Tuesday, November 19, 2002

UK - Global weapon to fight child net porn (BBC) Police forces around the globe will soon be using software developed in Britain as part of the worldwide fight against child pornography. It is part of an initiative from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to tackle pornography in Eastern Europe and South East Asia, where much of the indecent imagery of children comes from. SurfControl, based in Cheshire, originally developed its filtering software to aid UK police in the investigation of online child abuse. The software allows police to trace and target people who seek, possess or distribute pornographic images of children on the net. [Quick Links Computercrime/Cybercrime] 15:59 # G!

UK - British Web designer charged over viruses (Reuters) A Web site designer has been charged with sending computer viruses around the globe, including one rated the world's third most prolific, according to Scotland Yard. Simon Vallor, 21, from Llandudno, in Wales, was arrested following a tip-off from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. He has been charged with hacking and sending the "Gokar Redesi" and "Admirer" email computer viruses, and with the possession of indecent images of children. [Quick Links Computercrime/Cybercrime] 15:58 # G!

Kinderpornoring zerschlagen Kroatien - In Kroatien hat die Polizei einen Kinder-Porno-Ring im Internet zerschlagen können ... [newsBYTE.ch] 15:58 # G!

Interior remains unplugged About 6 percent of the Interior Department's computer systems remain disconnected from the Internet [FCW: Policy] 15:57 # G!

DoS Flaw in New Wi-Fi Security Standard [Hideaway.Net] 15:55 # G!

UK group urges secret censorship of internet newsgroups UK anti-pornography group the Internet Watch Foundation has proposed that 76 usenet newsgroups be dropped from all UK news servers. The list of newsgroups is secret, so there's no way to test their claim that the groups advocate or "regularly carry" child pornography. The Home Office has announced its support for the plan. Dropping entire newsgroups is problematic because their content is dynamic. Usenet volumes are so huge that archiving is impractical for more than a few... [zem] 15:55 # G!

Hessen setzt Rasterfahndung nun doch aus [heise] 15:52 # G!

UK - Hopes raised for Internet grooming ban (ZDNet UK) Internet grooming, the practice by which paedophiles use the Web to cultivate relationships with children with the aim of making contact and abusing them, could soon be made illegal. The Queen's Speech, which lays out the government's legislative agenda for the next 12 months, included a commitment to bring forward a bill to review the laws on sexual offences. The precise details of the bill will not be published until later this year, but it is likely that this bill will outlaw the grooming of children by paedophiles, following pressure from child protection charities. [Quick Links Computercrime/Cybercrime] 15:30 # G!

UK - IWF recommends stopping feeds from 76 newgroups (Press Release) The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has announced a tough stance against 51 newsgroups that regularly carry child abuse images and a further 25 newsgroups with names that appear to advertise or advocate paedophilia. The IWF is recommending to all UK Internet Service Providers that these newsgroups ought to be detached from their newsfeeds and servers. [Quick Links Computercrime/Cybercrime] 15:30 # G!

Robbie 'decoys' appear on net Fake copies of tracks from Robbie Williams' new album Escapology appear on the internet, according to reports. [BBC News Online] 15:28 # G!

US - House considers jailing hackers for life (CNET News.com) A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of Homeland Security would punish malicious computer hackers with life in prison. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 299 to 121 to approve the bill, which combines parts of 22 existing federal agencies into a new department. During closed-door negotiations before the debate began, the House Republican leadership inserted the Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) into the Homeland Security bill. CSEA expands the ability of police to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order, and offers Internet providers more latitude to disclose information to police. [Quick Links Computercrime/Cybercrime] 15:27 # G!

mi2g Intelligence Briefing: "Brazil exports Cyber-crime" According to mi2g reports, one of the largest "cyber crime exporters" in the world is Brasil. [Help Net Security] 15:25 # G!

Smart cards also open to attack Sydney University engineering student Ryan Junee has demonstrated a smart card attack for his final year thesis, using a method called "differential power analysis". [Help Net Security] 15:23 # G!

Bin Laden associate warns of cyberattacks Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, spokesman for Osama bin Laden, said all types of technology, including the Internet, are being studied for use in the global jihad against the West. [Help Net Security] 15:19 # G!

