UK - LulzSec group sentenced; hacker combats child porn allegations

Original Article

05/16/2013

By Charlie Osborne

SOUTHWARK - Four members of the LulzSec hacking group were on Thursday sentenced in court after pleading guilty to various computer hacking-related charges.

Ryan Ackroyd, 26; Jake Davis, 20; and Mustafa al-Bassam, 18, were all sentenced together with Ryan Cleary, 21, over a two day hearing at Southwark Crown Court, London.

Each member of the LulzSec "hacktivist" group admitted to various hacking charges, including taking down corporate and government websites, between February and September 2011.

Presiding Judge Deborah Taylor, on Thursday, sentenced Ackroyd to 30 months, in which he must serve at least half. Davis to two years in a young offenders institution, in which he must serve at least twelve months. Bassam received a suspended sentence of 20 months, and Cleary was ordered to serve at least half of a 32-month sentence.

Judge Taylor commented: "You sought to amuse yourselves and wreaked destruction and havoc. You cared nothing about the privacy of others, but kept your own identities hidden."

Indecent images

Aside from hacking charges, an additional indictment against Ryan Cleary was delayed due to a court miscommunication.

After the seizure of Cleary's computer and and subsequent recovery of deleted files, the hacker was charged with downloading and possessing indecent images of children following a second arrest on October 4, 2012.

Under the U.K. COPINE scale — a measure of the severity of images the images in question were classified as child "erotica" and deliberate sexual posing. A total of 46 images contained children aged between six and 18 months, whereas others included children aged between ten and 15 years.

The defense team said that Cleary is not a "professional pervert" or sexually obsessed, but rather was obsessed with finding data and using his computer — a reason laid at the door of his client's Asperger's syndrome.

A lack of information in psychological reports and pre-hearing files resulted in a delayed sentencing. Cleary, who admitted to downloading the images, will not be sentenced this week.

Criminal computer activities

Former soldier Ackroyd, under the alias of a 16-year-old girl named "Kayla," admitted hacking into a number of websites in 2011, including Sony, Nintendo, News Corp. and the Arizona State Police. The 26-year-old sat across from his lawyer with a pensive, wide-eyed look, as he was branded the "most sophisticated" defendant, and he was responsible for researching vulnerabilities and exploits as well as executing hacks.

The prosecution said that Sony suffered $20 million in damages, and revenue loss due to the security breach is "incalculable." An estimated 24.6 million customer accounts were compromised.

Davis and Bassam pleaded guilty to counts of conspiring to access and impair a computer without authorization, including launching attacks against the CIA and Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

Ackroyd was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, whereas Bassam was suited and booted with a serious but resigned look on his face. Davis, the last to arrive, chewed gum and appeared relatively unconcerned.

During later proceedings, however, the strain showed in the eyes of each member of the hacktivist group as they sat behind a glass wall and watched their fates being bargained for.

According to the prosecution, Davis was responsible for releasing press statements; controlling the LulzSec Twitter feed, and defacing website pages.

Bassam allegedly controlled the group's website; published stolen information to sites including Pastebin, and helped with stolen data distribution — including through the use of BitTorrent technology and mirror websites. In addition, the LulzSec member allegedly researched computer system vulnerabilities ripe for exploitation.

Cleary, otherwise known by his Internet alias "Viral," pleaded guilty to the same hacking charges, in addition to counts of supplying articles with intent to impair computer systems and breaking into the Pentagon's Air Force systems. Cleary spent over five years building a sophisticated botnet — with a minimum of 100,000 computers at its disposal at any one time — which in turn was used for both Anonymous and LulzSec campaigns.

A number of website intrusions were based around vulnerabilities found within the Internet Explorer browser, and websites with high traffic levels were targeted. The 21-year-old maintained that his botnet was only "rented out" ten or so times for monetary gain — and raised only £2,000 in total — whereas the prosecution stated it did not believe this was truly the case.

In addition, Cleary's lawyers argued that although he gave botnet access to Anonymous, there is no evidence that he directed or controlled it — therefore Cleary was guilty of supply rather than actual hacking.

Criminal barrister Gideon Cammerman argued that using a botnet was "not brain surgery." Although the result was a sophisticated website takedown attack, the defense attorney wanted the judge to keep in mind that in the case of the Serious Organised Crime Agency website, there was no evidence to suggest the website was infiltrated — it was only taken offline for a short time.

The motivation

Outside of the courtroom, Cammerman called the LulzSec hackers "a group of talented young boys who hacked particular things for particular reasons."

In contrast, prosecutor Sandip Patel accused the LulzSec members of launching "sophisticated, orchestrated attacks," which caused firms and individuals "millions of pounds' worth" of damage, coupled with the "dire, personal consequences" suffered by individual victims.

Cammerman said the hackers were "politically motivated and morally complicated," which made for a complex case. In this manner, both prosecution and defense agreed, as Patel stated in the hearing: "This is not about young, immature men behaving badly."

U.S. extradition

An indictment based on two counts of encouraging and assisting in an offense were, "not in the public interest to pursue." However, as the U.S. has also issued the same indictment, prosecution had to confirm that currently there has been "no formal request for extradition." Davis' defense team said that "there is an appetite for this type of prosecution in the United States," and it is not a risk the 20-year-old should be exposed to.

As they were individually led away, Bassam looked relieved, whereas the other members of the Anonymous splinter group had resigned expressions.

Cammerman said outside of the courtroom that some of the victims were "thoroughly deserving" of what happened to them, the Westboro Baptist Church as one example.

LulzSec exploded on the hacking scene in 2011 after targeting Sony Pictures Entertainment, which led to the taking down of the Playstation network. in a Los Angeles, California court last month, LulzSec member Cody Kretsinger, 25, was arrested and prosecuted in relation to the initial cyberattack.

Kretsinger, also known as "Recursion," admitted one count each of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer as part of a plea bargain, and was ordered to spend one year behind bars and perform 1,000 hours of community service.

LulzSec was politically motivated in the beginning; launching the first "cyber war" in tandem with Anonymous in retaliation to officials' attempts to shut down WikiLeaks. Target choices then began to move away from purely the political, and the Church of Scientology, Westboro Baptist Church and banking systems found themselves under attack.

However, the hacktivist group was compromised when de facto former leader Hector Monsegur — otherwise known as "Sabu" — turned mole after his own arrest and spent nine months passing information on to U.S. officials.

The hacker-turned-spy's information led to the arrests of alleged members of LulzSec and Anonymous in March 2012.

