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London, Tuesday, July 02, 2002
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INFOCON News
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[News Index]
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[1] The Technology Secrets of Cocaine Inc.
[2] White House crafting homeland security technology plan
[3] Tech firms seek separate cybersecurity agency
[4] Cyberlaw: Cybersmart or cybersilly?
[5] Congress To Postpone Revamping Of FBI, CIA
[6] Klez tops virus charts - again
[7] Government agencies ally to promote IT security for small business
[8] ZoneLabs: The Hot Stuff in Firewalls
[9] FBI to valley: Tell us about attacks
[10] Mafia boss jailed in FBI keyboard bugging case
[11] Who's Protecting Cyberspace?
[12] US NRC schedules security meeting with fuel fabricators
[13] Jordan foils Al Qaeda plot to attack US
[14] It's time for ICANN to go
[15] Shift to more workplace privacy protection
[16] Filter firm's Web site bares all
[17] Network Associates resumes McAfee.com rollup bid
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News
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[The drug lords seem to have an amazing counterintelligence ability. WEN]
[1] The Technology Secrets of Cocaine Inc.
By: Paul Kaihla
Issue: July 2002
Colombian cartels have spent billions of dollars to build one of the world's
most sophisticated IT infrastructures. It's helping them smuggle more dope than
ever before.
On a rainy night eight years ago in the Colombian city of Cali, crack
counter-narcotics troops swarmed over the first floor of a low-rise condominium
complex in an upscale neighborhood. They found no drugs or guns. But what they
did find sent shudders through law enforcement and intelligence circles around
the world.
The building was owned by a front man for Cali cocaine cartel leader Jose
Santacruz Londono. Inside was a computer center, manned in shifts around the
clock by four to six technicians. The central feature of the facility was a $1.5
million IBM AS400 mainframe, the kind once used by banks, networked with half a
dozen terminals and monitors. The next day, Colombia's attorney general secretly
granted permission for U.S. agents to fly the mainframe immediately back to the
United States, where it was subjected to an exhaustive analysis by experts from
the Drug Enforcement Administration and various intelligence agencies. The
so-called Santacruz computer was never returned to Colombian authorities, and
the DEA's report about it is highly classified. But Business 2.0 has ferreted
out many of its details. They make it clear why the U.S. government wants the
Santacruz case kept quiet.
http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/print/0,1643,41206,FF.html
----------------------------------------------------
[2] White House crafting homeland security technology plan
By Shane Harris
The White House is writing a massive blueprint, known as an information
technology architecture, to integrate the computer systems of all of the
agencies that would be moved into the new Homeland Security Department under
Bush administration plans.
The Office of Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget and the
agencies slated to move into the new department are preparing a "communication
document" to explain to federal, state and local officials, as well as to
private companies, how the plan will work, said Steve Cooper, the chief
information officer at the Office of Homeland Security, in an interview with
Government Executive.
The new department's architecture will mirror the overall federal enterprise
architecture, designed by the Chief Information Officers Council in 1999 as "a
road map for the federal government in achieving better alignment of technology
solutions with business mission needs."
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0702/070102h1.htm
----------------------------------------------------
[3] Tech firms seek separate cybersecurity agency
>From National Journal's Technology Daily
Lawmakers should include a cybersecurity agency within the plans for a new
Homeland Security Department, a trade association said last week.
In a letter to Virginia Republican Tom Davis, chairman of the House Government
Reform Technology and Procurement Policy Subcommittee, the Business Software
Alliance (BSA) touted the need for a special agency focused on cyberterrorism.
"The unique nature of the cybersecurity challenge thus requires that a separate
coordinating body exist within the Department of Homeland Security," BSA
President and CEO Robert Holleyman wrote.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0702/070102td1.htm
----------------------------------------------------
[4] Cyberlaw: Cybersmart or cybersilly?
Sketpics cast doubt on hot new legal field
By Lee Gomes
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 1 - Is there really a cyberspace full of "cybercitizens" who need only be
accountable to their own "cyberlaws"? A loose-knit group of law professors is
bucking one of the big fads in the legal field by calling that whole idea
"cybersilly."
http://www.msnbc.com/news/774871.asp?0si=-
----------------------------------------------------
[This is not very smart as the DHS might take years to establish. WEN]
[5] Congress To Postpone Revamping Of FBI, CIA
Homeland Security Agency Becomes Legislative Focus
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 2, 2002; Page A01
Congress will put off a reorganization of the FBI and CIA to improve the
performance of the intelligence community until it establishes a Department of
Homeland Security, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10912-2002Jul1.html
----------------------------------------------------
[6] Klez tops virus charts - again
By John Leyden
Posted: 01/07/2002 at 17:02 GMT
Variants of the Klez worm were by far the most common viruses circulating on the
Internet this month. Again.
That's according to monthly statistics from managed services firm MessageLabs,
which stopped 788,137 copies of the virus in June, compared to 524, 507 in May.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/25976.html
----------------------------------------------------
[7] Government agencies ally to promote IT security for small business
Online Exclusive, Jul 1 2002
Small businesses will have better access to computer and information technology
security resources and be able to assess their information security needs as a
result of a federal effort.
