CRIME FW: [Infragard_unsecured] Daily Report 07/19/02

From: George Heuston (GeorgeH@private)
Date: Fri Jul 19 2002 - 10:49:17 PDT

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    New rules may require banks verify ID.  Under new regulations proposed on 17
    July by the Treasury Department, banks, credit unions and other financial
    institutions will be required to verify the identities of all people wanting
    to open new accounts.  People opening new accounts will also be checked
    against a government-issued list of known or suspected terrorists.  The
    rules are being issued a week after FBI officials told Congress that the 11
    September hijackers were able to open bank accounts with fake Social
    Security numbers that were never checked.  Many large financial institutions
    already have policies in place to check identities. Under the proposed
    regulations, financial institutions, including banks, savings associations,
    credit unions, securities brokers and dealers and mutual funds, can decide
    what type of identifying information to require.   (Associated Press, 17
    Jul)
    
    Congress readies anti-terror package.  House and Senate negotiators met on
    18 July to complete a $28.9 billion package for increasing anti-terrorism
    programs.  The plan would rush money to the Pentagon, the FBI and other
    domestic security agencies, and to New York to help it heal in the wake of
    11 September.  The funds are for the rest of the federal fiscal year that
    runs through 30 Sept.  The $28.9 billion includes $100 million added to deal
    with wildfire and floods.  The House took up two more spending bills on 18
    July, one being an $18.5 billion bill for the Treasury Department that boost
    anti-terrorism and drug-fighting efforts in the US Customs Service.
    (Associated Press, 18 Jul)
    
    Israel blocks Palestinian ISP.  Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops took
    over the offices of Palnet, the leading Palestinian Internet service
    provider, shutting down the firm's operations. The move reduced Internet
    access to a trickle in the West Bank and Gaza. The strike is part of a
    larger, intermittent effort by the Israeli military to hobble the
    Palestinians' communications and media infrastructure. The IDF has recently
    been talking up the ways in which terrorists are using the Internet to plot
    and plan. In June, the IDF posted to its Web site a discussion allegedly
    taken from the Hamas site in which members debate whether arsenic, rat
    poison or cyanide would be most effective in killing Americans. (Wired News,
    18 Jul)
    
    WWU Comment: The closing of "Palnet" could affect the threat of anti-US
    hacking from Palestinian hackers or sympathizers.  The cessation of Palnet
    services may lessen the threat posed to US systems by hackers that use
    Palnet; however, this action could prompt sympathetic hacking attempts to
    protest perceived pro-Israeli attitudes on the part of the US.
    
    Yahoo! admits tinkering with personal e-mails to foil hackers. Yahoo! has
    admitted using an automated filtering system that alters text in personal
    e-mails. The system targets a handful of words that could be used by hackers
    developing malicious code.  One of the outlawed words is 'Medieval.'
    'Medieval' is unlikely to make it past the covert filtering system because
    the '-eval' part mirrors a command to evaluate code. Instead references to
    the Middle Ages become 'Medireview'.  Security experts say scanning for
    malicious code is not new, but that Yahoo! seems to be going further than
    other firms by targeting specific words.  (ANANOVA.com, 18 Jul).
    
    
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