19895140
submission
jhernik writes:
Personal details left on used mobile phones make it easier for ID thieves to access sensitive data
More than half of second-hand mobile phones still contain personal information of the previous owner, posing a risk of identity fraud, CPP has warned.
The study found 247 pieces of personal data stored on handsets and SIM cards purchased from eBay and second-hand electronics shops. The information ranged from credit card numbers to bank account details, photographs, email address and login details to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
According to data security firm CPP, 81 percent of previous owners claim they have wiped personal data from their mobile phones and SIM cards before selling them. However, deleting the information manually is “a process that security experts acknowledge leaves the data intact and retrievable”.
19883376
submission
jhernik writes:
The EU’s right to be forgotten is not what users actually want from a social network, says Facebook
Facebook has acknowledged online privacy control as a major challenge, but says that the European Union’s proposal to legislate for ‘a right to be forgotten’ runs counter to what people actually want.
Under EU proposals, online citizens could have their information deleted from social sites after a certain time by default, unless they opt to let the sites store it for longer. This is the opposite of what users actually want, according to a senior Facebook executive.
19865828
submission
jhernik writes:
As Amazon.com launches Appstore for Android, Apple has sued over alleged infringement of its App Store mark
Apple on Friday filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com over Amazon’s use of the term “Appstore”, arguing it violates Apple’s “App Store” trademark.
Amazon has been using the Appstore name for its developer programme, and on Tuesday launched Appstore for Android, a service selling Android smartphone applications.
Injunction and damages
In its complaint filed on Friday in a federal court for the Northern District of California, Apple demanded an injunction stopping Amazon from using the name as well as unspecified damages.
19854606
submission
jhernik writes:
A British hacker who pilfered billions of Zynga’s virtual poker chips faces years behind bars
A 29-year-old gambler from Paignton, Devon, has been sentenced to two years in jail after hacking into an online gambling site and stealing billions of poker chips.
Ashley Mitchell admitted to hacking into the servers of American gaming company Zynga Corporation in 2009 and making off with $12 million (£7.5 million) worth of gambling chips.
Exeter Crown Court’s judge Philip Wassall said the hacker had deliberately “exploited” security weaknesses he had found in Zynga’s website.
“People rely on computer systems,” said Wassall, “Anyone who has managed to get into these systems for their own ends should expect a stiff sentence.”
Gambling addiction
Mitchell was handed a two-year prison sentence for computer misuse and money laundering. In 2009, he broke into Zynga’s main servers and stole the account details of two staff members, before transferring four billion virtual chips to his own account.
19622292
submission
jhernik writes:
Microsoft’s latest round of patches includes only one ‘critical’ bug and several ‘important’ flaws
Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday is a relatively minor one, with a single bulletin rated “critical” and two “important”. Affected software includes applications within Windows and Office.
The MS11-015 update, rated “Critical”, patches vulnerabilities in DirectShow, Windows Media Player and Windows Media Centre. In order for an outside entity to exploit said vulnerabilities, the user would need to open a specially crafted Microsoft Digital Video Recording (DVR-MS) file.
19265252
submission
jhernik writes:
Cyber-war stories from the defence industry may be a distraction, pundits told the RSA conference
nternational cyber threat initiatives are in danger of becoming overblown, the US government’s security chief told the RSA Conference in San Francisco.
” Cyber war is a terrible metaphor,” said the US government’s cybersecurity czar Howard Schmidt. Don’t make it something it’s not.” Internet attacks from hackers, spies and terrorist groups deserves serious attention, he said, but this should not be “to the extent of mass hysteria”.
Cyber-war hype is a distraction
Other thinkers seemed agreed on this. Bruce Schneier, security chief at the BT Group, said that this mass hysteria is being stoked up by government initiatives creating the impression of a “cyber arms race”. He does not believe that a cyber war is raging but that heavy-handed responses to issues such as the Stuxnet attacks are creating that impression.
19227274
submission
jhernik writes:
Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S II over the weekend, during the run-up to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, touting it as “the world’s thinnest smartphone”.
On the second day of the show, eWEEK Europe paid a visit to Samsung’s stand, to get some hands-on time with the device and see if it lived up to the hype. The verdict: we liked what we saw.
Sleek and well designed
At less that 8.5mm thick and weighing in at just 116g, the Galaxy S II is a very sleek device, and surprisingly comfortable to hold. With a dual-core 1GHz processor and generous 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, the graphics appear particularly bright and colourful.
With this latest addition to the Galaxy S range, Samsung has opted for Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), which the company claims offers a faster, more user-friendly experience.
The Galaxy S II comes with version 4.0 of TouchWiz, Samsung’s proprietary Android user interface. Content on the device is organised into four new ‘Hubs’ – the Readers Hub, Music Hub, Social Hub and Game Hub – designed to increase user interactivity. Users can organise their media files as they wish, for example searching music tracks, listening to previews and creating playlists.
The Social Hub also allows users to combine their contact lists from different sources such as GTalk, Yahoo and Windows Live, and categorise them into groups. In this way they can send group updates to friends about a heavy night on the town without having to suffer the dispproval of work colleagues the following day.
The Readers Hub seems particularly intuitive, and the large screen makes reading text a relatively pleasant experience. Texts are divided into news, books and magazines, and allow users to access media from all over the world. They can even access a newspaper before it is fully downloaded, and the file will continue to download as the user reads.
