_________________________________________________________________ London, Tuesday, December 17, 2002 _________________________________________________________________
INFOCON News _________________________________________________________________ IWS - The Information Warfare Site http://www.iwar.org.uk _________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe - send an email to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with "subscribe infocon" in the body To unsubscribe - send an email to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with "unsubscribe infocon" in the body --------------------------------------------------------------------- _________________________________________________________________ ---------------------------------------------------- [News Index] ---------------------------------------------------- [1] Another Jab from the General [2] Gilmore Commission raps cybersecurity policy [3] Government sees intelligence gains from growth in private satellites [4] Feds invoked national security to speed key Internet change [5] Persian Gulf War 10 years later: Winning the war by convincing the enemy to go home [6] Apple sues PowerMac Web leaker [7] (China) Up Against the Firewall [8] India's Short Message: We C U [9] ICANN to Add Three New Domains [10] Student turns detective to net web auction fraudster [11] Nigerian Net Scam, Version 3.0 [12] Can new technology protect our privacy? [13] High school student earns A in hacking [14] Advisory panel offers homeland defense guidelines [15] Homeland e-mail links ready [16] DEA Data Thief Sentenced to 27 Months [17] Rotterdam spammer guilty of theft of e-mail addresses [18] 'DVD Jon' DeCSS hacking trial ends [19] OpenAV: Developing Open Source AntiVirus Engines _________________________________________________________________ CURRENT THREAT LEVELS _________________________________________________________________ Electricity Sector Physical: Elevated (Yellow) Electricity Sector Cyber: Elevated (Yellow) Homeland Security Elevated (Yellow) DOE Security Condition: 3, modified NRC Security Level: III (Yellow) (3 of 5) _________________________________________________________________ News _________________________________________________________________ ... "For years, we had a poorly organized intelligence system," he said, "but it didn't matter because all the threats were overseas ... So now we have a huge problem." ... [1] Another Jab from the General Scowcroft speaks out about reorganizing the intelligence system By MICHAEL DUFFY Sunday, Dec. 15, 2002 Retired Air Force General Brent Scowcroft, the Republican foreign-policy Yoda who has worked for five of the past seven Presidents, rarely raises his voice in public. But just a few months after he broke with George W. Bush on Iraq, urging him to stay focused on the war against terrorism before going after Saddam Hussein, Scowcroft is speaking out again. This time he's tangling with an old colleague from the Nixon and Ford years, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101021223-399924,00.ht ml ---------------------------------------------------- [2] Gilmore Commission raps cybersecurity policy By Wilson P. Dizard III GCN Staff The Gilmore Commission has strongly criticized the administration's cybersecurity policy and called for a merger of cyber- and physical security policy work in the White House. The commission's fourth report, released in full today, repeated the recommendation of its third report a year ago: to establish an independent commission on cybersecurity. "We have concluded that the physical and cyber elements of [critical infrastructure protection] are so intertwined that it makes no sense to address them separately," according to the fourth report. "National coordination of cybersecurity policy has not improved," the report said. "The President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board has not had a large effect on policy-making, apparently relying, instead, on the White House Office of Cyberspace Security" [gcn.com/21_31/tech-report/20263-1.html]. http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20702-1.html ---------------------------------------------------- [3] Government sees intelligence gains from growth in private satellites By Vernon Loeb Washington Post WASHINGTON - On the south end of the tarmac at a British air base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, two portable maintenance shelters for B-2 stealth bombers sit like high-tech cocoons, erected by the U.S. Air Force in anticipation of the possibility of war with Iraq. Although no U.S. reporters have been allowed on the base for more than a year, a think tank in Alexandria, Va., posted a commercial satellite photograph of the shelters on its Web site last week, confirming that they were in place and raising a host of national security issues about the privatization of spy satellite images. The think tank, GlobalSecurity.org, bought the satellite photo from an Israeli company, ImageSat International, for $200. It also has posted satellite photos with even higher resolution from two U.S. companies, Space Imaging and Digital Globe, of the Air Force's growing Al-Udeid base in Qatar, which would be a major staging area for warplanes in any military campaign against Iraq. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4749718.ht m ---------------------------------------------------- [4] Feds invoked national security to speed key Internet change WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration sped approval for moving one of the Internet's 13 traffic-management computers after a prominent technology company urged the government to ``declare some kind of national security threat and blow past the process,'' according to federal officials' e-mails. The correspondence provides a window into how U.S. corporations invoke national security to expedite business requests. In this case, the Commerce Department approved in just two days Verisign Inc.'s request at the end of October to move one of the 13 computer servers that manage global Internet traffic. Verisign operates two of the world's ``root servers,'' which contain lists of directories that control e-mail delivery and Web surfing. The company's lobbyists had argued that waiting additional days or weeks for approval ``is a problem and could impact national security,'' according to e-mails among U.S. officials obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/4750152.ht m ---------------------------------------------------- [5] Persian Gulf War 10 years later Winning the war by convincing the enemy to go home A