The ruling follows the arrest of the self-proclaimed "leader" of LulzSec in Australia. Matthew Flannery, 24, who allegedly used the name "Aush0k" in hacking activities, was charged for hacking into two computers after being apprehended in coastal town Point Clare.

During the first day of the hearing, Ackroyd wanted closure. His lawyer, John Cooper QC, counselled that the issue probably wouldn't be over that day. The 26-year-old replied: "They won't be done with me for a long time."

No matter the age, the U.K. justice system is unlikely to be "done" with cybercriminals any time soon.

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IN - Indianapolis family victim of new online scam that freezes computer, demands ransom

Original Article

Just remember folks, the FBI would never lock your computer via virus and demand a ransom.

02/09/2013

By Stephen Dean

INDIANAPOLIS - A southeast Indianapolis family has fallen victim to a growing scam that tries to shame people into paying a “fine” to unfreeze their computer.

The warning messages are popping up on frozen computer screens around the globe, appearing to be a message from the FBI. The message claims a fine must be paid in order to have the computer unfrozen.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to a family’s home on Thursday night near South Shadeland and East Washington when a 42-year-old man got home to find his computer screen locked up and frozen.

The man told officers his 13-year-old step-son had been surfing online while he and his wife were gone.

A message on the disabled computer screen looked like an official warning that the computer was frozen because someone was caught viewing child pornography, police were told.

The man who called police apparently bought it.

As a registered sex offender himself, he was likely afraid that it was real. Many registered sex offenders are required to report their current addresses and certain other events to law enforcement to avoid getting into more trouble.

However, the message was part of a growing scam that has prompted warnings to be issued by real law enforcement agencies worldwide.

The southeast Indianapolis boy told his folks he wasn’t actually looking at child pornography. He said a pop-up message flashed up on his screen as he was logged onto a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) site.

Many of the messages popping up on computers throughout the country look like they’re coming from the FBI. With scammers constantly in search of ways to scare people to click on links that launch viruses or other malicious software, this latest effort uses the subject of child pornography in hopes that fear or shame will prompt the victim to pay up.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has posted a warning on the front page of its official web site , urging people to “click here” if their computer is frozen with a demand for payment of a fine. The FBI calls it yet another attempt at crossing malicious software with a ransom demand, known as “ransomware.”

Similar tactics were reported last week targeting computer users in Germany. The AARP also warned retirees of the same sort of scam back in August.

This week’s Indianapolis family did not report paying any money to unlock their computer.

The latest “ransomware” effort, just like most other malicious software, is launched when a computer user is somehow convinced to click on a link that launches the program. Once that program is launched, the FBI said, the computer is frozen and the ransom message appears.

Scammers have employed countless tactics to fool people into launching malicious software, sometimes embedding it in popular website features or sending an e-mail that claims a certain link is something that it really isn’t.

In this week’s Indianapolis case, the 13-year-old boy said that he clicked on something on a wrestling site and was suddenly redirected to a pornography site. He said he closed it out without seeing much, but that sequence apparently allowed the malicious software to load and freeze his family’s computer with the ransom message.

The FBI warns that this latest effort encourages victims to log on and send money using Ukash or Moneypak, two online payment services that are difficult to trace.

The FBI advises victims to have the viruses removed by a reputable computer repair professional. The warning goes further, saying that once a victim clicks on links associated with the virus, bank account information and other sensitive data could be compromised long after the initial computer freezing event.

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Now you can encrypt your calls, texts to protect them from being spied on

Original Article

02/06/2013

By Liz Klimas

There are those who might be concerned about spying — by the government, hackers or someone else — on their phone calls and text messages. Well, now there’s an app for that.

According to Slate, the firm Silent Circle has released a smartphone app that encrypts data. As Ryan Gallagher for Slate puts it, “that means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name it—sent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.”

The company’s press release stated the Silent Phone app is available for both Apple and Android devices. It is described as the first peer-to-peer encryption tool for smartphones and tablets, which means information doesn’t pass through a third-party.

“Senior corporate executives and government officials are using work-issued smartphones and their own personal devices under BYOD for sensitive discussions, despite their increasing susceptibility to eavesdropping and other surveillance threats across all communication mediums,” Silent Circle CTO, co-founder and former PGP Corporation co-founder Jon Callas said in a statement . “Silent Phone is an easy to use, yet powerful smart phone application that leverages state of the art technology and is now available for iOS and Android, the two most popular smart phone platforms.”

Read the entire article here

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NOTICE: Anonymous are planning on attacking activist sites?

It looks like "Anonymous" are not just going after child porn/pedophilia sites, but all sites who speak out against the draconian and unconstitutional sex offender laws and exorcising their freedom of speech.

They say they stand for freedom, liberty and free speech, yet they are attacking us and others for just that? If we are taking down, which is unlikely, we will be back, you can count on that.

This site has nothing to do with pedophilia or child porn, we post articles about sex offender laws and the unconstitutionality of those laws! We do not condone abuse of any kind, period! Stop believing the BS you hear on the Internet!

Anonymous are not police, and you are just hindering (obstruction of justice) the real police from doing their jobs, but maybe that is your real goal?

Maybe you really want censorship? Because we feel, the more you attack others, and since most of you are from outside the USA, eventually the real Internet police will be blocking you, me, and everyone else. Is that your real goal? Keep it up and that will be the end result!

To see what someone has posted on Pastebin and their so called "targets," click here. We've also saved the page as a PDF, and you can view it here, if you'd prefer?

NOTE: They claim Reform Sex Offender Laws web site was taken down? Well, it was, but not by them, it was down for maintenance by the admins of the site, and it's back up.

This could also be some scare tactic from some of our many haters, but only time will tell.

Freedom is slowly being killed by those who claim they are fighting for it!

Notice their remark at the 1 minute mark?

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MN - Wi-Fi–Hacking Neighbor From Hell (Barry Ardolf) Sentenced to 18 Years

Original Article

07/12/2011

By David Kravets

A Minnesota hacker prosecutors described as a “depraved criminal” was handed an 18-year prison term Tuesday for unleashing a vendetta of cyberterror that turned his neighbors’ lives into a living nightmare.

Barry Ardolf, 46, repeatedly hacked into his next-door neighbors’ Wi-Fi network in 2009, and used it to try and frame them for child pornography, sexual harassment, various kinds of professional misconduct and to send threatening e-mail to politicians, including Vice President Joe Biden.

His motive was to get back at his new neighbors after they told the police he’d kissed their 4-year-old son on the lips.

“Barry Ardolf has demonstrated by his conduct that he is a dangerous man. When he became angry at his neighbors, he vented his anger in a bizarre and calculated campaign of terror against them (PDF),” prosecutor Timothy Rank said in a court filing. “And he did not wage this campaign in the light of day, but rather used his computer hacking skills to strike at his victims while hiding in the shadows."

