Computer Crime

The Pentagon has banned, at least temporarily, the use of external computer flash drives because of a virus threat detected on Defense Department networks. Though officials would not publicly confirm the ban, messages were sent to employees informing them of the restrictions. As part of the ban, the Pentagon was collecting small flash drives, according to one message distributed to employees. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to provide details on the virus, but he described it as a "global virus" that has been the subject of public alerts.

The European Court of Human Rights has cleared the way for the extradition of a British man who allegedly hacked into secret U.S. military computers, his lawyer said. The court refused to delay Gary McKinnon's extradition to the U.S., which he says would violate his human rights. His lawyer, Karen Todner, said his extradition could come in the next two weeks. U.S. prosecutors want to try McKinnon, 42, on charges of hacking into 97 computers belonging to NASA, the Defense Department and several branches of the military.

Identity theft is soaring in California, and street gangs are angling for a piece of the action. Recent cases point to an interest in identity fraud by organizations as diverse as a Long Beach chapter of the Crips, the Armenian Power gang and the prison-based Mexican Mafia, according to law enforcement officials and fraud experts. The trend among criminals better known for violence and drug trafficking goes against type.

A gaping hole in the foundation of the Internet can allow malicious hackers to launch new attacks on corporate systems as well as individual computer users, a leading technology security researcher said Wednesday. The problem is being fixed, but many corporate systems remain vulnerable and the extent of any damage is unknown.

Federal authorities said Tuesday that they had cracked the largest case of identity theft in U.S. history, charging 11 people in the theft of more than 40 million credit and debit card account numbers from computer systems at such major retailers as TJ Maxx and Barnes & Noble.

Treat your I.T. workers well. Listen to their concerns. Encourage their creativity. But set up good checks to make sure they can't hijack your system. That may be the lesson in the wake of the 10-day standoff here between a computer network expert and the municipality for which he worked. Terry Childs, 43, a suspended systems administrator for the city and county of San Francisco, sits in a jail cell, accused of tampering with the very computer network he was hired to maintain.

A 54-year-old man was sentenced Monday to six months' house arrest and a year of mental health counseling and substance-abuse testing after pleading guilty to threatening an advocate for seals at the Children's Pool in La Jolla. Kent Douglas Trego had already served nearly five months in jail since his arrest. He admitted that he used the Internet to send messages threatening violence toward a volunteer from the Animal Protection and Rescue League who was videotaping two divers allegedly harassing seals in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In e-mails sent in December and January, Trego said that a motorcycle gang would take revenge on the witness "very harshly."

China denied accusations by Reps. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) that it had hacked into their computers, saying it wasn't capable of such cyber-crime. "Is there any evidence? . . . Do we have such advanced technology? Even I don't believe it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. Wolf and Smith said Wednesday that their office computers had been hacked into by people working from China. Both are critics of China's human rights record.

Cyber-crime pays. But selling counterfeit drugs apparently pays better. Some of the world's most prolific spammers used to tout products for a few pennies per million e-mails or con consumers into forking over credit card information. But these groups have found that the most profit and growth potential lies in actually shipping the fake Viagra and other products they're hawking, according to a study scheduled for release today by a top security researcher.