DOJ Wins Expanded Wiretap Authority Under Patriot Act The Justice Department has broad discretion in the use of wiretaps and other surveillance techniques to track suspected terrorists and spies, a federal appeals court panel ruled Monday. Overturning a May decision by the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a three-judge panel said the expanded wiretap guidelines sought by Attorney General John Ashcroft under the USA Patriot Act law do not violate the Constitution. [Law.com] 15:15 # G!

More detail on NSW police anti-terrorism powers More details are emerging of the proposed new anti-terrorism powers for NSW police. Premier Bob Carr has emphasised that the new powers for warrantless searches are only available following a terrorist strike or "credible threat". Coincidentally, the Australian federal government today issued a warning of a "credible terrorism threat" that will last "the next couple of months". "Police only exercise these powers in the wake of a credible threat or a... [zem] 15:12 # G!

How Much Hack Info Is Too Much? When security company Symantec publishes details of a Web browser bug that lets hackers control affected computers -- and even erase the hard drives -- industry insiders wonder if full disclosure is a good thing. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News] 15:09 # G!

Pentagon will Internet weltweit unter Kontrolle bringen Mit einem neuen System will das US-Verteidigungsministerium die weltweiten Datenströme nun definitiv in den Griff bekommen und weltweit Terrorspuren verfolgen. John Poindexter als Boss der Abteilung IAO (Information Awareness Office) hat gegenüber der Washington Post klar gemacht, dass die dem DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) unterstehende IAO weit gekommen ist, bei der Ueberwachung des Internets. Nicht nur die zentralen Datenbanken der Kreditkartenunternehmen will man überwachen, man will über Buchungen auch verdächtige Reiseströme verfolgen. Poindexter hat 200 Millionen Dollar zur Verfügung um seinen Plan umzusetzen. Derzeit ist aber im Detail noch unklar, wie das alles ablaufen soll. Vor allem das Echolon-System mit der schieren Datenflut der weltweiten Telefonverbindungen ist zwar die Grundidee des Internet-Projektes, Echolon harzt aber daran, dass die Datenflut nur zu einem Bruchteil überwacht werden kann, weil die Rechenkapazitäten fehlen. [newsBYTE.ch] 15:07 # G!

Minor compromise on ASIO detention powers Australia's opposition Labor party has proposed a compromise to the government's ASIO bill. The new proposal isn't much of a compromise however: non-suspects can still be detained and interrogated for an indefinite period, and there's no mention of a solution to earlier concerns that the new powers could be used to intimidate journalists . The compromise would allow Australians to be detained and questioned at ASIO's behest for an unspecified period, even if... [zem] 15:03 # G!

FISA Review Court approves broader wiretapping The FISA Court of Review has overturned the decision to reject a request for broader wiretapping powers, after a DoJ appeal . Not only was the earlier decision rejected, the review court found that the DoJ's own restrictions on wiretapping are more restrictive than the law allows. The order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review represents a legal triumph for Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who had pushed for the broader powers, and a clear setback for... [zem] 15:00 # G!

Converting Pi to binary: DON'T DO IT! (via Russ Perry Jr.) Newsgroup: alt.math.recreational WARNING: Do NOT calculate Pi in binary. It is conjectured that this number is normal, meaning that it contains ALL finite bit strings. If you compute it, you will be guilty of: * Copyright infringement (of all books, all short stories, all newspapers, all magazines, all web sites, all music, all movies, and all software, including the complete Windows source code) * Trademark infringement * Possession of child pornography * Espionage (unauthorized possession of top secret information) * Possession of DVD-cracking software * Possession of threats to the President * Possession of everyone's SSN, everyone's credit card numbers, everyone's PIN numbers, everyone's unlisted phone numbers, and everyone's passwords * Defaming Islam. Not technically illegal, but you'll have to go into hiding along with Salman Rushdie. * Defaming Scientology. Which IS illegal -- just ask Keith Henson. Also, your computer will contain all of the nastiest known computer viruses. In fact, all of the nastiest POSSIBLE computer viruses. Some of the files on my PC are intensely personal, and I for one don't want you snooping through a copy of them. You might get away with computing just a few digits, but why risk it? There's no telling how far into Pi you can go without finding the secret documents about the JFK assassination, a photograph of your neighbor's six year old daughter doing the nasty with the family dog, or a complete copy of the not-yet-released Pearl Harbor movie. So just don't do it. The same warning applies to e, the square root of 2, Euler's constant, Phi, the cosine of any non-zero algebraic number, and the vast majority of all other real numbers. There's a reason why these numbers are always computed and shown in decimal, after all. [risks-digest] 14:56 # G!