“Over months and months, he inflicted unfathomable psychic damage, making the victims feel vulnerable in their own home, while avoiding detection.”

Ardolf’s attorney, Kevin O’Brien, said in a telephone interview that “it was a lengthy sentence for a first-time offender.” The defendant also forfeited his house and computer gear.

Ardolf had no criminal record, but an investigation revealed that he’d also hijacked the Wi-Fi of other neighbors, and terrorized them as well.

A father of two, Ardolf had turned down a 2-year plea agreement last year to charges related to the Biden e-mail. After that, the authorities piled on more charges, including identity theft and two kiddie-porn accusations carrying lifetime sex-offender registration requirements. He pleaded guilty to them all last year.

The bizarre tale began in 2009 when [name withheld] moved in the house next door to Ardolf, who at the time was a Medronic computer technician living in the Minneapolis suburb of Blaine. On their first day at their new home, the [name withheld]’s then-4-year-old son wandered near Ardolf’s house. While carrying him back next door, Ardolf allegedly kissed the boy on the lips.

“We’ve just moved next door to a pedophile,” Mrs. [name withheld] told her husband.

The couple reported Ardolf to the police, angering their creepy new neighbor. “I decided to ‘get even’ by launching computer attacks against him,” Ardolf later wrote in a letter to the judge.

Rank, the prosecutor, put it not so mildly:

“It was apparently this incident which caused the defendant to begin a calculated campaign to terrorize his neighbors, doing whatever he could to destroy the careers and professional reputations of [name withheld], to damage the [name withheld]’ marriage, and to generally wreak havoc on their lives,” he said.

Ardolf downloaded Wi-Fi hacking software and spent two weeks cracking the [name withheld]’s WEP encryption. Then he used their own Wi-Fi network to create a fake MySpace page for the husband, where he posted a picture of a pubescent girl having sex with two young boys. Under the “about me” section, he wrote:

“I bet my coworker that since I’m a lawyer and a darn great one that I could get away with putting up porn on my site here. I bet that all I have to do is say that there is plausible deniability since anybody could have put this on my site. Like someone hacked my page and added porn without my knowledge. This is reasonable doubt. I’m a darn good lawyer and I can get away with doing anything!”

He then e-mailed the same child porn to one of the husband’s co-workers, and sent flirtatious e-mail to women in Mr. [name withheld]’s office. “You are such a fox,” read one of the e-mails. He sent the message’s through the husband’s genuine e-mail account.

After the husband explained to his law office superiors that he had no idea what was happening, his bosses hired a law firm that examined his network and discovered that an “unknown” device had access to it. With [name withheld]’s permission, they installed a packet sniffer on his network to try and get to the bottom of the incidents.

Then, in May 2009, the Secret Service showed up at [name withheld]’s office to ask about several threatening e-mails sent from his Yahoo account, and traced to his IP address, that were addressed to Biden and other politicians. The subject line of one e-mail read: “This is a terrorist threat! Take this seriously.”

“I swear to God I’m going to kill you!,” part of the message to Biden said.

A forensics computer investigator working for [name withheld]’s law firm examined the packet logs, and found the e-mail sessions sending the threats. In the data surrounding the threatening traffic, they found traffic containing Ardolf’s name and Comcast account .

The FBI got a search warrant for Ardolf’s house and computer, and found reams of evidence, including copies of data swiped from the [name withheld]’ computer, and hacking manuals with titles such as Cracking WEP Using Backtrack: A Beginner’s Guide; Tutorial: Simple WEP Crack Aircracking and Cracking WEP with BackTrack 3 — Step-by-Step instructions. They also found handwritten notes laying out Ardolf’s revenge plans, and a cache of postal mail that Ardolf had apparently stolen from the [name withheld]’ mailbox and stashed under his bed.

“One of the manuals had Ardolf’s handwriting on it and another had the unique identifying ID for the [name withheld]’ router typed into it,” Rank, the prosector, wrote.

Also discovered in Ardolf’s possession was the pornographic image posted on MySpace and sent to the husband’s co-worker, and evidence that he’d secretly staged a similar harassment campaign against a neighbor at Ardolf’s previous home in Brooklyn Park, another Minneapolis suburb. Among other things, he sent that family a postal-mail message consisting of a one-page, color print-out of the family’s “TurboTax” return with personally identifying information, in addition to several skull images.

“I told you about a year ago that you should be very afraid. I can destroy you at will, you sorry-ass excuse for a human,” the letter said.

The Brooklyn Park family told the FBI they believed Ardolf was upset that their personal care attendants, who looked after their two disabled twin daughters, parked their car in front of his house.

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CA - Hacker Invaded Hundreds of Peoples' Identities

Original Article

01/14/2011

By MATT BAUME

Attorney General Kamala Harris took steps to warn Californians about identity theft after it was revealed that an online predator invaded hundreds of women's accounts.

George Bronk, a 23-year-old resident of Citrus Heights, gathered intelligence on his victims and was able to correctly guess their password hints.

Many of those hints were easy to ascertain, such as "what was your high school mascot" and "what is your favorite color?"

Once he was in, Bronk locked out the victims and began sending porn to their contacts. One victim contacted the police, who began a sting operation. In September, law enforcement officers raided his home and confiscated his computer equipment.

Bronk had amassed a large collection of accounts, and officers sent out thousands of questionnaires to potential victims. A few dozen responded.

Because he had stolen illicit photographs from users under 18, he'll be tried on possession of child pornography, and will have to register as a sex offender.

Harris' office recommends that users protect themselves by adding special characters to password hints, or to choose something complex. For example, spell your favorite color as "0r4ng3" or "red-plus-yellow."

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Supercomputer Joins Hunt for Child Predators

Original Article

If it actually works, and legally, good, but I have my doubts! You will also notice the nice round "statistics" they throw out there, without saying where they came up with them. Also, just because a computer is sending and receiving child porn, doesn't mean it's a physical person doing it. It could be a computer virus. So you should have to prove it's from a person, not just assume it is. I can see it now, some country like China, comes up with a virus to spread child porn, next the Gestapo come busting down your door and throws you in prison because your machine is infected with a virus, labeling you a pedophile and ruining your life.

12/11/2010

By ERIC BLAND

Jaguar Supercomputer Has Already Helped Arrest Dozens of Criminals

The tragedy of seven-year-old Somer Thompson's 2009 murder was that it didn't have to happen.

