Computer Crime

In the face of criticism that they provided fertile ground for Web predators, online job sites have responded by posting warnings about work-at-home schemes and positions forwarding money or potentially stolen goods. But they have failed to adopt straightforward reforms that could have prevented the rampant fraud that recently swept Monster.com, security experts say.

As patient as fishermen, the young men toil day and night, trawling for replies to the e-mails they shoot to strangers half a world away. Most recipients hit delete, delete, delete, delete without ever opening the messages that urge them to claim the untold riches of a long-lost deceased second cousin, and the messages that offer millions of dollars to help smuggle loot stolen by a corrupt Nigerian official into a U.S. account.

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out most of the key evidence in a high-profile child pornography case against a former Orange County judge, ruling that sexually explicit diary entries and photos were discovered after illegal computer searches by a Canadian hacker who was working for police. The ruling could undermine much of the case against Ronald C. Kline, whose arrest drew national attention and ultimately resulted in the judge dropping his bid for reelection. U.S. District Judge Consuelo B.

An 18-year-old Maryland man was arrested Friday night for allegedly sending threatening computer messages to two teenage girls in Santee after Monday's shooting rampage that left two dead and 13 wounded, officials announced. Patrick Andrew Smith was arrested in his parents' home in Walkersville, Md., a suburb of Baltimore, at the same hour a memorial service was underway at Sonrise Community Church in Santee for Randy Gordon, 17, and Brian Zuckor, 14.

The scale and sophistication of the cyber attacks on Google Inc. and other large U.S. corporations by hackers in China is raising national security concerns that the Asian superpower is escalating its industrial espionage efforts on the Internet. While the U.S. focus has been primarily on protecting military and state secrets from cyber spying, a new battle is being waged in which corporate computers and the valuable intellectual property they hold have become as much a target of foreign governments as those run by the Pentagon and the CIA. "This is a watershed moment in the cyber war," James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis at Defense Group Inc., a national-security firm, said Thursday.

Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia -- an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security. Defense officials would not describe the extent of damage inflicted on military networks. But they said that the attack struck hard at networks within U.S.

In a rare corporate rebuke of Asia's economic superpower, Google Inc. on Tuesday said it might leave China and the country's 350 million Internet users after it was the victim of a series of cyber attacks that originated from that nation. According to Google, a "highly sophisticated" December attack on its main corporate computers resulted in "the theft of intellectual property." The company said it believed that a key goal of the attackers was to access the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, raising the possibility that China's government not only may have hacked in to Google but also may have been using the company's network to conduct political espionage.

Law enforcement officials and stalking experts said Friday that a North Hollywood cyber-stalking case is a frightening example of how technology has spawned a new breed of crime that is proliferating, difficult to police and devastating to many of its victims.

For U.S. military firms, the latest revelations of highly sophisticated hacker attacks on Google Inc. are highlighting a new reality, and a potentially lucrative business: The battlefield is shifting to cyberspace. Google's admission last week that it and other large companies were infiltrated by cyber-spies is bolstering prospects for major military contractors that in recent years have been intensifying their focus from developing weapons to defending computer systems and networks.

No one in the evening crowd at a Starbucks in Pasadena knew Humphrey Cheung. But Cheung, quietly sipping hot chocolate and working on his laptop, knew things about them. Several tables away was a guy sitting alone with his own laptop. "He's starting a business," Cheung said. And the young couple in the far corner? "They're getting married," he confided. Cheung isn't psychic. He had hacked into the coffee shop's wireless Internet connection on his Toshiba laptop.

For U.S. military firms, the latest revelations of highly sophisticated hacker attacks on Google Inc. are highlighting a new reality, and a potentially lucrative business: The battlefield is shifting to cyberspace. Google's admission last week that it and other large companies were infiltrated by cyber-spies is bolstering prospects for major military contractors that in recent years have been intensifying their focus from developing weapons to defending computer systems and networks.

