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Submission + - Facebook: Legal Action Against Employers Asking For Your Password

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook today weighed in on the issue of employers asking current and prospective employees for their Facebook passwords. The company noted that doing so undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user's friends, as well as potentially exposes the employer to legal liability. The company is looking to draft new laws as well as take legal action against employers.
Security

Submission + - Hackers Could Open Convicts' Cells in Prisons

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Kim Zetter writes that some of the same vulnerabilities that the Stuxnet superworm used to sabotage centrifuges at a nuclear plant in Iran exist in the country’s top high-security prisons where programmable logic controllers (PLCs) control locks on cells and other facility doors and researchers have already written three exploits for PLC vulnerabilities they found. “Most people don’t know how a prison or jail is designed, that’s why no one has ever paid attention to it,” says John Strauchs, who plans to discuss the issue and demonstrate an exploit against the systems at the DefCon hacker conference next week. “How many people know they’re built with the same kind of PLC used in centrifuges?” A hacker would need to get his malware onto the control computer either by getting a corrupt insider to install it via an infected USB stick or send it via a phishing attack aimed at a prison staffer, since some control systems are also connected to the internet, Strauchs claims. “Bear in mind, a prison security electronic system has many parts beyond door control such as intercoms, lighting control, video surveillance, water and shower control, and so forth,” adds Strauchs. "Once we take control of the PLC we can do anything (PDF). Not just open and close doors. We can absolutely destroy the system. We could blow out all the electronics.”"

Comment Re:Will Consumers Pay? (Score 1) 897

by bstory (#36922890) Attached to: The End of the Gas Guzzler

Consumers have demanded higher MPG, but not beyond niche groups. The average American consumer when faced with the choice of spending $2-4K more on a car like a Prius (not to mention the added maintenance costs for the batteries) have chosen to pass. This is apparent by the tax credits that the government has implemented to prop up the market for cars like the Prius and other hybrids.

Comment Will Consumers Pay? (Score 2, Insightful) 897

by bstory (#36922660) Attached to: The End of the Gas Guzzler

The real question is will the market bear the new regulations? Americans as a nation have obviously NOT demanded higher MPG ratings from their cars or there would be no need for the regulation. How much more will each vehicle cost to use the higher technology needed to achieve the standards? By setting the standards the government may have artificially increased the market price and will thus affect supply and demand. I'm all for environmental policies, but outside of the academic towers, the real world still intervenes and economics will affect well intentioned government mandates.
Networking

Submission + - Sony sued for PlayStation Network data breach (cnet.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Like clockwork, the first lawsuit resulting from the security breach of the personal data of more than 75 million Sony PlayStation Network customers has been filed.

The suit was filed today on behalf of Kristopher Johns, 36, of Birmingham, Ala., in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Johns accuses Sony of not taking "reasonable care to protect, encrypt, and secure the private and sensitive data of its users."

He also believes Sony took too long to notify him and other customers that their personal information had been exposed. Because of that, the complaint alleges, Sony did not allow its customers "to make an informed decision as to whether to change credit card numbers, close the exposed accounts, check their credit reports, or take other mitigating actions."

CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20057921-260.html
PC Games (Games)

Activision Wants Consoles To Be Replaced By PCs 344

Posted by Soulskill from the oppose-on-principle dept.
thsoundman writes with this excerpt from thegamersblog: "We live in a world where we have multiple platforms for gaming: PC, PS3, 360, Wii, etc. Each platform has varying amounts of power when it comes to playing games. Activision, one of the leading cross-platform publishers, wishes to move away from the 'walled gardens' set by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. ... [Activision CEO Bobby] Kotick’s solution is to turn to the PC, where it can set its own model for pricing — not unlike what Blizzard has done with World of Warcraft and Battle.net. Kotick stated that Activision would 'very aggressively' support the likes of HP and Dell in any attempt at making an easy 'plug-and-play' PC that would hook up directly to the TV."
Image

Churches Use Twitter To Reach a Wider Audience 169

Posted by samzenpus from the go-tell-it-on-the-internet dept.
In an attempt to reverse declining attendance figures, many American churches are starting to ask WWJD in 140 or fewer characters. Pastors at Westwinds Community Church in Michigan spent two weeks teaching their 900-member congregation how to use Twitter. 150 of them are now tweeting. Seattle's Mars Hill Church encourages its members to Twitter messages during services. The tweets appear on the church's official Twitter page. Kyle Firstenberg, the church's administrator, said,"It's a good way for them to tell their friends what church is about without their friends even coming in the building."

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