Privacy and data protection

Military judge sets terms for possible Manning plea

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of sharing documents with WikiLeaks that were eventually released on the Internet, is now one step closer to handling some of the claims brought against him.

Military judge Col. Denise Lind today accepted the language used to describe seven charges to which Manning could plead guilty. The charges include Manning willfully sending videos, war logs, and other classified materials to WikiLeaks.

The Associated Press was first to report on the ruling.

To be clear, Col. Lind's ruling does not imply that Manning willl offer a guilty plea. Instead, the ruling approves … Read more

Some Samsung printers vulnerable to hackers

Owners of certain Samsung printers may find their devices a target for hackers.

Samsung printers and some Dell printers made by Samsung have a hardcoded account that someone could use to control and access information on the devices, according to US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team).

As described by the security team, these printers contain a hardcoded SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) string that has full read/write access and stays active even if the network protocol is disabled by the user.

"A remote, unauthenticated attacker could access an affected device with administrative privileges," US-CERT said. "… Read more

Credit card companies' WikiLeaks block just fine, EU says

Credit card companies that blocked WikiLeaks a couple of years ago didn't do anything wrong, the European Union's European Commission said today.

Last year, donation collection gateway DataCell complained to the commission that it was unfair for MasterCard Europe, Visa Europe, and American Express to have blocked donations to WikiLeaks. DataCell provided payment gateway services to WikiLeaks, accepting donations for the controversial organization. It was able to facilitate those transactions by operating its datacenter in Iceland -- away from legal prying eyes.

In its complaint, which it filed in July 2011, DataCell said that the credit card companies … Read more

Hacker found guilty of massive AT&T-iPad site breach

A hacker has been found guilty of breaking into an AT&T Web site and stealing data of more than 100,000 iPad users.

Andrew Auernheimer, 26, was convicted Tuesday in federal court in New Jersey of one count of conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers and one count of identity theft. The jury reached its verdict within hours of beginning deliberations, according to Wired.

After the verdict was announced, Auernheimer tweeted that the outcome had been expected and that an appeal was planned.

Hey epals don't worry! We went in knowing there would be a guilty … Read more

Pew study: Parents of teens online worry about ads, strangers

Parents are more worried about advertisers having access to their children's online data than about their children talking to strangers online, according to a report published today.

The Pew Internet Project and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University collaborated on the report, which is based on a survey if 802 parents of children aged 12 to 17 with questions about social-networking sites, namely Facebook. As more and more teens and pre-teens use social media as a part of their every day communications , the study finds that parents worried about a variety of online dangers -- … Read more

5 ways to avoid pulling a Petraeus

The extramarital affair scandal engulfing former CIA director David Petraeus has brought massive public attention to the convoluted U.S. laws governing e-mail privacy. We've got some quick tips for keeping your electronic communiques private.

Before getting into the more technical side of things, there are some simple behavioral changes you can make.

Always log out of your e-mail when you're done using it. This goes for any online service, including social networking sites. Logging out prevents a cached password from keeping you signed in even after the browser has been restarted.

Never use your preferred personal e-mail … Read more

Skype fixes e-mail security flaw

Skype has resolved a nasty e-mail and password security bug and reinstated its password reset page.

Revealed by Skype earlier today, the vulnerability allowed someone to create a Skype account using the same e-mail address as that of the intended victim. That person was then able to reset the password for all accounts associated with that address, thereby locking out the account owner from Skype.

As a precaution, Skype earlier today took down its password reset page to prevent hackers from taking advantage of the flaw. But the company managed to resolve the security hole not long after announcing it, … Read more

Skype disables password resets due to e-mail security flaw

Update, 10:25 a.m. PT: Skype has since resolved the security issue and reinstated the password reset page.

Skype is investigating a security problem that allows someone to take over a user's account by resetting the account password.

The VoIP service provider best known for video calls confirmed in its blog today that it has taken down its password reset page as it probes the issue:

We have had reports of a new security vulnerability issue. As a precautionary step we have temporarily disabled password reset as we continue to investigate the issue further. We apologize for the … Read more

Protect yourself from social-network malware (video)

First there was e-mail spam clogging up your in-box. Now there's social malware making its way into your Facebook newsfeed.

If you've ever seen a spammy message from a friend promising a "Free iPad" or "Free" airline tickets, chances are it's socware (pronounced "sock ware") -- a phrase coined by engineering professors and graduate students at the University of California, Riverside, in a new study.

Their study analyzed 12,000 users of MyPageKeeper, a free app they developed to identify suspicious posts and help protect Facebook users from them. Of that … Read more

Government surveillance continues to rise, Google says

Here's an item unlikely to surprise anyone who has followed how David Petraeus was brought down by a Gmail account: Google is getting more government requests for user data than ever before.

For the first half of this year, Google received 20,938 official requests for user data from governments around the world, affecting 34,614 accounts. That's up 67 percent from the second half of 2009, the first period in which Google reported the information publicly.

The United States led the way, making 209 requests during the reporting period. Germany, Brazil, Turkey, and France also made scores … Read more