contributed by Alex
The accused creator of the Melissa virus, David Smith, is scheduled to appear in Monmouth County NJ Superior Court on Thursday. He is also scheduled to appear in the US District Court in Newark, New Jersey later the same day. Insiders believe that he will plead guilty to charges of interruption of public communication, theft of computer service, and wrongful access to computer systems.

ZD Net

contributed by Weld Pond
Anonymity on the Internet should be protected and deserves to be treated no differently than anonymous pamphlets or other speech, according to a study released today by the Cato Institute. U.S. and foreign law enforcement officials regard anonymity as a threat to public order and talk about limiting anonymity online. Proposals to limit anonymous communications on the Internet would violate free speech rights long recognized by the Supreme Court. Anonymous and pseudonymous speech was used to great extent by the founding fathers such as Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Samuel Adams, and others. Today, human rights workers in numerous third world countries have reestablished anonymity and free speech. Given the importance of anonymity as a component of free speech, the cost of banning anonymous Internet speech would be enormous. It makes no sense to treat Internet speech differently from printed leaflets or books. (Finally some sanity in the anonymity debate.)

Nameless in Cyberspace: Anonymity on the Internet - PDF

contributed by boomer
Oklahoma State University has charged students in connection with an illegal entrance into a computer system owned by General Atomics, a company based in San Diego. General Atomics initiated the investigation on October 18 when they noticed an OSU Internet address illegally accessing their system.

The O'Colly

contributed by Evil Wench
Microsoft has filed lawsuits against auction Web sites or online software sellers in six states that frequently use spam to advertise. Microsoft says that it was made aware of these illegal activities through its anti-piracy hotline.

Wired

contributed by jgrasett
The Computer Emergency Response Team has released the paper mentioned on HNN yesterday regarding distributed DoS attacks. The paper examines the use of distributed-system intruder tools and notes that better forensic techniques and training are needed.

Results of the Distributed-Systems Intuder Tools Workshop - PDF
(CERT should be commended for using the word 'intruder' throughout this document as opposed to the word 'hacker')

contributed by Mr Man
It appears that during an audit the security auditors of Price Waterhouse Coopers were able to break into computers at The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in Washington using dial up lines. Once inside, the auditors had the ability to not only create fictitious beneficiaries and send them money, but they could also edit or delete files and information on individuals in the systems. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is owned by the federal government and guarantees the retirement checks of 42 million Americans. (Hmmm, I wonder how long those lines where vulnerable before the audit? And how many other companies have modems dangling off their network behind the firewall?)

NY Times

contributed by Freaky
Freaks Macintosh Archives has produced a CD that contains all the Macintosh underground files known to exist. The CD also contains edited versions of Freaks talk at Defcon VII where Space Rogue officially directs users of the Whacked Mac Archives to Freaks Macintosh Archives. The CD is ready for pre-orders, this will assure that you get the low 20.00 price. To Pre-Order send a email to freaky-order@staticusers.net

Freaks Macintosh Archives

contributed by AlienPlaque
Users of Cable modems, DSL, ISDN and even dedicated dial up connection are rapidly discovering the hazards of being online all the time. To help protect these users Nortel has introduced the personal hardware firewall that will sit on the line between your modem and computer. Currently 'Secure Cable' is only available for cable modem users but other bandwidth types will be available soon. (I hope this thing does an auto update or it will be out of date very quickly.)

Associated Press - via Yahoo
PR Newswire - via Yahoo