Somer's assailant, Jarred Harrell, 24, was in police custody in 2009. The police also had Harrell's computer, which contained child pornography. But investigators hadn't seen the material, which would have kept him locked up. He was released, and on Oct. 19 Harrel abducted the Florida child on her way home from school.

Two days later Somer's body was found in a Georgia landfill.

Now scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, along with local and national collaborators, are working to save the life of the next Somer Thompson.

With the aid of the Jaguar supercomputer, the second most powerful computer in the world, Oak Ridge scientists hope to find child pornography faster than ever and then trace and arrest pedophiles quickly before they abuse or kill more children.

"These guys are on the verge of changing history," said Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children. "There is no tool to interrupt child sexual abuse on a scale like this."

New Program Can Lead to Quicker Prosecution, Arrest

Every year U.S. law enforcement arrests between 2,000 and 3,000 individuals for charges related to child pornography, said Weeks. That's out of an estimated 300,000 people authorities suspect are engaged in this kind of criminal activity.

There is currently technology, developed last year by ORNL's Thomas Potok and Shaun Gleason, that could have helped investigators find the pornography on Harrel's computer, although they didn't have it. Still the new program, called Artemis, after the Greek goddess of the hunt, has helped make a dent in the local population of pedophiles.

When investigators, such as Tom Evans from the Knoxville Police Department, enters a suspect's home, they carry with them a copy of Artemis, which they run on the suspect's computers to find images with flesh-colored pixels, which could be child pornography.

Artemis has already helped the Knoxville Police Department in the roughly 30 child sex crime related arrests it has made this year, said Evans. "It can lead to a quicker prosecution and a quicker arrest," he said.

Jaguar Most Likely Won't Start Catching Pedophiles Until End of 2011

While Artemis does in seconds what would ordinarily take hours or even days to find, it only works when police have an actual suspect. And finding a suspect is the hard thing to do, according to Michael Teague, a forensic psychologist and retired Director of Psychological Services for the Raleigh Police Department.

Tips from concerned parents, girlfriends and other citizens go a long way to identifying pedophiles, said Teague. But these people often operate in networks, sharing images and video with one another over the Internet. Finding these people, and especially the people producing the images and video, is more difficult. This is how the Jaguar supercomputer can help.

"With the current process, it could take weeks for law enforcement to track someone down," said Robert Patton, a scientist at Oak Ridge who, along with Carlos Rojas, runs the Jaguar and pedophile project. "Right now we could probably do it in a few days. What we want is to do it in a few hours."

What Patton means is that from the time a child pornographer uploads a series of new pictures or video onto a network, the Jaguar supercomputer could find that file, see who has downloaded it, and track it down to an actual physical address source, all in a few hours.

Once police have that information they could raid the home, arrest the pedophile, and, hopefully, save the life of a child.

"The quickness is what would be so important," said Teague.

These criminals have molested and abused a child or children; kidnap or murder is not beyond them, as Somer Thompson's case so tragically illustrated. If a child becomes uncooperative or tries to run away it is easier to kill the child or move than risk being caught.

While Artemis has been running for a while now, Jaguar most likely won't catch pedophiles until the latter end of next year, said Patton. Right now they are running simulations and testing the programs on Jaguar before they use it in the real world. But the investigators hope that soon Jaguar will chase down pedophiles and prevent the death of the next Somer Thompson.

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Framed for Child Porn by a PC Virus

Original Article

Old article, but still relevant. This is why you should NEVER open an email with an attachment which may be an executable (i.e. Ending in .EXE, .COM, .BAS, .VB, .JS, etc) and you should make sure you have a virus program, and it's updated, and also a spyware/malware program, if it's not included. You can also download a program which checks sites for problems, like McAfee Site Advisor. You think it can't happen to you, and you be labeled a sex offender, your life ruined, well think again!

11/08/2009

By JORDAN ROBERTSON

PC owners caught with child porn loaded on their computers by a computer virus

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer — and might not realize it until police knock at your door.

An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a PC through a virus. It can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.

Their situations are complicated by the fact that actual pedophiles often blame viruses — a defense rightfully viewed with skepticism by law enforcement.

"It's an example of the old `dog ate my homework' excuse," says Phil Malone, director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework."

The AP's investigation included interviewing people who had been found with child porn on their computers. The AP reviewed court records and spoke to prosecutors, police and computer examiners.

One case involved [name withheld], a former investigator with the Massachusetts agency that oversees workers' compensation.

In 2007, [name withheld]'s bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his colleagues. A technician found child porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.

[name withheld] was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, which carries up to five years in prison. He endured death threats, his car tires were slashed and he was shunned by friends.

[name withheld] and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal fees. They liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage and sold their car.

An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While [name withheld] and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.

Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped — 11 months after it was filed.

The [name withheld] say they have health problems from the stress of the case. They say they've talked to dozens of lawyers but can't get one to sue the state, because of a cap on the amount they can recover.

"It ruined my life, my wife's life and my family's life," he says.

The Massachusetts attorney general's office, which charged [name withheld], declined interview requests.

At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with viruses that could give hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp. Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.

Pedophiles can tap viruses in several ways. The simplest is to force someone else's computer to surf child porn sites, collecting images along the way. Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can be viewed remotely when the PC is online.

"They're kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield," says Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child pornographers were abusing their legitimate services.

But pedophiles need not be involved: Child porn can land on a computer in a sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC's owner.

In the first publicly known cases of individuals being victimized, two men in the United Kingdom were cleared in 2003 after viruses were shown to have been responsible for the child porn on their PCs.

In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a defense contractor's PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.

In the other, a virus changed the home page on a man's Web browser to display child porn, a discovery made by his 7-year-old daughter. The man spent more than a week in jail and three months in a halfway house, and lost custody of his daughter.

Chris Watts, a computer examiner in Britain, says he helped clear a hotel manager whose co-workers found child porn on the PC they shared with him.

Watts found that while surfing the Internet for ways to play computer games without paying for them, the manager had visited a site for pirated software. It redirected visitors to child porn sites if they were inactive for a certain period.

In all these cases, the central evidence wasn't in dispute: Pornography was on a computer. But proving how it got there was difficult.

Tami Loehrs, who inspected [name withheld]'s computer, recalls a case in Arizona in which a computer was so "extensively infected" that it would be "virtually impossible" to prove what an indictment alleged: that a 16-year-old who used the PC had uploaded child pornography to a Yahoo group.

Prosecutors dropped the charge and let the boy plead guilty to a separate crime that kept him out of jail, though they say they did it only because of his age and lack of a criminal record.

Many prosecutors say blaming a computer virus for child porn is a new version of an old ploy.

"We call it the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It," says James Anderson, a federal prosecutor in Wyoming.

