Has hacking become too easy? Ask the child predator who just got 110 years for doing it!

Here is a hacker, who ended up in a lot of trouble after using malware to blackmail underage girls into creating pornography of themselves. The problem is it was probably a little too easy for him to obtain the tools, he used to pull his "hack" off!

This leads me to be slightly cynical that putting one person behind bars for 110 years is going to solve the overall problem, we are facing with the irresponsible use of technology.

Picked up this up from Sharon Gaudin (Computer World) courtesy of the NY Times:

A North Carolina man last week was sentenced to 110 years in prison after admitting that he and a co-conspirator hacked into computers used by young girls and used illicitly gained data to blackmail them.

Ivory D. Dickerson, 33, a civil engineer, admitted that he conspired with the other person to send emails or instant messages to underage girls as part of a scheme to trick them into opening a file containing the Bifrost trojan horse. The malware would give Dickerson and his co-conspirator control over the victim's computer, and they tried to use hacked information to coerce the girls into creating and then electronically sending them lurid photos of themselves, prosecutors said.

Dickerson used all the normal techniques to monitor his victims, such as keylogging software. He also had a tool, which enabled him to hack into web cameras and record what was going on.

This concerned me from a privacy perspective so I decided to see what would pop-up if I Googled "hacking webcams." To my utter amazement, I found some shocking results, which are pretty scary.

In fact, one site has a tutorial on how to hack webcams, using a Google search string.

In most instances, this can be prevented by password protecting whatever camera system you install.

Please note that criminals could use your cameras against you in a variety of ways that threaten both your privacy and safety.

Going back to the article about our hacker using BiFrost malware, a Sophos rep is quoted as saying:

The Bifrost malware, "is relatively easy to obtain," said Richard Wang, manager of SophosLabs U.S. "It's not something you need to pay for. Since we first saw it in April of 2005, we've seen over 1,200 different versions of this Trojan. The guys who write them are always trying to put up new versions to hide them from anti-virus software."

I'm guessing that Mr. Wang means the malware can be obtained from one of the hacking forums that seem to be out there (pretty easy to access) on the Internet.

So far as Mr. Dickerson, lock him up and throw the key away, preferably on a deserted island. Saying that, here is yet another example that it doesn't take a whole lot of skill to be a hacker nowadays. In fact, it seems to be a little too EASY!

It's a shame that parents now have to become computer security experts to ensure the safety of their children. Maybe the answer is to take a hard look at all the enabling factors we seem to see too much of these days?

ComputerWorld article (courtesy of the NY Times), here.

Fox News has a pretty telling video about the subject of webcam hacking, which can be seen, here.

Facebook invokes the opt-out defense when accused of privacy violations!

FaceBook, the much talked about social networking site, has received a lot of bad publicity recently.

Despite their immense popularity, personal information published on the site has been used to commit everything from identity theft to abusing children.

Hackers are also using the site to drop malicious software on unsuspecting visitors. This leads to even more privacy violations and in many instances, identity theft and financial crimes, also.

Now they are under fire for a marketing scheme, which posts what their members just purchased all over the electronic universe (Internet).

Kimberly Palmer also known as the "Alpha Consumer" at U.S. News and World report recently documented her sister's frustrations with this practice.

In her own words:

This past weekend, after my sister found a great pair of Dansko clogs and ordered them online from Zappos.com, her Facebook friends received a newsfeed message that told them she had just "found something cool at Zappos.com." Since she hadn't planned on announcing her purchase to so many people, she quickly deleted the message but not before feeling that her privacy had been invaded.

It turns out Facebook has relationships with online retailers, including Zappos.com, Fandango.com, and Overstock.com, that allow the social networking site to post information when purchases are made. My sister isn't the only one upset by it; the liberal group MoveOn.org started a petition asking Facebook to respect users' privacy and stop the practice. The blog Binary Freedom has asked Facebook not to ruin the holidays by alerting people to their gifts ahead of time.

Facebook has defended their right to do this by saying that a member can opt-out from having their personal shopping habits disclosed in public.

I always chuckle when the words "opt-out" are used as a defense to justify a violation of privacy.

The financial services industry has been sending us snail mail for years that are called privacy notices. These notices, which are full of small print make a mockery of the meaning of privacy (my opinion). If you fail to respond to these letters, they can and will sell your information to the highest bidder.

Of course, in most of these instances, the institutions involved don't make it easy to respond to these notices.

The problem with opting-out is that the current laws make it too easy to opted right back in.

Opting out is like playing a game of "Whac a Mole," because whenever you conduct a transaction, you might be opting-in again.

Tom Fragala at the Truston blog recently chronicled his frustrations in a post entitled, "Opting-In After You Have Opted-Out." In this post, Tom writes about a personal episode where he was targeted by identity thieves and opted-out, only to be opted-in again.

He also did a follow-up post, "How Direct Marketers Get You to Opt-In After Opting Out," which shows how marketing people have gotten past opt-out legislation in general.

There is little doubt that opt-out laws need to be updated. I wonder if the law were changed so that people had to give their permission for a company to sell their information, we might see a marked decrease in criminal activity enabled by information that is too easy to access!

Sadly, the people making too much money by exposing it for marketing purposes don't seem to want to become more responsible. And as long as they have a lot of money to fuel special interests, the problem isn't going to disappear very quickly!

Kimberly Palmer article, here.

Wikipedia has an interesting article going into detail on all the privacy concerns with FaceBook, here.

