Wednesday, July 3, 2002

Firm Accused of Using Web Auction Sites to Sell Phony Computers Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly yesterday accused the head of a West Boylston (MA) company of using two auction Web sites to sell $750,000 of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) computers that didn't exist. [NewsFactor Cybercrime & Security] 22:33 # G!

Firm Accused of Using Web Auction Sites to Sell Phony Computers Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly yesterday accused the head of a West Boylston (MA) company of using two auction Web sites to sell $750,000 of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) computers that didn't exist. [NewsFactor Cybercrime & Security] 22:33 # G!

'Murder plan' found on computer A husband accused of butchering his wife left a copy of his plan for the attack on his personal organiser, a court has heard. Sales representative Gary Debruin is accused of stabbing his wife Belinda, 33, over 100 times in December last year and then trying to make it look like a burglary which turned violent. Alleged Psion entry Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw told the jury at Inner London Crown Court Mr Debruin wrote what looked like a macabre checklist for the killing on his Psion organiser which read: "Rubber gloves. Throat. Take telephone off hook. Purse out with contents spread about." [BBC] 18:06 # G!

Three fallacies about remote access Security precautions are only as good as the assumptions that underpin them. Enterprises must be scrupulous in separating myth from fact when it comes to how, why, and by whom the enterprise's network and information might be illicitly accessed--with potentially disastrous consequences. [ZDnet] 16:24 # G!

MI5 hates encryption so much, they don't use it! According to Network News (the UK rag) today, MI5, the Home Office, and others don't use PGP signing at RIPE (the European Internet registry), although its the only really secure method for updating records. So anyway, I thought I'd look into it, and, well, its true (edited highlights follow): www.mi5.gov.uk. 6715 IN A 128.98.11.23 inetnum: 128.98.0.0 - 128.98.255.255 mnt-by: QINETIQ-UK-MNT mntner: QINETIQ-UK-MNT auth: MD5-PW $1$tSMW1DGk$GIAERGLu5BwBUXabmYjvs1 I'm sure Qinetiq haven't been so foolish as to choose a guessable password (after all, they've shown their IT expertise by the masterly handling of the 1901 Census website), but even so, their e-mail must contain the password in plain text. Of course, if anyone out there runs their password cracker on that and finds I'm wrong, I'd _love_ to hear about it. Note: all data above is from publicly available sources. Incidentally, the article suggests that some people are still using MAIL-FROM auth, which is, frankly, astonishing. I can't be bothered to track down who, though. Ben http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.thebunker.net/ [PS. OK, I lied: I can be bothered. This is just too amazing: www.gov.uk. 35656 IN CNAME www.ukonline.gov.uk. www.ukonline.gov.uk. 283 IN A 195.33.102.13 inetnum: 195.33.96.0 - 195.33.127.255 mnt-by: AS12967-MNT mntner: AS12967-MNT auth: MAIL-FROM .*@att.nl auth: MAIL-FROM .*@icoe.att.com Yes, folks. The UK government's Website uses MAIL-FROM auth. And not even .uk addresses!] [Ben Laurie via risks-digest Volume 22, Issue 14] 11:39 # G!