However, forensic examiners say it would be hard for a pedophile to get away with his crime by using a bogus virus defense.

"I personally would feel more comfortable investing my retirement in the lottery before trying to defend myself with that," says forensics specialist Jeff Fischbach.

Even careful child porn collectors tend to leave incriminating e-mails, DVDs or other clues. Virus defenses are no match for such evidence, says Damon King, trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

But while the virus defense does not appear to be letting real pedophiles out of trouble, there have been cases in which forensic examiners insist that legitimate claims did not get completely aired.

Loehrs points to Ned Solon of Casper, Wyo., who is serving six years for child porn found in a folder used by a file-sharing program on his computer.

Solon admits he used the program to download video games and adult porn — but not child porn. So what could explain that material?

Loehrs testified that Solon's antivirus software wasn't working properly and appeared to have shut off for long stretches, a sign of an infection. She found no evidence the five child porn videos on Solon's computer had been viewed or downloaded fully. The porn was in a folder the file-sharing program labeled as "incomplete" because the downloads were canceled or generated an error.

This defense was curtailed, however, when Loehrs ended her investigation in a dispute with the judge over her fees. Computer exams can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Defendants can ask the courts to pay, but sometimes judges balk at the price. Although Loehrs stopped working for Solon, she argues he is innocent.

"I don't think it was him, I really don't," Loehrs says. "There was too much evidence that it wasn't him."

The prosecution's forensics expert, Randy Huff, maintains that Solon's antivirus software was working properly. And he says he ran other antivirus programs on the computer and didn't find an infection — although security experts say antivirus scans frequently miss things.

"He actually had a very clean computer compared to some of the other cases I do," Huff says.

The jury took two hours to convict Solon.

"Everybody feels they're innocent in prison. Nobody believes me because that's what everybody says," says Solon, whose case is being appealed. "All I know is I did not do it. I never put the stuff on there. I never saw the stuff on there. I can only hope that someday the truth will come out."

But can it? It can be impossible to tell with certainty how a file got onto a PC.

"Computers are not to be trusted," says Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as "painfully simple" to get a computer to download something the owner doesn't want — whether it's a program that displays ads or one that stores illegal pictures.

It's possible, Grossman says, that more illicit material is waiting to be discovered.

"Just because it's there doesn't mean the person intended for it to be there — whatever it is, child porn included."

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Microsoft Security Advisory (972890) - Vulnerability in Microsoft Video ActiveX Control Could Allow Remote Code Execution

View the article here
Fix it, here

07/06/2009

Version: 1.0

Microsoft is investigating a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Video ActiveX Control. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. When using Internet Explorer, code execution is remote and may not require any user intervention.

We are aware of attacks attempting to exploit the vulnerability.

Our investigation has shown that there are no by-design uses for this ActiveX Control in Internet Explorer which includes all of the Class Identifiers within the msvidctl.dll that hosts this ActiveX Control. For Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 customers, Microsoft is recommending removing support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using all the Class Identifiers listed in the Workaround section. Though unaffected by this vulnerability, Microsoft is recommending that Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 customers remove support for this ActiveX Control within Internet Explorer using the same Class Identifiers as a defense-in-depth measure.

Customers may prevent the Microsoft Video ActiveX Control from running in Internet Explorer, either manually using the instructions in the Workaround section or automatically using the solution found in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 972890. By preventing the Microsoft Video ActiveX Control from running in Internet Explorer, there is no impact to application compatibility.

We are actively working with partners in our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) to provide information that they can use to provide broader protections to customers.

Microsoft is currently working to develop a security update for Windows to address this vulnerability and will release the update when it has reached an appropriate level of quality for broad distribution.

Mitigating Factors:

• Customers who are using Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 are not affected because the ability to pass data to this control within Internet Explorer has been restricted.
• By default, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2003 and 2008 runs in a restricted mode that is known as Enhanced Security Configuration. Enhanced Security Configuration is a group of preconfigured settings in Internet Explorer that can reduce the likelihood of a user or administrator downloading and running specially crafted Web content on a server. This is a mitigating factor for Web sites that you have not added to the Internet Explorer Trusted sites zone. See also Managing Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration.
• By default, all supported versions of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express open HTML e-mail messages in the Restricted sites zone. The Restricted sites zone helps mitigate attacks that could try to exploit this vulnerability by preventing Active Scripting and ActiveX controls from being used when reading HTML e-mail messages. However, if a user clicks a link in an e-mail message, the user could still be vulnerable to exploitation of this vulnerability through the Web-based attack scenario.
• In a Web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a Web site that contains a Web page that is used to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised Web sites and Web sites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit these Web sites. Instead, an attacker would have to persuade users to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker's Web site.
• An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

To read the entire article, click here.

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"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin (Bill Of Rights)

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Botnet Warnings

Off topic, but just some useful information for everyone to be aware of. Don't install anything unless you requested it!

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YouTube videos of a person hacking, acting as a 15 year old (ILLEGAL ACTIVITY!!!!)

And he is sending the person, a EXE, which apparently allows them to take control of someones machine, or something else? I have saved these videos. Must be some kid, documenting their illegal "hacking" skills. He sent the person a program, which the idiot accepted and ran it, that allowed this person to map a drive to the "victims" machine and to take control of it, and browse around. This shit is totally illegal, and I wonder how the FBI would like to receive that video? Their account is here.

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Digital Vigilantes: Hacking for a Good Cause

View the article here

12/25/2007

Using a piece of software he originally created to access computers remotely, Brad Willman went on the offensive against child pornographers.

This is Part Three of a Series

Brad Willman was installing networking equipment out of an emergency van in British Columbia when a policeman showed up and asked for him. Willman knew the officer from a case he was involved with a couple of years earlier, so he didn't worry--until he arrived at the police station and was introduced to a couple of U.S. cops.

The visit marked the end of Willman's version of vigilante justice.

A Trojan Horse Used for Good

It was 2000, and Willman was 19. He had spent the past few years surreptitiously distributing a Trojan horse program to more than 1,000 people to try to uncover child-porn activities. All told, Willman said his work sent around 70 people to prison.

But then Willman stumbled on a prominent California judge. He discovered that Ronald Kline, at the time a superior court judge in Orange County, had a big collection of child porn and a diary on his PC indicating he was planning to try to seduce young boys. The high-profile case put an end to Willman's career as a crime-fighter.

"Oh, I knew it was illegal," Willman said in a recent phone interview. "But I really didn't care. I felt if I'm helping a few people in the process, cool." Until Kline, Willman had managed to remain anonymous.