Tighter rules on workplace snooping Workers will regain some rights to privacy at work as rules governing e-mail monitoring are tightened up. [BBC News Online] 14:54 # G!

USA lehnen Verbot rassistischer Sites ab [The US will not sign the EU cybercrime-treaty hate-speech ban] Die von europäischer Seite gehegte Hoffnung eines weltweiten Verbotes fremdenfeindlicher Sites wird enttäuscht. Die USA lehnen ein solches Verbot als verfassungsfeindlich ab. [intern.de] 14:51 # G!

Jerome Heckenkamp Free on Bail [GrepLaw] 14:48 # G!

The combination of the Justice Department's "enemies list" (Salon) and Poindexter's DoD sponsored "Information Awareness Office" is truly chilling.  McCarthy and Hoover have returned armed with truly powerful technology and nobody seems to be paying it much attention. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] [dws.] 14:46 #

BIND Patches Leaked to Underground, ISC Says Chances are that hackers had the patches for the latest round of BIND vulnerabilities before many legitimate users did. The Internet Software Consortium (ISC) is under fire for the fee-based procedures it follows to notify the Internet community of vulnerabilities in Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) software used for routing traffic on the Internet. When word reached the ISC on Oct. 25 that "serious" BIND vulnerabilities had been discovered, the first companies to receive notification were the paying members of ISC's early-alert notification service. The rest of the Internet security community had to wait until a patch was released Nov. 12 to be notified of the new holes in the software. And even then, some security administrators said they couldn't locate a patch as much as 12 hours after the public announcement was made - about nine hours longer than it took for the patches to be leaked to the hacker underground. [Powered by News Is Free] This might be an example why full disclosure is less troublesome in the end. 13:46 # G!

Internetdemo gegen Verhaftung von italienischen Globalisierungskritikern [virtual sit-in to get anti globalisation activists out of jail] Wer am Montag zufällig die Internetseite des  italienischen Innenministeriums anklickte, musste viel Geduld haben. Denn Punkt 10 Uhr vormittags begann am 18.November eine mehrstündige  Interndemonstration, die den Server des Innenministers deutlich verlangsamte. Die Website wurde bereits letztes Jahr wegen des virtuellen Sit-Ins gegenüber der offiziellen Website des G8-Gipfels in Genua vorübergehend vom Netz genommen (  Netstrike.it im Visier der italienischen Justiz). Der Internetstreik ist Teil einer italienweiten Protestwelle gegen die  Festnahme von 11 führenden Aktivisten der globalisierungskritischen Bewegung aus Süditalien. Weitere Personen erhielten Haftverschonung, dürfen aber ihre Wohnungen nicht verlassen. Gegen 42 Personen wird ermittelt. [Telepolis News] 10:26 # G!

