contributed by evilwench
Kevin Mitnick's four and half year ordeal is getting closer to the end. Having already spent more time behind bars than most people convicted of burglary or manslaughter, Kevin may possibly be released to a halfway house by January. U.S. District Court Judge Marianna Pfaelzer sentenced Kevin to 46 months in prison and ordered him to pay $4125 in restitution. This sentence comes after numerous delays and a guilty plea by Kevin for seven felonies. Today's sentence comes just one day after the LA District Attorney decided to drop the state charges against Kevin.

FREE KEVIN
ZD Net
C|Net

If you want to learn more about Kevin Mitnick and how he got where he is HNN recommends
The Fugitive Game : Online With Kevin Mitnick - by Jonathan Littman via Amazon.com

contributed by evilwench
Five encryption technologies have made the final cut to be the next standard cryptographic mechanism used to protect sensitive government information. It has taken over a year to whittle the initial field of twelve entries down to five, one of which will replace DES, the current standard. The final standard is expected to be chosen by the Summer of 2001. The five finalists for the advanced encryption standard (AES), where named by the National Institute of Standards and Technology on Monday. The five finalists are MARS, RC6TM, Rijndael, Serpent, and Twofish.

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Development Effort
Federal Computer Week
ZD Net

contributed by Ryan
On Saturday August 7th, President Clinton issued an executive order to establish a working group to examine unlawful conduct on the internet. The group is to determine if current laws are adequate to combat online crime such as child pornography and sales of illegal drugs. The executive order also calls for closer examination of the tools used by law enforcement to investigate these crimes. This could be interpreted as a major call for key escrow. The group has been ordered to complete its reports within 120 days.

US Newswire- Text of Executive Order
ZD Net
Wired

contributed by Weld Pond
Several Taiwanese government web sites have been defaced by someone claiming to be from the Hunan province in China. The defacements contained political statements, in Chinese and English, concerning Taiwan's political status. An unidentified official said that he did not think that firewalls where necessary on public web servers.

Excite News

contributed by Sarge
The Defense Department has ordered all administrative and user passwords on their unclassified networks to be changed. The official reason is to protect against possible Y2K cyber attacks. Rumours indicate that this order may be the result of recent computer security breaches.

Federal Computer Week

contributed by superman
ReDatAck, a Belgian man, has claimed to have broken into the database of Skynet, owned by Belgian state-run telecommunications operator Belgacom, and accessed private information on over 1,000 users. The information allegedly includes credit card numbers and passwords. ReDatAck has also claimed to have broken into the free address book server of Lycos. ReDatAck has said that he is trying to alert people to the security weaknesses of the internet.

Yahoo News

contributed by Unprivileged user
Rumor has it that Ken Williams is finalizing negotiations to sell the PacketStorm name and content to security company Kroll O'Gara (www.securify.com) for between $50,000 to $100,000. We have no confirmation of this information.