The Origins of the Program

Willman didn't initially set out to chase child pornographers. He started out developing a program designed to compete with pcAnywhere, Symantec's software that lets users access computers remotely.

But then, while discussing programming on various newsgroups, he had a conversation with a Canadian man who offered his 6-year-old daughter to Willman.

"That was an awkward scenario," Willman said, putting it mildly.

Willman quickly contacted the police, who were able to prosecute the Edmonton man, he said.

"He's more or less what altered my mind from competing with pcAnywhere to making a Trojan to see who else is doing this," Willman said.

Willman used the work he'd already developed on the program to trick suspected pedophiles into unknowingly downloading the software so that he could get proof from their computers.

How Willman Used the Trojan Horse

Willman would visit child-porn newsgroups and post his program as a file that looked like it contained a photo. In order to avoid suspicion, Willman built in an additional feature: When the program launched without opening a photo, he designed it so that the first time it loaded, it would display any photo from the directory to the user.

After someone downloaded the software, Willman could look through their files remotely for illicit documents or photos. Once he found damning information, he'd copy and share it with various child-porn watchdog groups, who could then pursue the perpetrators.

Everything changed when Kline downloaded the Trojan and Willman found evidence on the judge's computer.

Willman passed the information on to one of the watchdog groups as usual, and he figured that was that--until the day the police showed up while he was at work.

The U.S. police told him that they found him through correspondence sent from his computer to one of the watchdog groups.

While the police were initially friendly because Willman was able to give them additional information about Kline, they later told him that if he did any more hacking, ever, they would arrest him. Willman signed an agreement that he wouldn't hack and that he wouldn't have anything to do with child porn.

Legal Barriers to Willman's Vigilantism

Various U.S. state and federal laws criminalize unauthorized access to computers, said Jeff Neuburger, an attorney specializing in technology at Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner, an international law firm based in New York City. If Willman hadn't agreed to the deal with the police, he could have been charged with violating state or federal laws. But even in that case, as long as he didn't set foot in the United States, it would have been difficult for American authorities to prosecute Willman, Neuburger said.

Neuburger is seeing more and more cases like Willman's, where people are using the Internet to accomplish good, but sometimes with questionable means. "In the U.S., prosecutors are careful not to let something like this go without sending a message that what the person did was wrong," he said. "But they may not aggressively seek a severe sentence or punishment."

One problem with vigilante work like Willman's is that someone might make a mistake and affect innocent people, Neuburger warned. Had Willman wrongly accused someone, he could have faced much bigger legal problems. "It's a dangerous thing," he said.

Retiring the Trojan

His days in the spotlight behind him, Willman, now 27, lives with his parents in Langley, B.C., where he provides phone tech support for a small cable company. On the side, he repairs computers and dreams of becoming a computer security researcher.

As for Kline, he was sentenced earlier this year to 27 months in prison, a sentence that Willman called "reasonable."

Once in a while, Willman still gets a request from someone asking for his help in busting a suspect involved with child porn. He can only refer them to the watchdog groups he was familiar with.

"I would like to help these people get their kids in a better position--but I can't, because the type of research I'd have to do is stuff I'm not allowed to do anymore," he said.

Even though Willman knew his actions were illegal, he didn't consider the consequences. "I thought I covered my tracks pretty well," he said. "And I did until the Judge Kline thing. I didn't really think I'd get busted."

Don't miss: Parts One and Two of our Digital Vigilantes Series

The White Knight Busts ID Thieves
Using eBay to Catch a Truck Thief

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Anonymous on FOX11

A little old, but sounds like Perverted Justice and the other vigilantes I've came across, doesn't it? Especially the last video...

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Reporting Computer, Internet-Related, or Intellectual Property Crime

View the article here

Reporting Computer, Internet-Related, or Intellectual Property Crime

Internet-related crime, like any other crime, should be reported to appropriate law enforcement investigative authorities at the local, state, federal, or international levels, depending on the scope of the crime. Citizens who are aware of federal crimes should report them to local offices of federal law enforcement.

• Reporting Computer Crime
• Reporting Intellectual Property Crime

Reporting Computer Hacking, Fraud and Other Internet-Related Crime

The primary federal law enforcement agencies that investigate domestic crime on the Internet include: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Secret Service, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) , the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) . Each of these agencies has offices conveniently located in every state to which crimes may be reported. Contact information regarding these local offices may be found in local telephone directories. In general, federal crime may be reported to the local office of an appropriate law enforcement agency by a telephone call and by requesting the "Duty Complaint Agent."

Each law enforcement agency also has a headquarters (HQ) in Washington, D.C., which has agents who specialize in particular areas. For example, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service both have headquarters-based specialists in computer intrusion (i.e., computer hacker) cases.

To determine some of the federal investigative law enforcement agencies that may be appropriate for reporting certain kinds of crime, please refer to the following table:

Type of Crime	Appropriate federal investigative law enforcement agencies
Computer intrusion (i.e. hacking)	FBI local office U.S. Secret Service Internet Crime Complaint Center
Password trafficking	FBI local office U.S. Secret Service Internet Crime Complaint Center
Counterfeiting of currency	U.S. Secret Service
Child Pornography or Exploitation	FBI local office if imported, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Internet Crime Complaint Center
Child Exploitation and Internet Fraud matters that have a mail nexus	U.S. Postal Inspection Service Internet Crime Complaint Center
Internet fraud and SPAM	FBI local office U.S. Secret Service (Financial Crimes Division) Federal Trade Commission (online complaint) if securities fraud or investment-related SPAM e-mails, Securities and Exchange Commission (online complaint) The Internet Crime Complaint Center
Internet harassment	FBI local office
Internet bomb threats	FBI local office ATF local office
Trafficking in explosive or incendiary devices or firearms over the Internet	FBI local office ATF local office

Other Cybercrime Reporting Resources

• The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)

  The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). IC3's mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 gives the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, and local level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes.

  • The Internet Crime Complaint Center
• Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Coordinating Center: (202) 282-9201 (report incidents relating to national security and infrastructure issues)
• U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (U.S. CERT) (online reporting for technicians)
• National Association of Attorney General's Computer Crime Point of Contact List (all state-related cyber questions)

Reporting Intellectual Property Crime

Type of Crime	Appropriate federal investigative law enforcement agencies
Copyright piracy (e.g., software, movie, sound recordings)	FBI local field office U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Internet Crime Complaint Center
Trademark counterfeiting	FBI local field office U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Internet Crime Complaint Center
Theft of trade secrets	FBI local field office

• "Reporting Intellectual Property Crime: A Guide for Victims of Counterfeiting, Copyright Infringement, and Theft of Trade Secrets" (PDF)

  This guide is contained in Appendix C of the Report of the Department of Justice's Intellectual Property Task Force (October 2004) (PDF). The guide also contains the following checklists for reporting intellectual property crime to law enforcement:

  • Checklist for Reporting a Copyright Infringement or Counterfeit Trademark Offense (PDF)
  • Checklist for Reporting a Theft of Trade Secrets Offense (PDF)

• Other Government Initiatives to Combat Cybercrime

  • The STOP Initiative (www.stopfakes.gov)

    The stopfakes.gov website provides information to consumers and businesses on intellectual property, including information on how to report trade in fake goods.

