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Wednesday, February 04, 2004 |
eBay hacker pleads guilty, by Kevin Poulsen,
SecurityFocus.
Jerome Heckenkamp pleaded guilty Thursday to defacing the online
auction house eBay and penetrating systems at the San Diego-based
telecommunication equipment maker Qualcomm, ending years of pre-trial
court wrangling and casting considerable doubt on his public claims of
innocence.
Under the terms of his plea deal with prosecutors, Heckenkamp, 24,
admitted to causing at least $70,000 in losses in a 1999 hacking spree
while a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. In addition
to the Qualcomm and eBay hacks -- the latter performed under the
handle "MagicFX" -- Heckenkamp admitted to penetrating the systems of
Exodus Communications, Juniper Networks, Lycos, and Cygnus Solutions.
Prosecutors agreed to recommend no more than two years in prison, and
not to seek restrictions on Heckenkamp's employment-related use of
computers and the Internet in the period of court supervision likely
to follow any prison term.
The hacker will get credit for approximately eight months of time that
he spent in custody in 2002, after he fired his lawyer to clear the
way for a series of unusual legal challenges that only served to
perplex and anger federal judges in two jurisdictions.
Among other gambits, Heckenkamp had argued that the government lacked
standing to prosecute anyone, and that the indictments in the case
referred to a different defendant: they spelled his name in all
capital letters, while he spells it with the first letter capitalized
and subsequent letters in lower case. Angered by the arguments,
federal judge James Ware declared Heckenkamp a flight risk and ordered
him arrested in the courtroom. He was released on bail, months later,
only after accepting legal representation again.
. . .
The plea agreement also allows the lawyer to challenge as
unconstitutional the 1999 search of Heckenkamp's computer that led to
the charges. According to court records, examination of the deleted
file space on Heckenkamp's Linux box surfaced a detailed personal log
of computer intrusions at 120 different universities and companies.
If the appeal is successful, Heckenkamp's conviction could be undone.
But either way, his oft-repeated claims of innocence are likely a
thing of the past.
In a 2002 jailhouse interview with SecurityFocus, Heckenkamp claimed
that hackers had penetrated his dorm-room computer and used it to
crack other systems. Some of these companies I had never even heard
of before I was charged, said Heckenkamp. A similar theme dominated a
website set up by supporters and maintained by Heckenkamp's father,
coloring the hacker an innocent scapegoat of a restless, unrelenting
and desperate FBI, caught in the middle of a 21st century spin-off of
McCarthyism.
That website could no longer be reached Monday. Heckenkamp's father,
Thomas Heckenkamp, declined to comment on the plea. Sentencing in the
case is set for May 10th.
3:08:50 PM 
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BNA News
STUDENTS BLAST SCO TACTICS
The SCO Group took its IP challenge of Linux to Harvard on
Monday and received a cold reception from area students
opposed to the company's legal tactics. The presentation,
called "Defending Intellectual Property Rights in a Digital
Age", outlined the company's decision to sue IBM for
allegedly violating a contract between the two. From
Internet News.
12:08:33 PM
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Two from Kevin Taglang:
NEW DTV TRANSITION PLAN FROM PUBCASTERS
Here's an interesting trade. Public broadcasters are working on a plan for
a hard date for returning analog TV spectrum to FCC in exchange for a long
sought after [think Lyndon Johnson administration] trust fund for public
television. The fund would support public television content as well as
subsidies for set-top convertor boxes for those who "simply can't afford
even cheap set-top boxes but also depend on over-the-air TV.". In addition,
pubcasters would also need carriage of all their digital signals on cable
and satellite TV systems. Public television stations control 21% of the
analog spectrum and the is interest in Congress in freeing that spectrum up
for wireless providers as well as for use by public safety community.
Public TV stations would save $36 million per year in electricity costs by
operating in digital only vs digital and analog.
The proposal is coming from the
Association of Public Television Stations
and a formal plan is expected by the end of the month.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Dinesh Kumar]
(Not available online)
CHALLENGE TO BROADCAST FLAG
Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Consumers Union (CU), Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF), Public Knowledge (PK), the American Library
Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the American
Association of Law Libraries, the Medical Library Association and the
Special Libraries Association have joined together in a court challenge to
the FCC decision to institute a broadcast flag content protection regime.
CU and PK have also asked the FCC to reconsider the decision and will ask
for a court review if unsuccessful at the Commission. The groups fear the
broadcast flag, which prevents distribution of content over the Internet,
could impede on consumers' fair use of content.
For more on the issue, see
The Broadcast Flag and the DTV Transition.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Brigitte Greenberg]
(Not available online)
12:08:24 PM
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File-sharing issue lands in court again: Ruling Could Help Decide
Future Of Such
Services.
