contributed by turtlex
Microsoft Office 2000 ships with an ActiveX control named "Microsoft Office UA Control". Most users probably recognize it as the sickening friendly little paper clip character that makes annoying noises and faces at you while you work. It is installed by default and is categorized as being "safe for scripting" which could allow an attacker to write a script that would allow them to do anything on the victims computer including deleting files.

ZD Net
Fairfax IT
@stake L0pht Labs - Advisory
Microsoft - Patch

contributed by pyr8
Canada's federal Privacy Commissioner, Bruce Phillips, has revealed a massive computerized database that contains volumes of personal data on 33.7 million Canadian's living and dead. The database was started fifteen years ago by the Office of Employment and Immigration and is used to research and evaluate the effectiveness of the federal employment insurance program. The database contains information regarding tax returns, child tax benefits, provincial and municipal welfare files, federal jobs, job training and other information. There are proposals to expand the database to include additional data on social assistance recipients from provinces and territories, the Canada Student Loan Program, the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security Program.

Ottawa Citizen

contributed by Evil Wench
A disk taken from the home of Onel A. de Guzman contains a copy of a different virus that bears a striking resemblance to the ILOVEYOU virus/worm. According to the National Bureau of Investigation this new virus was written by Michael Buen. Mr. Buen has denied any and all involvement in the case.

Associated Press - via Yahoo

contributed by Evil Wench
Authorities are now looking at over 40 people as possible authors of the recent ILOVEYOU virus/worm. Most of the suspects are students at Manila's Amable Mendoza Aguiluz Computer College.

Industry Standard - via Yahoo

contributed by William Knowles
This article uses a few scare tactics but obviously when connecting telephone and network systems together it is imperative to ensure that adequate security controls are in place. Some experts theorize that soon Phreakers will need to penetrate the Internet to access phone systems. A complete reversal of roles when it was the computer underground that needed access to the phone systems to access computers.

Wired

contributed by Macki
HOPE 2000 has announced a mock DeCSS trial and that they are currently recruiting DJs and bands. They will soon announce the speaker list. In an interesting side development the real DeCSS trial date has been moved to the Monday after h2k.

HOPE 2000

contributed by Kynik
Issue 5 of the Napalm e-zine has been released, covering contemporary telenet, ethernet, music reviews, and various reader questions and comments. Fobidden Knowledge has released FK-11.

Napalm
Forbidden Knowledge - Official Distribution Site