"Your Honourable institute is invited," read the e-mail sent a few days ago to Sharon Hom, director of Human Rights in China, urging her participation in the eighth international summit of nongovernmental organizations. Hom immediately smelled a rat. The stilted wording and a few misspellings alerted her that the invite to this purported summit in "California, USA" was just the latest ploy to trick her into opening an e-mail attachment meant to compromise her computer. For years, cyber attacks have targeted human rights advocates and others critical of China, including academics, journalists, Tibetan groups, supporters of the Uighur minority and the banned Falun Gong movement -- in fact, anybody whose work might have irked the government.

The scale and sophistication of the cyber attacks on Google Inc. and other large U.S. corporations by hackers in China is raising national security concerns that the Asian superpower is escalating its industrial espionage efforts on the Internet. While the U.S. focus has been primarily on protecting military and state secrets from cyber spying, a new battle is being waged in which corporate computers and the valuable intellectual property they hold have become as much a target of foreign governments as those run by the Pentagon and the CIA. "This is a watershed moment in the cyber war," James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis at Defense Group Inc., a national-security firm, said Thursday.

Bouquets were laid in front of Google Inc.'s headquarters in China on Wednesday, a show of support for a company whose threat to exit the country rather than be party to more censorship is a dramatic shot across the bow of the Chinese Communist Party. But while Chinese cyberspace was awash with chatter about Google's gambit, state-controlled media downplayed the story, reporting that Google had been a victim of cyber attacks in China but making no mention of the company's allegations that human rights activists' e-mail accounts had been hacked.

In a rare corporate rebuke of Asia's economic superpower, Google Inc. on Tuesday said it might leave China and the country's 350 million Internet users after it was the victim of a series of cyber attacks that originated from that nation. According to Google, a "highly sophisticated" December attack on its main corporate computers resulted in "the theft of intellectual property." The company said it believed that a key goal of the attackers was to access the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, raising the possibility that China's government not only may have hacked in to Google but also may have been using the company's network to conduct political espionage.

Is it a "Warmist Conspiracy," or a case of an e-mail being "taken completely out of context"? Regardless, the latest dust-up over the science of climate change appears unlikely to affect the dynamics of either a pending debate in the Senate or international climate negotiations in Copenhagen next month. Conservative bloggers have seized on a series of e-mails between leading climate scientists, which were obtained by computer hackers and posted online last week, as evidence of a scientific conspiracy to push claims about human-caused global warming.

A computer hacker accused of masterminding one of the largest cases of identity theft in U.S. history agreed to plead guilty and serve up to 25 years in federal prison for his crimes. Albert Gonzalez of Miami was charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in federal court. Court documents indicate that Gonzalez, 28, agreed to plead guilty to 19 counts. Gonzalez is accused of swiping the credit and debit card numbers of more than 170 million accounts; officials said he was the ringleader of a group that targeted companies such as T.J. Maxx, Barnes and Noble and OfficeMax.

Marc Maiffret used to be a computer hacker. Now he gets paid to break into the systems of Southern California businesses, testing for security weaknesses. His client today is a major Los Angeles auto dealer, which sells fancy luxury cars to celebrities and corporate execs. The head of the company wants to check on the safety of his customer data. It's not an idle worry. Just days earlier, a 28-year-old Miami man was charged by federal authorities with hacking into multiple computer systems and stealing 130 million credit and debit card numbers -- the largest computer crime ever prosecuted.

The cyber attack that brought down Twitter for several hours Thursday was aimed at a single blogger in the country of Georgia, according to Facebook, which was also targeted in the attack. Cyxymu, as the blogger is known online, uses his blog and accounts on several social media networks to lash out against Russia, which has waged battles with Georgia over disputed territory. "Yesterday's attack appears to be directed at an individual who has a presence on a number of sites," Facebook said in a statement.

Despite a broad and persistent cyber attack whose targets included the White House, the New York Stock Exchange and the Washington Post, government websites were operating normally on Wednesday, officials said. The attack began July 4 and caused little damage, but it touched off a debate among experts over whether it represented a mild nuisance or the opening salvo of a potential electronic war.