably disrupt operations, they apparently came quite close -- and exposed some vulnerabilities that demonstrably need to be fixed. The main attack was seemingly from someone in China's Guangdong province, via China Telecom, and exploited Internet servers in Tulsa OK and Santa Clara CA. ["Peter G. Neumann" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 46] 0:00 # G!