Law and Order

Source: The Register

L33tdawg: 20 months for "millions of dollars" in damages?! That doesn't sound quite right does it?

The author of the infamous Melissa virus was sentenced today to 20 months in Federal prison for causing millions of dollars of damage through its release into the wild in March 1999.

David L Smith, 33, pleaded guilty to creating the virus in December 1999 - the delay in his sentencing has created consternation in the security community.

From
">The Globe

Canada's cable companies are currently engaged in a full-court press in Ottawa, where legislators are reviewing the various provisions of the federal Broadcasting Act. On the list of cable grievances and/or demands are the dangers posed by the "grey market" in U.S. satellite dishes, and the need to set cable firms free of foreign ownership rules. As usual, the industry is desperately trying to have its cake and eat it too.

Source: Yahoo Dailynews

The Justice Department said 36-year-old Mohsin Mynaf of Vacaville, Calif., pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement, trafficking in counterfeit labels and circumventing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites) (DMCA). The DMCA is a controversial law backed by music companies and other large copyright holders that prohibits anyone from cracking code designed to protect copyrights.

Source: Boston.com

Two men from Kazakstan, accused of trying to extort $200,000 from Bloomberg L.P. after breaking into the company's computer system, lost a court bid Wednesday to avoid extradition to the United States to face trial.

Source: Security Focus

Accused eBay hacker Jerome Heckenkamp is back behind bars tonight, after his first solo court appearance in front of his trial judge took an odd turn.

During what was to be a routine proceeding to set future court dates, Heckenkamp challenged the indictment against him on the grounds that it spells his name, Jerome T. Heckenkamp, in all capital letters, while he spells it with the first letter capitalized, and subsequent letters in lower case.

Source: Security Focus

The trial of accused eBay hacker Jerome Heckenkamp has been postponed while prosecutors prepare a new indictment against the 22-year-old computer whiz, following a motion by Heckenkamp's defense attorney to dismiss the old one on the grounds that it was too vague.

Source: Network World Fusion

A former system administrator was sentenced Tuesday to 41 months in federal jail and ordered to pay over $2 million in restitution for a 1996 attack on his former employer's computer network.

Source: Yahoo Finance

Network World, the leading network news publication, just reported that Tim Lloyd, a former network administrator, was sentenced Tuesday to 41 months in federal jail and ordered to pay over $2 million in restitution for a 1996 attack on his former employer's computer network.

Source: 106.pair.com

Lots of rumors have been going around that GNOME 2 won't have any new user-visible features, but while this was the plan and would have resulted in releasing sooner (cough), it's not really what happened. ;-) So here's some hype for you. I'll try to keep this page up to date, send me additions/fixes.

Continuing its drive to promote the Gnome desktop, Sun Microsystems Inc. today issued a
preview release of Gnome 1.4 for its Solaris 8 operating environment.

The release, entitled "Exploring the Gnome Desktop," is available for free download at
www.sun.com/gnome or on a CD for $9.95 plus shipping.