Friday, May 2, 2008

Friday News Feed 5/2/08

Protecting Yourself From Suspicionless Searches While Traveling
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/protecting-yourself-suspicionless-searches-while-t
"Law firms, corporations and other entities that routinely deal with confidential information are handing their business travelers forensically clean laptops loaded with only what the traveler needs for that particular business trip. Leaving unnecessary data, like five years of email, behind may be the best thing. Of course, if trade secrets or client information are the reason for the trip, this plan will not help. "





Same topic: Guilty until proven innocent...
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/90325






Microsoft device helps police pluck evidence from cyberscene of crime
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2004379751_msftlaw29.html






California court posting SSNs and other personal data, privacy advocates charge





Mozy launches online backup tool for Apple Macs
This is great for home machines...





Nigerian gets 18 months for cyberattack on NASA employee





Q&A: Olympics cyberattack not a major threat, says Interpol official





XP change corrupts data, hamstrings SP3 rollout





Backing up Microsoft Exchange -- with Yahoo's rival Zimbra software






Conn. man gets 30 months in prison for 'warez' operation







Supermarket ATM/Card Reader Rigged With Illicit Scanner - 5/1/2008 5:55:00 PM
Shoppers' credit card, debit card information stolen and used in identity theft scheme in California

Some shoppers at a supermarket in Los Gatos, Calif., got more than they bargained for in the past week: Over 100 have become victims of identity theft after the debit- and credit-card reader at the checkout was rigged to siphon off their debit- and credit-card information.

The perpetrators used the card information and PIN numbers to churn out cloned cards, which then were used to withdraw cash from the victims’ accounts and to incur fraudulent charges on their credit cards. The customers of the Lunardi’s grocery store in Los Gatos have been reporting cases of identity theft to authorities since last Sunday evening, and reportedly have been losing an average of $1,000 from their bank accounts, according to a published report .

"The stolen card account incident at Lunardi’s follows a similar one in Los Altos in March at an Arco gas station’s payment machine."







DR's 10 Most Popular Stories Ever (Second Edition) - 5/1/2008 9:50:00 AM
A look at the top stories from our first two years, including coolest hacks, biggest botnets, and a thumb drive exploit that readers just can't put down






The 'Hard Disk Crusher' doesn't mess around
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9934113-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave






Indianapolis: Head Teller Sentenced for Embezzling Over $7 Million from Credit Union
Patricia H. Sherman was sentenced for embezzling funds from her employer, a credit union, which caused the credit union to be placed in conservatorship. Full Story






Not Security, but very interesting:
http://www.stateoftheair.org/2008/states/california/








Researchers Infiltrate Kraken Botnet, Could Clean It out
A group of security researchers today said they have infiltrated one of the world's biggest botnets and can snatch control. 30-Apr-2008







The Kind of Cybercrime Interpol Expects at the Summer Olympics
With cybercrime now a global phenomenon, perhaps it will take a global police organization to keep it in check. 30-Apr-2008









Washington D.C. Creating Massive Surveillance Network
The D.C. government is launching a system today that would tie together thousands of city-owned video cameras, but authorities don't yet have the money to complete the high-tech network or privacy rules in place to guide it. The system will feature round-the-clock monitoring of the closed-circuit video systems run by nine city agencies. In the first phase, about 4,500 cameras trained on schools, public housing, traffic and government buildings will feed into a central office at the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Hundreds more will be added this year. Civil libertarians and D.C. Council members say the network is being rushed into place without sufficient safeguards to protect privacy.
D.C. Forging Surveillance Network, Washington Post, May 1, 2008.
Posted by EPIC on May 01, 2008.Permanent link to this item.






Microsoft SteadyState:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/whatis/default.mspx
This needs more research...







Akamai Download Manager Code Execution Vulnerability - Highly critical - From remoteIssued 1 day ago. Updated 8 hours ago. A vulnerability has been reported in Akamai Download Manager, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system.








