In Brief

The Security Blotter

Breaches, scams and other recent incidents of note

By CSO Contributor

January 01, 2006 — CSO —

U.S. opens quarantine stations at major airports to prevent pandemic. The United States has put medical officers at 17 airports and the border crossing in El Paso, Texas, to screen people entering the country for communicable diseases such as the avian flu strain, which has caused 67 deaths in Asia, The New York Times reported Nov. 21. Public health officials fear the virus could mutate and spark a global pandemic that could kill millions. In China, the government pledged to vaccinate 14 billion chickens and ducks over the coming year against the flu virus to prevent its spread.

French teens stage nightly riots for three weeks. Youths and teens, most of them from Muslim communities complaining about lack of education, housing and job prospects, burned cars and clashed with police across France nightly for three weeks of November. France imposed curfews in some areas, including the suburbs outside Paris and in cities such as Lyon, and threatened to deport troublemakers to quell the violence. The country will provide job programs, scholarships and improved housing to give the youths better opportunities, said Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to the United States, The Associated Press reported.

"Dirty bomb" suspect indicted. A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held for the past three years as an enemy combatant, on charges that he conspired to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas, The Associated Press reported. The charges filed Nov. 22 did not cite an alleged plot to blow up apartment buildings in the United States, which the Bush administration cited when it arrested Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, and then held him in a Navy brig.

Sony accused of violating spyware laws with music CDs. The Texas attorney general sued Sony BMG Music Entertainment for allegedly violating antispyware laws after the company distributed music CDs that included digital rights protection code that altered PC users Windows operating systems. The problem came to light after computer expert Mark Russinovich published an analysis of XCP, which he said uses spyware and virus-writing techniques to hide itself on a users computer, exposing customers to security risks. Sony started a program to let consumers exchange music CDs for new ones without the XCP copy-protection software.

Technology central to Gaza border pact

A Nov. 15 agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority allows people and goods to pass through the Gaza Strip border with Egypt. The accord, reached with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leading negotiations, broke a stalemate between the parties that threatened to make conditions in Gaza worse after the Israelis pulled out of the area last summer. For its part, Israel said it had to prevent terrorist money and weapons from flowing into Gaza. The agreement calls for search equipment at the Rafah crossing with Egypt that includes "mirrors and bore scope equipment to search hard-to-reach places" and other technology, "possibly including sonic imagery, gamma detection and/or millimetre wave imagery."