12-2-07 (Update): It appears FaceBook is changing their policy on opt-out to make it more user friendly and transparent. Here is a story from the LA Times on the changes, which privacy advocates are claiming as a major victory:

Facebook adds safeguards on purchase data

Task Force puts child predator away for 10 years

There is nothing that disgusts me more than crimes against children, or crimes against the elderly. The anonymous nature of the Internet has made it easier for criminals to distribute child pornography, as well as, for child predators to have access to our young.

I happened to see a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release about one of these predators getting 10 years in prison for being involved in child pornograpy.

On Jan. 3, 2007, Thomas Lane pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in Indianapolis to one count of possession of child pornography. The government's evidence showed that the defendant possessed images and binders with photos of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The majority of the images, printed out and organized in the binders, also contained links to Internet Web site addresses. Lane had been previously convicted in 1998 for receipt of child pornography.

DOJ press release, here.

This was accomplished (investigated and prosecuted)by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC).

Apparently, it was brought about as a result of Project Safe Childhood, which was put in place by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in 2006.

Besides investigating this type of crime, they have a pretty good (my opinion) educational resource to educate all of us on this problem.

The DOJ website can be viewed, here.

Child pornography has been tied into organized crime, identity theft and payment card (credit/debit) card fraud. Here is a previous post, I did about how this occurs:

British citizens accused of child porn found to be fraud victims

In case you haven't seen it, the To Catch a Predator series (Dateline) made a lot of people aware of how serious a problem child predators are. Chris Hansen, who hosts the show, has a blog about the series, here.

If you suspect a crime against a child, it can be reported, here.

Symantec's Family Resource Web Site

Symantec has launched a new web page designed to educate children (and their parents) about how to avoid the (sometimes) murky waters of the Internet.

The goal of the page is to (in their own words):

Our goal is to help parents provide guidance to their children who are using the Internet . We want you to keep your children and your computer safe online, and help you make sure your children are good cybercitizens. With your direction and supervision, the Internet can be a positive, safe place for your child to research, learn, communicate, and socialize.

The page can be viewed, here.

Symantec has also hired someone to administer this effort (Marian), who writes columns to support the page.

You can even submit a question to her, here.

The page has links to other sites on this important subject, also:

iKeep Safe

Web Wise Kids

National Cyber Security Alliance

Taking the time to educate our children, as well as ourselves, on how to safely use the Internet is an important effort!

Keeping kids safe on the Internet

Young people are frequently Internet victims. Here is an extremely good article by Ryan Holeywell, Gannett News Service about how "young people" can protect themselves.

From the article:

The Federal Trade Commission reports that in 2005 Americans ages 18 to 24 made more than 69,000 identity theft complaints — more than any other age group. Here are 10 ways students can prevent identity theft and the headaches that come with it.

1. Watch what you blog. Millions of young people keep online diaries that are usually available to anyone surfing the Web. Safe blogging means not posting any personally identifiable information other than your first name, says Linda Foley, co-executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego. "There's nothing wrong with blogging," Foley says. "Blogging can be fun — as long as you do it safely."

2. Don't get caught in a phishing net. Phishers try to steal your personal information by misdirecting you to a counterfeit Web page that looks identical to one you might use to pay a credit card bill or check your cellphone minutes. On this page, they ask you to type in personal information, such as your Social Security number and harvest this information. Doug Jacobson, an associate professor of computer and electrical engineering at Iowa State University, says an easy way to spot phishing is by hovering the cursor over a hyperlink while looking at the bottom of the browser. If the URL displayed seems very long, it's probably a fraud. "Think of the computer as your phone," Jacobson said. "If someone called you out of the blue on the phone and asked for your Social Security number, you wouldn't do it."

For the full article and additional tips, link here.

Of note, vishing attacks (using the telephone to steal information) are on the rise. I'm not sure I completely agree with Mr. Jacobson on this one.

Young people (too often) are the targets of more serious crimes involving their personal safety.

Here is ANOTHER resource that teaches the young (and us older folks) how to be safe in the cyberworld:

SafeKids.Com

Phishermen are Trolling MySpace for Victims

If your children use MySpace - or you use it yourself - here is a warning from Websense:

"Websense® Security Labs™ has discovered a phishing attack that attempts to steal the account information of MySpace.com users. A hyperlink is first delivered to victims via AOL Instant Messenger. Users who follow this link are taken to a fraudulent website that spoofs the MySpace.com login page. This page captures their MySpace account information and then forwards the user to the actual MySpace.com website."

"The fraudulent site also sets a cookie on the victim's computer, which prevents the phishing attack from being displayed on any subsequent visits."

The phishing site is located in California and was up at the time of this alert.

For the full alert, along with a screen shot of the phishing site, link here.

MySpace is a hugely popular site (and when anything becomes popular) it attracts what I refer to as the cyber-scum element.

Here is an interesting article from MSNBC and Rob Stafford. If you are a user of MySpace, or care about someone who is a user, this is a great resource with information on how to navigate the waters of MySpace safely.

Why parents must mind MySpace - Dateline NBC - MSNBC.com

While I'm not sure what the intention is in "phishing" the waters at MySpace, a smart person is extremely careful before giving out any personal information on the Internet!

Here is a recent post, I wrote about how these "Internet Child Abusers" are going to be targeted through their financial transactions:

Catching Child Predators by following the Money Trail

In case anyone is unfamiliar with Phishing, here is a place to start learning:

Internet Crimes are On the Rise and Deadlier than Ever