Radio Free Europe hit by DDoS attack Dan Goodin, The Register, 2008-05-01-->The radio service's Web sites falls under fierce cyber attack after it covers a rally protesting the lack of compensation to Chernobyl victims and the decision to build more nuclear reactors.






Patch paper redux: Move along pleaseNews Brief, 2008-04-30Security researchers find the recent paper on automated patch-based exploit generation interesting, but disagree with its conclusions.





According to Wired, universities in the US are experiencing a "20-fold increase" in the number of takedown notices from the RIAA in the last ten days. Indiana University reports 80 notices a day, but they say their traffic hasn't increased significantly over the same time period. It will be interesting to see if the affected schools join the legal battle against the RIAA, or cave under the increased pressure. "University of California at Berkeley's chief information officer Shel Waggener confirmed he'd heard of the spikes and suggested there was a political purpose driving them. 'Public universities are in a unique position since the industry puts pressure on us through state legislatures to try to impose what are widely considered to be draconian content monitoring measures and turn us into tech police forces in support of a specific industry,' Waggener said. The RIAA is also backing legislation in states such as Illinois and Tennessee that would require schools that get a certain number of notices to begin installing deep packet monitoring equipment on their internet and intranets, according to Luker."
Universities Baffled By Massive Surge In RIAA Copyright Notices







New York's "Amazon Tax" called "unconstitutional" by retailer
Amazon has filed a lawsuit to fight back against a newly-modified New York State tax statute that would require it to collect sales tax from New York residents despite having no physical presence there. The online retailer says that the law is unconstitutional because it was specifically created to target Amazon.
May 02, 2008 - 11:16AM CT - by Jacqui Cheng







A new way to think about data encryption: two-level keys
New work by a trio of computer science researchers looks at an entirely new way to think of data encryption. Storing access policies within the encryption keys, a far more robust system emerges.
May 02, 2008 - 10:10AM CT - by Matt Ford






Study: keyboards make excellent homes for nasty bacteria






Maintaining Moore's law with new memristor circuits
A group at HP Labs discovers a type of circuit predicted to exist in 1971, and in the process they may have pushed back the demise of Moore's law.
May 01, 2008 - 09:55AM CT - by Ethan Gutmann





Italy reveals all
Larry Dignan: Italy's tax department posted every Italian's declared earnings and tax contributions on a site that was quickly overwhelmed by onlookers.






Srizbi personalizes spamMay 1, 2008Lately Srizbi has been using more personal subject lines in spam to get users to open them.







Another Spammer Sent To Prison








Despite Winning The HD Format War, Blu-Ray Sales Dropped







today's announcement that Time Warner is selling off the cable business entirely







PCI Requirement 6.6 - Confusing the confused







Mobile phone malware launders money through an online game








IM malware attacks increase, report
Sue Marquette Poremba May 01, 2008
Malicious code attacks through instant messaging services have tripled between March and April.








From Interop: Be mindful of vendors' motives
Dan Kaplan April 30, 2008
IT security vendors' sole purpose is to generate revenue -- not offer complete security -- and they will only create solutions to stop dangerous threats when they are incentivized to do so, the principal security strategist for IBM Internet Security Systems said Wednesday at Interop in Las Vegas.







Court-Approved Wiretapping Rose 14% in '07






Criminals try to "copyright" malware AP - Wed Apr 30, 5:54 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO - Even criminal hackers want to protect their intellectual property, and they've come up with a method akin to copyrighting — with an appropriate dash of Internet thuggery thrown in.






http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/world/asia/03china.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
BEIJING — A fast-spreading viral outbreak in eastern China has killed 22 children, sickened nearly 3,600 others and caused panic among parents in an impoverished corner of Anhui Province, government health officials said Friday.
...
Health officials in Fuyang say that more than 970 children remain hospitalized, 48 of them in critical condition. Health officials said that the disease had also spread to three adjacent provinces, with the bulk of them — 340 cases — in Hubei.

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