The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and the
Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have
partnered in the effort.
http://www.industryclick.com/magnewsarticle.asp?newsarticleid=333613&magazineid=
119&SiteID=12
----------------------------------------------------
[8] ZoneLabs: The Hot Stuff in Firewalls
Despite the tech doldrums, this computer-security outfit has just secured $24.3
million in new VC funding, and sales are exploding
Can you give something away and still make money? That was the way of the early
Web, and few companies that charted that course in those treacherous waters
lived to tell the tale. Then there's ZoneLabs, which started out in 1997 handing
out free downloads of an advanced personal firewall.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2002/tc2002072_7658.htm
----------------------------------------------------
[9] FBI to valley: Tell us about attacks
By Andrew F. Hamm
SILICON VALLEY/SAN JOSE BUISNESS JOURNAL
July 1 - Businesses have remained tight-lipped when it comes to reporting
cyberattacks or other breaches of their security for fear that the bad publicity
would also bombard their bottom lines. But the FBI has begun offering them
anonymity and critical information in exchange for their much-needed cooperation
in battling hackers and other terrorists.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/774803.asp
----------------------------------------------------
[10] Mafia boss jailed in FBI keyboard bugging case
By John Leyden
Posted: 01/07/2002 at 11:59 GMT
A New Jersey federal court has sentenced Nicodemo Scarfo to 33 months in prison
at the end of a case that tested the legality of law enforcement surveillance
techniques.
Government agents placed a keystroke-logging device on Scarfo's computer and a
key point in the case was reached when US District Court Judge Joel Pisano ruled
in December that evidence from the device was admissible. Two months later
Scarfo, the son of the jailed former boss of the Philadelphia mob, changed his
plea and admitted his role in an illegal gambling operation.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/25971.html
----------------------------------------------------
[11] Who's Protecting Cyberspace?
Feds consider new organizations, policy to guard against cyberterrorist threat.
Stephen Chiger, Medill News Service
Friday, June 28, 2002
Protecting the nation's cybersecurity is becoming a federal priority, as experts
warn that cyberterrorists could target not only networks, but also many services
and infrastructure operations controlled by computers.
The Homeland Security Act is President Bush's solution, but as the plan makes
its way through Congress, government officials are raising concerns and
suggesting additional precautions.
Faced with a July 12 deadline to act on its portion of the President's bill, the
House Committee on Science is moving to beef up the legislation to prepare the
country for terrorist attacks on computer networks. Bush suggests creating a new
cabinet department in one of the largest-ever reorganizations of government.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,102356,00.asp
----------------------------------------------------
[12] US NRC schedules security meeting with fuel fabricators
A closed-door meeting involving fuel fabrication facilities and the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission staff is scheduled for July 10 at NRC headquarters in
Rockville, Maryland. The topic is the "operational impact of NRC's proposed
interim compensatory measures," which the agency appears to be preparing in
response to the Sep 11 terrorist attacks.
http://www.platts.com/stories/nuclear3.html
----------------------------------------------------
[13] Jordan foils Al Qaeda plot to attack US
Eleven men with ties to Al Qaeda are arrested in an alleged plan to target US
and Israeli Embassies.
By Nicolas Pelham | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
AMMAN, JORDAN - For the second time in two years, Jordanian officials say they
have halted an Islamist plot against the United States. The arrest of 11
suspected militants - who are said to have Al Qaeda ties - may have
short-circuited plans to attack a variety of US and Israeli targets in the area.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0701/p01s03-wome.html
----------------------------------------------------
[14] It's time for ICANN to go
John Gilmore, original "cypherpunk" and all-around Internet supergeek, explains
why the organization that runs the Internet is broken.
By Damien Cave
July 2, 2002 | John Gilmore has spent 30 years shaping Internet culture and
politics. An early employee of Sun Microsystems and a co-founder of free
software pioneer Cygnus Software (now part of Red Hat), he has worked tirelessly
to promote his civil-libertarian views on how cyberspace should evolve. Entities
as diverse as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the "cypherpunks" and Usenet's
wacky and subversive "alt" newsgroups can all trace their roots to Gilmore's
efforts -- and, quite often, his funding.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/02/gilmore/index.html?x
----------------------------------------------------
[15] Shift to more workplace privacy protection
MICHAEL GEIST
Friday, June 28, 2002
The ubiquity of workplace computing and on-line communications has created key
new legal issues for employers and employees.
Employers, concerned about employee productivity, network performance and their
own potential liability for misuse of computing equipment, have begun to install
computer-surveillance technologies that target employee use of information
resources.
With surveillance technologies an inexpensive and relatively easy-to-administer
instrument, some studies suggest nearly 80 per cent of large companies now
monitor employee e-mail and Internet use.
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology
/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=EBGEISY&dat
e=20020628
----------------------------------------------------
[16] Filter firm's Web site bares all
Websense links to X-rated sites that it says rivals didn't block
By Mike Brunker
MSNBC
July 1 - Graphically illustrating its contention that its software is second to
none, the Internet-filtering firm Websense is linking its corporate home page to
a daily roster of sites featuring hard-core sex, hacking information and racist
rants that it says weren't blocked by two of its rivals.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/774905.asp?0si=-
----------------------------------------------------
[17] Network Associates resumes McAfee.com rollup bid
by David Shabelman
Updated 07:36 PM EST, Jul-1-2002
SAN FRANCISCO - One business day after filing restated financial statements with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, Network Associates Inc.renewed its offer
to buy the remainder of McAfee.com Corp.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Network Associates is offering 0.78 shares of its
stock for the 25% of McAfee, a Sunnyvale, Calif., vendor of antivirus software,
it does not already own. Based on Network Associates' midday stock price Monday
of $18.59 per share, the deal values McAfee at $14.50 per share, or $174
million.
http://www.thedeal.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=TheDeal/TDDArticle/TDSta
ndardArticle&c=TDDArticle&cid=1025247723388&Box1=Variables.Box1&Box2=Variables.B
ox2&banner=Variables.banner
----------------------------------------------------
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Copyright 2002, IWS - The Information Warfare Site
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IWS - The Information Warfare Site
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