  • National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center

    The IPR Coordination Center's responsibilities include:

    • Coordinating U.S. government domestic and international law enforcement activities involving IPR issues.
    • Serving as a collection point for intelligence provided by private industry, as well as a channel for law enforcement to obtain cooperation from private industry (in specific law enforcement situations).
    • Integrating domestic and international law enforcement intelligence with private industry information relating to IPR crime, and disseminating IPR intelligence for appropriate investigative and tactical use.
    • Developing enhanced investigative, intelligence and interdiction capabilities.
    • Serving as a point of contact regarding IPR law enforcement related issues.

    Those with specific information regarding intellectual property crime can submit an IPR Coordination Center Complaint Referral Form.

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NV - Dateline NBC's Michelle Madigan was outed at Defcon

View the article here

YouTube video is at the bottom of this article.

08/06/2007

Schadenfreude alert! On Friday, a woman identified as Dateline NBC's Michelle Madigan was outed at Defcon, an "Underground Hackers Convention" taking place in Las Vegas. Madigan, who "had a camera in a small black bag that allowed her to surreptitiously video tape people attending the show," reportedly "hoped to tape people admitting to breaking the law and then attempt to tie them to federal agents who also attended the show."

But Defcon founder Jeff Moss identified her -- making quite the show of it -- from the stage, in front of hundreds of convention-goers. As Madigan was escorted out of the conference to her car, some of them, along with some of the convention's credentialed journalists, followed. They took video of her, shouted questions, and, in some cases, heckled her. And yes, there were "To Catch A Predator" jokes.

Video of what went down is up on YouTube, and I encourage you to check it out before deciding where your sympathies lie. I've had my problems with Dateline in the past, and I'm not a fan of what they tried to pull off here – the hidden camera expose, like the anonymous source, is a journalistic tool that should only be used responsibly. And showing up at Defcon with a camera in your bag, hoping to get some hacker to say something incriminating, is a cheap tactic unlikely to yield anything more than sensationalistic images that don't do justice to the nuances of the story. There are times when going undercover is justifiable --unlike my colleague, I think this is one of them -- but I don't think that this attempt comes close to qualifying.

That said, those hackers sure are tough to sympathize with, aren't they? Watch the video if you haven't yet – the triumphalism on display doesn't exactly make you want to rally to the hackers' defense. The whole thing has this "burn the witch!" vibe, in fact, that makes you feel like you're watching grainy cell-phone footage from Salem, Massachusetts. The comments section on the video, somewhat surprisingly, is divided between those cheering the hecklers on and those criticizing them for going after a producer who was just "doing her job."

"Tar and feathers would have been appropriate. She got off easy," writes one commenter. Says another: "So let me get this straight, this reporter went under cover to a convention where scumbags learn how to hack computers and destroy peoples lives....and she's the bad person?" It looks like we might actually have found a group of people the public thinks as little of as they do journalists. "Hackers and reporters," concludes one commenter, "they're just as bad."

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Ohio Man Gets 25 Years For Hacking Into Webcams, Recording Minors

View the article here

I've read about this before, where a hacker can hack into your machine and access your camera and sound card to hear and watch you. If a hacker can do this, what about big brother?

07/12/2007

A U.S. Attorney calls the Dayton man, who also distributed some of the recordings, a "high-tech video voyeur."

An Ohio man was sentenced to 25 years in prison for hacking into minors' Webcams and secretly watching and recording them in their homes.

Mark Wayne Miller, 47, of Dayton, had pled guilty in January 2006 to the one count of computer intrusion, as well as to one count of sexual exploitation of children, relating to his successful efforts to persuade under-age girls to engage in sexually explicit conduct for him in front of their Webcams. At the time of his arrest, Miller was on probation with the state of Ohio and was a registered sex offender.

The FBI reported that Miller confirmed in court that he developed sexual relationships with minor-aged girls over the Internet, usually in online chat rooms. Tricking the girls with a fictitious name and a photo of an unknown young male, Miller said he used the "chats" to persuade the girls to engage in sexually explicit conduct in front of active Webcams.

In other cases, he hacked into the girls' computers to secretly intercept, watch, and record live Webcam footage of the girls.

He distributed some of the recorded Webcam footage to others.

"Miller was a high-tech video voyeur," said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Gregory G. Lockhart, in a statement. "He would 'phish' for the minors' passwords to a popular Internet portal then secretly gain access to the minors' Webcam sessions."

The FBI reported that Miller's scheme was exposed when one of the girls sent a love letter to the fictitious boy Miller had made up, but she sent it to Miller's former workplace. His former employer read the letter and then found "additional evidence relating to child pornography while cleaning out Miller's work area," contacted some of the minors, and then contacted local law enforcement. After that, the FBI was called into the case.

"All of us, especially parents, must make sure we communicate with our children and let them know of the dangers that exist in the virtual world, as well as teaching them how to be safe on the Internet," Lockhart said.

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Macpherson tries to shut door on Internet predators

View the article here

More BS to try to police & regulate the Internet. Not all sex offenders are "trolling" for kids for victimize, get that through your THICK A$$ SKULL! Also, how many times are the children solicited by another child? It's a lot. Ask them! Do your homework, you will see. Macpherson is just someone following suit and trying to make a name for himself by joining the bandwagon! What about other criminals like identity thieves, spammers, hackers, or people using stuff like XBox, etc? This is BS and will not work, it will only fill the prisons with people who made some stupid remark on XBox or some other place, and overflow the prison system.

06/28/2007

Rep. Greg Macpherson, D-Lake Oswego, carried legislation in the Oregon House Monday to protect young people from sexual predators on the Internet.

“The Internet presents a whole new set of dangers,” Macpherson said. “It gives total anonymity to the criminal, which is especially frightening when he’s a sexual predator.”

House Bill 3515 creates new crimes of online sexual corruption of a child in the first and second degree. The second-degree crime is committed when an adult knowingly uses an online communication to solicit a child the adult reasonably believes to be under age 16 for the purpose of engaging in sex. The first-degree crime is committed when that adult takes a substantial step toward physically meeting the child.