By Dawn C. Chmielewski,
Mercury News.
In our view, there is one single, overarching question
before the court and that is whether the defendants can legally build,
operate and profit from a file-swapping service that is built on
preventable -- I underline preventable -- copyright infringement,
Russell Frackman, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the record labels, told
the 9th Circuit panel.
Senior Judge John T. Noonan interrupted Frackman, asking him to explain why
the Betamax ruling should not extend to this new technology. Sony did
many of these things.
Frackman said Sony's relationship with the consumer ends with the sale of a
device. Grokster and Morpheus maintain an ongoing relationship beyond the
initial offer of free file-swapping software, one that includes selling
advertising directed at an audience attracted by the lure of stolen goods.
One academic study found that 90 percent of the content exchanged on
file-sharing networks is copyrighted, Frackman noted.
Noonan pressed further, asking whether the authorized exchange of 10
percent of an estimated 750 million swapped files -- games, live recordings
and public-domain works such as Shakespeare -- met the criteria the Supreme
Court set forth in the Betamax case. That sounds like a lot of
non-infringing use to me.
. . .
Judge Sidney R. Thomas, regarded as among the most technologically astute
of the 9th Circuit judges, noted that users of the file-swapping networks
could continue to trade files, even if Morpheus and Grokster were shut down
immediately.
If that's true, aren't we chasing the wind here? asked Thomas.
Frackman countered that the Morpheus system would eventually degrade and
file-swappers would lose interest.
Meanwhile, Carey Ramos, a New York attorney representing songwriters,
received a stern rebuke from Noonan to curtail that use of abusive
language, when he began to heatedly criticize the services as
trafficking in pirated goods.
12:08:20 PM
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News from Nigeria about, you guessed it!
Amending the 419 Act (news analysis from the Lagos Daily Champion)
THE announcement by Communications Minister that government has
proposed the amendment of the Advanced Fee Fraud (419) and other related
offences Act 1995 to accommodate internet services and Bureaux de change
operators may be viewed as another decisive legislative nail on the coffin
of international criminality involving Nigerians.
The proposed amendment would, if passed into law, require all internet
providers (cyber cafes), G.S.M. (mobile phone) operators, and other public
financial institutions to register with the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) at the risk of severe sanctions including jail terms,
fines and suspension of license to operate.
Offenders in bureaux de change or financial institutions who fail to
register and do not demonstrate 'due diligence' by keeping records of
transactions will, under the proposed amendment of the 1995 419 fraud act,
be compelled to refund the total amounts involved in the transactions. In
addition the offenders will spend a year in jail, or be fined N100,000.
Those convicted of offences against the act will spend not less than five
years in jail.
All this is well and good and underscore government's avowed determination
to stamp out fraud-related and other global confidence scams that cast the
nation unfairly, and disproportionately, as a people that cannot be trusted
in any business deals, globally.
However, a number of issues are raised by our penchant for endless
legislations on matters that relevant laws already exist to deal with
effectively.
I'll say.
The analysis makes a good first cut at most of the issues.
10:07:58 AM
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Very Black Little Black Books: First-Cut Draft of 2 February
2004, by Roger Clarke.
Abstract
Technology and human ingenuity continue to pose new privacy challenges.
During 2003, a new dot.com fashion arose from an odd amalgam of Rolodex
address-books, e-communities and dating. Users of these services store
personal data on a central server, which can be accessed by other people,
and, potentially at least, exploited by the service-operator. There are
privacy concerns, of a kind that has been analysed many times before.
The new dimension that these services bring is that they entice users to
disclose personal data about their friends, business contacts or
acquaintances. That is a disturbing feature, and it requires careful analysis.
Roger's always a thoughtful analyst on these matters and very often right.
That's encouragement to read the thing, mate.
8:32:33 AM
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The Washington Times now has its "Etan Thomas is a poet" story, Well-versed, By Patrick Hruby. This comes after a suitable period of gestation following the Washington Post story blinked here last May. This piece is different, though, and centers more on politics and family. It, too, includes a sample of his work:
Last week, Thomas read his death penalty poem during a Howard University student play. Taking to the Cramton Auditorium stage in a black Kangol cap and white cable-knit sweater, Thomas spoke from memory for more than five minutes — hands punching the air, his voice lifting and dipping in line with the verse:
An eye for an eye
You feel justified
In murdering people who murder people
To show that murdering people is wrong?
Singing that song
Of what's good for the goose is good for the gander
You scandalous barbarians ...
... play God too long, and the real one might get upset.
6:47:10 AM
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Microsoft 1, MyDoom.B 0. The software giant fights off an attack designed to cripple its website. But a security expert warns that the virus could be just a taste of malicious code to come. [Wired News]
6:38:45 AM
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