A man has been remanded in custody at Belfast Magistrates Court accused of sex offences against a 15-year-old girl and possessing extreme pornography.

Alan Moore, of Windslow Drive, Carrickfergus, is believed to be the first person in the UK to be charged under the new extreme pornography law.

It was brought in after a campaign by a woman whose daughter was killed by a man who used violent pornography.

Anyone with sexually violent images could be jailed for up to three years.

Mr Moore was also charged with engaging in sexual touching with a person under 16, indecent assault and gross indecency.

A detective told the court she believed she could connect him to the offences.

With no defence submissions, Mr Moore was remanded in custody to appear again next month.

The law was introduced after a campaign by Liz Longhurst, who began a campaign to change the law on the possession of violent pornography after her daughter was murdered.

In 2003 Graham Coutts, of Hove, Sussex, was jailed for strangling Jane Longhurst for his sexual gratification.

Mrs Longhurst received cross-party support and the controversial new law was introduced in the Criminal Justice Bill last year.

Under the new rules, criminal responsibility shifts from the producer - who is responsible under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act (OPA) - to the consumer.

Mrs Longhurst told the BBC she believed the case in Northern Ireland was the first time anyone had been charged under the new law.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/8167351.stm

Published: 2009/07/24 16:29:13 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Original Source - The Register

Police acting on dodgy data from an ISP raided an address and arrested a completely innocent person for being part of a paedophile ring, according to the government's electronic surveillance scrutineer.

The 2008 annual report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy, published this week, revealed few details about the incident, which he described as "a very unfortunate error".

The mix up was blamed on confusion between the unnamed ISP and unnamed police force over international time zones.

The vast majority of broadband users are assigned their IP addresses on a temporary basis, often changing every day. A proper understanding of international time zones is therefore essential to accurately link an IP address seen connecting to a foreign-hosted paedophile site to a customer account.

Kennedy said "the whole process of obtaining data relating to IP addresses has been re-examined" and that "better checks and balances have been put in place".

No details of the process or changes to it were given.

Police approached the ISP after getting information from a "reliable source", suggesting that children were at risk of falling into the hands of a paedophile ring. Kennedy said the investigation is continuing.

 

Original Source - The Register

4:25am UK, Wednesday July 22, 2009

Mark White, home affairs correspondent - Sky News

The performances of other shops in London tested by Sky News during the investigation reflected very poorly on some of the industry's major names:

Although Digitech in Putney, west London, fixed the fault, they also spent a while snooping. The webcam reveals the technician takes a quick look over his shoulder before flicking through the holiday pictures. He then attempts to 'clean up' what he's done by deleting the 'recent documents' folder. In a statement Digitech said their technician had simply been checking the memory was working when he looked through the photos.

PC World in nearby Brentford demanded an advance payment of £230 for a new motherboard. However, on collection Sky engineers discovered that only the loose memory chip had been replaced. PC World have since apologised and refunded the £230.

Micro Anvika, Tottenham Court Road charged £145 for a full examination of the laptop, despite the fact the surveillance sofware indicated that the laptop had been fixed before ringing to diagnose the need for further tests. Micro Anvika have since apologised and refunded some of the fee.

Technicians at Evnova Computers in Barbican also discovered the loose memory chip and fixed-it, but not before they too said the motherboard needed replacing. When the offer of a new motherboard was declined by our undercover reporter, it appears someone from Evnova soldered the memory-bus pins together in an effort to recreate the original fault. They later claimed they believed our undercover reporter was from a rival repair company.

Only one shop was genuinely honest. Pix 4 in Shepherds Bush took their time to carefully examine our machine while we waited. They promptly discovered the loose chip, popped it back into place and told us there would be no charge.

 

Original Story

The ever-weakening job market could lead to an increase in online crime as laid-off workers, especially those with computer skills, turn to scams to support themselves, according to Cisco.

Disgruntled employees may target their former employers, and Cisco warns that insiders "can be especially damaging for an organisation because insiders know security weaknesses."

A former IT analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was arrested in April along with his brother on suspicions of taking out loans using false identities.

FBI investigators found a flash drive attached to the bank employee's computer with applications for $73,000 in loans in the names of stolen identities, Cisco's mid-year security report claims.

Cisco warned companies that use short-term IT consultants or who contract out the tasks to "be particularly vigilant about the level and term of their access to sensitive data."

The report includes snippets of a conversation with a botmaster. The hacker declines to say how much he earnes but says "a guy I know" can earn $5-10K weekly, by phishing bank accounts."

 

Original Story