“Our teenagers have no way to be sure that the new friend they met on line is, as claimed, another teenager struggling with the natural stresses of growing up,” Macpherson told House members. “Too often it’s a 30-year old male engaging in what law enforcement experts call ‘grooming.’ He befriends the teen, waiting until defenses are lowered, and then proposes a meeting.”
- And if you teach the kids, instead of instilling more fear, they can block predators on MySpace and other sites, and JUST SAY NO!!!

Oregon is one of only eight states that do not make online sexual solicitation a crime. As a result, law enforcement generally can charge a predator only when he shows up at the home of the teen for a sexual encounter, Macpherson said. As a result of the legislation, proposing a meeting over the Internet can be prosecuted as second degree sexual corruption. Showing up for a meeting can be charged specifically as first degree sexual corruption instead of an attempted sex crime.

“This will help us respond to a new danger of this 21st Century,” Macpherson said. “While predators of the past lurked in the shadows of dark streets, too many now hide in the anonymity offered by the internet. Let’s shine a light on them.”

House Bill 3515 passed the House by a unanimous vote. It goes now to the Senate.

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Experts Warn Links To Child Porn Hidden In Legit Web Sites

View the article here

BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!

You may be the next sex offender on the registry! Make sure you have a virus scanner (and it's up to date), along with Spyware, Malware, etc. I recommend ZoneAlarm personally.

06/13/2007

Sophos is warning IT managers and Web site hosts to be watchful for cybercriminals putting graphic language and links to porn sites in forums and message boards.

A security company is warning IT managers and Web hosts to screen their content since cybercriminals are increasingly taking over legitimate Web pages to promote child pornography.

The victimized Web sites are being littered with posts -- containing offensive words and links to porn sites -- on forums and discussion boards designed to lure readers to various child pornography sites, according to an advisory from Sophos, Inc. The majority of the affected pages that the security company's researchers have found are on legitimate Web sites, and one is even on a site designed for children.

"What's most worrying about these posts is that they're happening on legitimate sites. Any Web site can fall victim to an attack, no matter what the content," said Fraser Howard, a principal virus researcher at Sophos, in a written statement. "This means that innocent Web surfers, including children, may stumble across this kind of offensive content. Every Web host must ensure that all areas of their site are fully protected and that all user input is carefully screened before it is posted on the site."

Sophos's researchers reported a recent upsurge in hackers injecting malicious code onto legitimate Web sites. These moves, they noted generally are focused on installing malware on victims' machines. Now attackers are posting content to sites to drive traffic to seedy, and often dangerous sites.

"Some of the same techniques that malware authors use in order to infect victims with malware are being used to distribute links and drive traffic to all sorts of Web content," said Howard. "The fact is that any unprotected Web site can be targeted by cybercriminals trying to spread their malicious content."

In March, Sophos had warned that hackers were luring users to a malicious site with promises of pornographic pictures. The widespread spam campaign was tricking users into downloading a spyware Trojan. The e-mails, which lure users with phrases like 'hot photos from my birthday', had fraudulent links to what they say will be online porn, but the links lead to a Web site containing the Troj/Pushu-A Trojan. Once it infected a machine, the malware tried to steal information from the PC's hard drive.

Sophos noted in its advisory this week that its researchers have reported the sites hosting these posts to the Internet Watch Foundation, the self-regulatory body that combats illegal content online.

Sophos is warning Web hosts to make sure they have up-to-date security solutions in place across their sites and that all user content is screened prior to posting. For businesses, Sophos recommends they deploy a Web filtering solution that not only filters based on Web site category, but that inspects the code of every Web site before granting access.

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When Government Sides With The Crackers

View the article here

Article is not from me, but from the author at the above site.

02/27/2007

Opinion: Are some crimes so awful that we must use the work of criminals to gather suspicious evidence?

Sometimes standing up for individual rights is not just a matter of principle, it's common sense.

The prosecution of former Orange County, Calif., Superior Court Judge Ronald C. Kline for child pornography is a case that stands out in this respect, and for reasons which have a lot to do with computer security.

Kline had downloaded images of child porn, including some that contained a trojan horse and had been left there by Brad Willman, a Canadian who calls himself Citizen Tipster. Based on what I've read, it appears that the images probably exploit some vulnerability that allows them to run malicious code.

Once Kline loaded the images, Willman, like any other bot herder, could gain access to his computer and do what he wished, including looking for evidence of who Kline was and passing it on to the authorities, and this he did. The government was willing to accept this evidence even though it was obtained by clearly illegal means. And the government made it clear they weren't going to prosecute Willman, which effectively encourages him to continue his activities.

Indeed the legal standard is that such evidence can still be admissible if it wasn't obtained by the government or an agent of theirs. The government successfully made the case to the famously liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that Willman was not an agent of the government.

The case, believe it or not, is far from unique. I wrote about a very similar case several years ago. The hacker in that case was not even identified in court except by the handle "Unknownuser" and turned out to be a resident of Turkey. But the FBI, and later the state of Virginia, were willing to accept evidence from an unnamed foreigner, who couldn't be cross-examined, and eventually the courts were willing to accept it, too.

The Virginia case was worse in many ways, in that the government actually had actively encouraged Unknownuser to continue his hacking activities based on earlier evidence he provided in another case, and they also made it clear to him that they weren't going to prosecute him. To my mind this makes him clearly an agent of the government, but the famously conservative 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the FBI. There the case ended, at least so far.

Based on the reports I've read, and especially since he recently pleaded guilty, it's tempting to believe that Kline is guilty. But it's also possible that he just copped a plea based on the strength of the evidence against him.

And make no mistake about it, the evidence found by Willman and Unknownuser is not reliable. Trojan horses of the type they use (Unknownuser used Subseven) give them just as much ability to plant evidence as to find it. Under such a standard, I could hack into your computer (yes, you), plant kiddie porn on it and call the FBI anonymously to rat you out. I could also threaten to do this if you don't pay me. How's that for a legal system?

I can only understand the court's attitude as indicating either that they didn't appreciate just how tainted the evidence was, or that they overlooked it because of what the defendant was accused of. In Kline's case, he had been publicly pilloried for years, with one radio station camping outside his house.

Nowadays you'd garner a lot more respect defending the rights of al Qaeda members than alleged child porn owners. There's a good reason why everyone has certain rights, no matter what they're accused of. Some people accused of crimes are not guilty of them, and the evidence against them needs to be held to a high standard. Relying on the likes of Unknownuser and Willman doesn't meet that standard. You better hope they don't take a disliking to you.

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