andymac - Slashdot User

Swedish Teen Racy pictures stolen from Facebook-> 0

Submitted by Xemu on Friday November 12 2010, @01:07PM

Xemu writes "A brash website allowing users to rate Swedish teenage girls as "ugly" or "hot" has caused an outroar in Swedish media. The images of the girls, the majority of whom were 16 to 18 years old, were copied from their Facebook sites without permission. According to Anders Ahlqvist from the IT-crimes department of Sweden's National Bureau of Investigation (Rikskriminalpolisen), the site violates Sweden's law governing the use of personal information (Personuppgiftslagen – PUL)."
Link to Original Source

Google: No Cash for Trash Vulnerabilities-> 0

Submitted by chicksdaddy on Friday November 12 2010, @12:59PM

chicksdaddy writes "It's bound to happen: you create a cool, forward looking incentive program designed to tap the "wisdom of the crowd" and help make your products better. You do this only to find out that, in fact, the "crowd" isn't all that wise, and now expects you to pay cold, hard cash for its tepid ideas.

According to Threatpost.com, that's the experience that Google appears to have had since announcing in early November that it would extend its bounty program for bugs from its Chromium platform to the various Web applications that the company owns. In an updated blog post this week, the company said that it has already committed to some $20,000 in bounties, but also provided some avuncular "clarification" to the terms of the reward program, reminding hopefuls that *ahem* not all bugs are equal and that researchers dumping low priority vulns like URL redirection and logout cross site request forgeries, or bugs in Web apps that Google has acquired in the last six months shouldn't expect to see a pay day."
Link to Original Source

Obama May Toughen Internet Privacy Rules-> 0

Submitted by CWmike on Friday November 12 2010, @12:56PM

CWmike writes "The Obama administration is considering plans to step up policing of Internet privacy issues and to establish a new position to direct the effort, reports the WSJ, which cites unnamed sources. Any push for stronger federal oversight over online privacy is likely to be welcomed by privacy advocates increasingly concerned about the data-collection and data-sharing practices of big Internet and marketing companies. High profile cases such as the uproar over Facebook's personal data collection habits and the public reaction to Google's continuing problems over its Street View Wi-Fi snooping have created a broader awareness of online privacy issues. The big question, though, is just how successful any fresh attempt at enforcing new privacy strictures on the Internet will be with Republicans soon to be in charge of the House."
Link to Original Source

Comment: No, this is exactly why... (Score 1) 206

by andymac on Friday October 29 2010, @11:33AM (#34064032) Attached to: Hiding Backdoors In Hardware

The NSA has their own chip fab plant - I bet they've been doing this for years (embedding their own backdoors in the h/w). How better to manage hardware assets that are compromised in the field?

Fat Fingered Sumo Wrestlers Given iPads 69

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday August 26 2010, @11:04AM
from the 100-finger-slap dept.

The Japan Sumo Association is handing out about 60 iPads to training stables to help the wrestlers communicate because their fingers are too fat to use a regular mobile phone. From the article: "The iPad was chosen because the sumo association believed the device was big enough to cater to wrestler's fat fingers, unlike the smaller keys on mobile phones, according to reports."