news aggregator

When throwing the book backfires

A witness who testified against the man accused of breaching Sarah Palin's Yahoo! Mail account has criticized federal prosecutors for distorting the facts in an attempt to score legal points.…

Google has departed from the usual false claims of anonymization to say that after 9 months, it "obfuscates" your IP address. At the very least, this new language isn't as misleading as the old.

The recently introduced Cyber Privacy Act has mostly good intentions behind it: users should be able to ask webmasters to remove their personal information from a site. But there are numerous ways in which the bill's language fails to limit abuse, or even really describe what it intends to accomplish.

Google report shows that fake antivirus scams as a percentage of total malware have risen five-fold over the past year.

Less obscure obscurity

Google has not only opened up on how often the world's governments request user data stored on its servers. It's come awfully close to acknowledging that it doesn't actually "anonymize" your IP address after 9 months.…

Undead penis pill spam

After blowing itself out 18 months ago, the notorious Storm botnet is back, researchers from CA said Tuesday.…

I recently got a hankering to re-read some of my favorite books. I already own them, in hardcover and paperback. But I'd like to re-read them as e-books. Do I need to buy the e-book versions, or can I download a pirated copy of the e-book for free?

Apple iPad users are being warned of an email-borne threat which could give hackers unauthorised access to the device. Attacks disguised as iTunes updates.

Computers, like humans, have millions of viruses and bugs -- and just like us some don’t have any cures!

Regrets the error

Updated Splunk, a kind of Google for business technology that boasts it can help reinforce your security, has exposed the details of major customers to hackers following a web site slip up.…

What privacy settings?!

Bring your early adopters to the slaughter

Malware scammers are trying to trick early iPad buyers into installing backdoor software on Windows machines, according to a security firm.…

Sorry we bricked your PC, here's some money

Anti-virus firm McAfee is reimburse people who have spent money getting their computers fixed after they were damaged by last week's security update.…

In how many ways did Google respond to this week’s letter from the data protection authorities of nine countries criticizing the company’s approach to privacy? At this point, it’s fairly obvious that that Google has made at least three mistakes.

Just what are you trying to secure?

Workshop Ask any IT manager, business leader or regulator and they will tell you that IT security is important - that much goes without saying.…

A California man was hit with an extortion charge this week for allegedly threatening to send out millions of e-mails criticizing his insurance company, if the company didn’t pay him as much as $3 million.

Antivirus and anti-malware apps fill an important need on our computers, but they're not foolproof (*ahem*, McAfee). More often than you'd think, they're just plain wrong. Here's what to do when you're not sure whether a download has a virus.

With its most recent changes, Facebook is aiming for a more social and accessible web. But at what cost to privacy?

Blippy's overexposure

A website that encourages people to share details of their online purchases with world+dog was caught exposing the complete credit card numbers of four of its users.…

Heard of Blippy? It's a "fun and easy way to see and discuss what everyone is buying." It's also a service that's putting scads of credit card numbers online. Whoops! Also: very bad.