contributed by Maggie
The Oregon Graduate Institute of Science & Technology has released a paper, funded in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, entitled "Buffer Overflows: Attacks and Defenses for the Vulnerability of the Decade" The paper labels Buffer Overflows, the act of feeding more information into a program than it can handle, as the number one security threat to the internet today. (Glad our hard earned tax dollars funded a study that figured out what everyone already knew.)

C|Net
Buffer Overflows: Attacks and Defenses for the Vulnerability of the Decade - PDF
Mudge's Breakthrough Paper on Buffer Overflows

contributed by Arik
A Bloomingdale's cashier has been charged with criminal possession of forgery devices, unlawful duplication of computer data, criminal possession of computer material and criminal possession of stolen property, all of which are felonies. The charges came after 26 year old Tania Ventura used a magnetic stripe reader attached to a Palm Pilot to record the credit card information of customers at the store. (Why go to all the trouble of using a Palm Pilot when a pen and paper would be so much easier and would allow the copying of the information when the customer was not around to catch you. The only reason this made news was because a Palm Pilot was involved.)

Washington Post
CNN

contributed by dov
Austin Hill, president of Internet privacy company Zero-Knowledge Systems, will be one of several experts talking to '60 Minutes' correspondent Lesley Stahl about the privacy implications of online profiling and data collection, and the scrutiny Internet users unintentionally open themselves to when going online. The show is scheduled to air Sunday, November 28, 1999. 7:00 PM ET/PT.

Zero Knowledge Systems

contributed by Evil Wench
The FBI was able to arrest George Rocha of Greensboro North Carolina after he accessed his HotMail account from his home. He has been accused of planting bombs and extorting money from Lowe's Home Improvement stores. Five people where hurt in the bombings, one of them seriously. (When will people learn, Hotmail is not anonymous.)

The Charlotte Observer

contributed by Evil Wench
Three county clerks, in Dade County Florida, face computer tampering charges for allegedly tapping into courthouse computers to erase arrest warrants. All three clerks where long time employees at the courthouse.

Miami Sun-Sentinel

contributed by Nicole
Advertising banners on web sites and within Freeware applications such as PKZip can gather information such as the applications running on a machine, user names, its IP address, and other network related information and send that information back to the creator of the software. The software is produced by US software firm Conducent to gather computer and network information by using a stealth application buried within the freeware program or banner ad. (If this isn't labeled as a Trojan then I lose all faith in the AV industry)

ZD Net UK
Conducent

contributed by no0ne
A security breach gave an unknown number of users access to the net via City Connection's free fone number. City Connection's, a fairly new ISP in England, 0800 number was published on several newsgroups and has finally been shut down. The identity of the person who leaked the number is still unknown.

The UK Register