Slate: Spam is killing e-mail One-third of the 30 billion e-mails sent worldwide each day are spam. That's 10 billion daily pitches for herbal Viagra, Nigerian scams, and genital-enlarging creams piling up in our inboxes. Neither legislation nor litigation against spammers has stemmed the tide, and they're not going to have much of an effect in the future, either. It's time to give up: Despite the best efforts of legislators, lawyers, and computer programmers, spam has won. Spam is killing e-mail. ...Or at least it's about to destroy the e-mail we're used to: the tool that lets a stranger respond to something you posted on your Web site or that lets a potential client contact you after reading an article you wrote. E-mail is pervasive because it's simple to use, remarkably flexible, and it reaches everyone. The trouble is that e-mail is too good at that third task. Because e-mail inboxes are open to anyone, longtime Internet users now receive hundreds of spams per day, making e-mail virtually unusable without countermeasures. SPAMMERS AND FILTERS The most common countermeasure, server-side filtering, has serious limitations. No automated system can identify spam as well as a human can. Internet service providers certainly try: They block known spammer addresses and use algorithms to identify spam based on an e-mail's contents, subject line, or other headers. AOL and MSN both trumpet spam filtering systems like this in their latest software, and Yahoo! and Microsoft's Hotmail offer junk-mail filters for their Web-based e-mail services. But the filters are running out of gas. The spammers keep multiplying, and they keep finding clever ways to fool the systems designed to stop them. Promising newcomers such as CloudMark, which taps the collective power of e-mail recipients to identify spam, may improve things for a while. But there will always be a trade-off between catching all the spam and ensuring that every piece of legitimate e-mail gets through. RISE OF `WHITELISTS' So, sophisticated Internet users are turning to a new approach. Instead of trying to block spam while allowing everything else, these users employ software that blocks everything except messages from already known, accepted senders. These systems, called "whitelists," change e-mail from an open system to a closed one. Whitelist applications available today include MailFrontier , ChoiceMail from DigiPortal, Vanquish, and the freeware Tagged Message Delivery Agent. There's also a whitelist option built into Hotmail, known as the "exclusive" setting. Though it's hidden in the preferences menu (click "Options," then "Junk Mail Filter"), more than 10 percent of Hotmail users reportedly invoke it. Before long, expect all e-mail applications to offer this function. Whitelists typically allow e-mail from everyone in a user's existing address book. Other, unknown senders receive an automated reply, asking them to take further action, such as explain who they are. Or senders may be asked to identify a partially obscured image of a word. A person can make out the word, but automated spammer software can't. [LinuxSecurity.com] 8:12 # G!

Glitch Opens T-Mobile User to Hacker Probes An IT manager at the Associated Press found hacker probes on a PC tied to T-Mobile USA's mobile data network, raising concerns about whether he might be charged for the unwanted traffic. [Computerworld] 6:53 # G!

Appeals panel rejects limits on terrorist wiretaps [CNN - Law] 1:02 # G!

Crackers steal 52,000 university passwords The University of Oslo had to change the passwords of 52,000 users and reinstall software on dozens of computers after crackers managed to infiltrate the network and extract the institution's central password file. The unknown computer vandals have had access to all of the usernames and passwords at the university for several weeks. In addition, the crackers (destructive computer experts, as opposed to hackers), have used university servers to store huge amounts of pirated software programs and films, VG Nett reports. "Hackers broke into the database which handles the information system for our switchboard. There they installed a password sniffer that located the password to someone in operations. With his password they accessed other machines and from there they pulled out the university's central password file," said Oslo University IT director Arne Laukholm. Laukholm said the university was not aware that an SQL-database automatically installs with a Windows 2000 server. This led to the switchboard database not being properly upgraded with security patches. [LinuxSecurity.com] 0:52 # G!

Credit Card Companies Stymie Porn The New York Times reports credit card companies raised the fee processing the payments of p0rn websites because they are "high risk" (of losses).[LawMeme] 0:50 # G!

Urknall im Zeitschriften-Universum Mit digitalen Archiven wollen Uni-Bibliotheken die Macht der Verlage brechen. Aber wie soll die wissenschaftliche Qualität gesichert werden? Von Max Rauner » [Die Zeit: Wissen] 0:41 # G! Translate

Das Versagen der Experten Das Gutachtersystem der Wissenschaften steckt in einer Krise. Doch es gibt keine Alternative. DFG-Präsident Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker und Karl Max Einhäupl, Vorsitzender des Wissenschaftsrats, diskutieren über Freiheit und Kontrolle der Forschung Von Max Rauner und Andreas Sentker (Gesprächsführung) » [Die Zeit: Wissen] 0:40 # G! Translate

Appeals court overturns own Web site ruling A lawyer for online privacy-rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation said a certain amount of inconvenience for police is often the price of protecting privacy. Heeding prosecutors' pleas, the federal appeals court in San Francisco has overturned its own ruling that would have made it much harder to peek at private Web sites. The unusual reversal by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came after federal and state prosecutors warned that the ruling would hamper investigations of child molesters who recruit victims online. In its earlier ruling, the court said an airline's furtive entry into a pilot's personal Web site, where criticism of the company was collected, was a possible violation of the federal wiretap law. The 1986 version of that law prohibits any unauthorized interception of an electronic communication. [Bob Egelko, 28 Aug 2002, http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19210.html] [Monty Solomon via risks-digest Volume 22, Issue 23] 0:00 # G!