Minnesota battalion played a key role in convincing thousands of Iraqis to surrender or desert. Col. Jim Noll of Wabasha and Forest Lake was the commander of that battalion. By Al Zdon The Persian Gulf War was as nearly as much a war of words as it was a war of missiles, tanks, jet fighters and M-16s. A unit from Minnesota, the 13th Psychological Operations Battalion, played a crucial role in that war, a role that with a perspective of 10 years looks even larger. While Saddam Hussein was preparing for the "mother of all battles," the Minnesotans were going quietly about their business of getting Saddam's troops to desert or surrender. By the time the U.S. and its allies took control of Kuwait, there were only about 85,000 troops remaining to fight - instead of the 400,000 Saddam had sent to control his captured nation. What happened to the rest? Some had been captured, some had been killed, but most of them had just gone home. http://www.iwar.org.uk/psyops/resources/gulf-war/13th_psyops.htm ---------------------------------------------------- [6] Apple sues PowerMac Web leaker By IT Analysis Posted: 16/12/2002 at 13:01 GMT Apple can't take its own medicine Monday 16th December 2002 by Two It seems that a commercially challenged individual got caught posting some of Apple's secrets on the web and now the company is suing. Surely there's no surprise in that and we wouldn't really care if it wasn't for the fact that Apple does have a history of accidentally leaking its own information. The story started back in the Summer as Apple set about its preparations to release the newly designed PowerMac. It is alleged that Jose Lopez, who was working as a contractor within Apple at the time, took schematic drawings, images and engineering details of the product and posted them onto the Internet. If the allegations are true then this must go down as an act of outstanding stupidity - unless Lopez made a decent wedge of cash somewhere along the line. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28584.html ---------------------------------------------------- [7] Up Against the Firewall U.S. technology companies are helping China build its Big Brother Internet--the political fallout has already begun. By Ethan Gutmann November 8, 2002 January 2001: Network Associates Technology, Symantec, and Trend Micro gain entry to the Chinese market by donating 300 live computer viruses to the Public Security Bureau--China's state police--raising Pentagon concerns about China's information warfare capabilities. December 2001: A human rights activist accuses Nortel Networks of co?perating with China's police by enhancing digital surveillance networks and transferring to the Chinese Ministry of State Security technology developed for the FBI. http://www.herring.com/mag/issue119/5047.html ---------------------------------------------------- [8] India's Short Message: We C U By Ashutosh Sinha | 02:00 AM Dec. 17, 2002 PT NEW DELHI, India -- The government here already tracks e-mail and wireless phone calls. Now it wants to tap the text messages that get zapped back and forth on the country's cellular network. The Ministry of Home Affairs, which frames policies regarding security issues, wants wireless service providers to install equipment that makes it possible to tap text messages sent via short message service, or SMS. The Ministry of Communications is pressuring companies to comply. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,56666,00.html ---------------------------------------------------- [9] ICANN to Add Three New Domains By Joanna Glasner 02:00 AM Dec. 17, 2002 PT The announcement from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers that it will add three new top-level domains to the Net's root servers leaves technology policy watchers with a lingering question: After more than two years without new TLDs, which suffixes will the Internet's chief policy-making body choose this time? http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56879,00.html ---------------------------------------------------- [10] Student turns detective to net web auction fraudster An American student turned detective to help police make a web fraud arrest. New Orleans University undergraduate Eric Smith was compelled to act after he fell foul of a bogus cheque. He had sold an Apple laptop via eBay, but the cheque bounced and shipping address turned out to be a mail drop. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_728785.html?menu=news.technology ---------------------------------------------------- [11] Nigerian Net Scam, Version 3.0 By Michelle Delio | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 1 02:00 AM Dec. 16, 2002 PT All those beleaguered widows, complaining chief's sons and yowling high-ranking government officials don't want your assistance in getting a large sum of money out of Nigeria anymore. The buyer explains that a business associate in the United States will mail the seller a cashier's check for the amount of the item plus the cost to transport it overseas. The seller is asked to wire the transportation fees to the buyer once the check has cleared so the buyer can arrange for shipment. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56829,00.html ---------------------------------------------------- [12] Can new technology protect our privacy? By Declan McCullagh Special to ZDNet December 16, 2002, 5:39 AM PT COMMENTARY--Why is everyone so surprised that the U.S. government wants to create a Total Information Awareness database with details about everything you do? This is an unsurprising result of having so much information about our lives archived on the computers of our credit card companies, our banks, our health insurance companies and government agencies. Now a Defense Department agency is devising a way to link these different systems together to create a kind of digital alter ego of each of us. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, this proposed centralization was inevitable--and it's only going to get worse. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-977946.html ---------------------------------------------------- [13] High school student earns A in hacking By Larry Slonaker Mercury News Reid Ellison, an 11th-grader at Anzar High School in San Juan Bautista, recently decided a cool student project would be to hack into the school's computer grading system. So he presented the idea to school administrators, and they gave him the go-ahead. He hacked his way in without difficulty. Once there, he wanted to leave a footprint to prove he had been successful. But he couldn't artificially bump up his grades -- he already had a straight-A average. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/living/4754902.htm ---------------------------------------------------- [14] Advisory panel offers homeland defense guidelines By Maureen Sirhal, National Journal's Technology Daily A congressional advisory panel on Tuesday urged the federal government to adopt 59 recommendations the panel made to boost homeland defenses in areas such as defining the role of the Defense Department in domestic emergencies and improving the public health system's response to potential biological attacks. Former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore, chairman of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (commonly known as the Gilmore Commission), reiterated the need for a new, stand-alone center responsible for combining and analyzing data on domestic and foreign terrorism. As he previewed last month during congressional hearings, Gilmore said the center would aggregate and analyze terrorist threats by mining intelligence from government bodies including Defense, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency, as well as state and local governments. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1202/121602td2.htm ---------------------------------------------------- [15] Homeland e-mail links ready BY Diane Frank Dec. 16, 2002 When the Homeland Security Department officially comes into being Jan. 24, 2003, the basic technologies to connect all its workers will be in place, said Steve Cooper, chief information officer at the Office of Homeland Security. A group of designers from the agencies and organizations that will be moving into the department have created a single virtual e-mail directory that will direct all incoming messages to the appropriate existing agency e-mail systems and send out all e-mails with a "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" address, Cooper said in an interview Dec. 13. Testing of the task group's common Lightweight Directory Access Protocol directory will begin soon after Jan. 1 so that it can go live Jan. 24, Cooper said. http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1216/web-dhs-12-16-02.asp ---------------------------------------------------- [16] DEA Data Thief Sentenced to 27 Months By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Dec 16 2002 6:23PM A 14-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who fled to Mexico to avoid federal computer crime charges was sentenced in a federal court in Los Angeles on Monday to 27 months in prison for selling information on private citizens he plundered from sensitive law enforcement databases. Emilio Calatayud, 36, admitted in a plea agreement last August to raiding a variety of systems to investigate claimants in over 100 workers compensation cases being handled by Triple Check Investigative Services for unnamed insurance carriers. Triple Check paid the former agent at least $22,500 for the data over a six year period ending in 1999, according to court records. http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1847 ---------------------------------------------------- [17] Rotterdam spammer guilty of theft of e-mail addresses 17/12/2002 Editor: Joe Figueiredo A Rotterdam-based company that distributes unsolicited advertisements by e-mail, has been given a week by a Dutch court to destroy a large number of its illegally obtained e-mail addresses, or face a fine of E2500 per day. According to Netwise Publications (which runs e-mailgids.com, an internet-based e-mail directory listing more than 100,000 addresses in the Netherlands), NTS had violated Netwise's general terms and conditions when it downloaded the addresses from the website. http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=14251 ---------------------------------------------------- [18] 'DVD Jon' DeCSS hacking trial ends 09:42 Tuesday 17th December 2002 Reuters The trial in Norway of Jon Johansen, co-creator of the DeCSS copy-protection cracking program, has drawn to a close with the teenager facing a maximum sentence of two years The landmark trial of a Norwegian teenager over Hollywood charges of DVD piracy ended Monday with prosecutors urging a suspended 90-day jail term. Jon Johansen, known in Norway as "DVD Jon," is charged with having unlocked a copyright-protection code and distributed a computer program enabling unauthorised copying of DVD movies, angering US movie studios who fear mass piracy and loss of revenue. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2127640,00.html ---------------------------------------------------- [19] OpenAV: Developing Open Source AntiVirus Engines by Costin G. Raiu last updated December 16, 2002 "What we currently have is a set of toys to play with - nothing we would consider using in a production environment (or at least not without prior extensive testing). All these toys are in a very early, mostly pre-alpha state. No one serious about the security of their systems will honestly use OAV as the only means to protect them. It's just made public for testing and further development." - extract from the Open AntiVirus Project Web site According to its Web site, the OpenAntivirus Project is "a platform for people seriously interested in antivirus research, network security and computer security to communicate with each other, to develop solutions for various security problems, and to develop new security technologies." Among these technologies are ScannerDaemon, VirusHammer and PatternFinder, which are "a first implementation of a GPLed virus scanner written in Java." This article will take a look at the OpenAntivirus AV engine, assess its progress so far, and offer some suggestions of how the developers can continue to develop it. While some of the commentary in the following sections may be fairly critical, the purpose of this paper is not to flame the OpenAV project or its developers but, on the contrary, to salute their efforts. Hopefully, this article and the comments herein will make a significant contribution to the development of a viable, working open source antivirus product. http://online.securityfocus.com/infocus/1650 ---------------------------------------------------- _____________________________________________________________________ The source material may be copyrighted and all rights are retained by the original author/publisher. Copyright 2002, IWS - The Information Warfare Site _____________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 'Information is the currency of victory on the battlefield.' 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