thefts

Epsilon, which manages e-mail communications for TiVo, JP Morgan Chase, Capital One Financial, US Bank, the Kroger grocery chain, and other clients, said this week that it suffered a security breach that revealed data on some of its clients' customers.

Epsilon, which says it sends 40 billion e-mails annually, released a statement yesterday saying that on March 30 it detected an "unauthorized entry" into its system that exposed customer names and e-mail addresses. The company said "no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk."

Bloomberg reported that an Epsilon representative would not … Read more

Scott Stein fills in for Wilson, who is spending a sick day at home trawling WebMD on his iPad. Or maybe he's at a job interview for Grand Theft Auto V. Today's show discusses a phenomenon known as "Netflix hoarding," how to buy an online girlfriend using a new service called Cloud Girlfriend, and we suggest a few April Fools' Day pranks for nerds.

The folks who run Facebook are laughing all the way to the bank. They're making money hand over fist, and all they have to do is sit back and watch as the people who comprise their product volunteer tons of incredibly personal information. Then they sell access to that information to any advertiser or other business who wants it.

Facebook claims the information they surrender to these companies is anonymous, but it's not. Companies can combine the "anonymized" information from your profile with personal data gleaned from tracking cookies and other online traces to create dossiers … Read more

Customers of Play.com have been left open to spam fraud after one of the online retailer's suppliers suffered a data breach.

Play.com wrote to users on Monday outlining the problem, which it said may have exposed e-mail addresses, but not credit card details.

"We are e-mailing all our customers to let you know that a company that handles part of our marketing communications has had a security breach," said the message. "Unfortunately this has meant that some customer names and e-mail addresses may have been compromised."

Read more of "Play.com admits data breach&… Read more

Nearly 13 million American adults who use social networks are more than willing to accept friend requests from strangers of the opposite gender, a new survey from Harris Interactive has found.

According to Harris Interactive, 18 percent of men will accept a woman's friend request, even if they do not know the person. About 7 percent of women will accept an unknown man's friend request. A total of 5 percent of U.S. adults will accept every friend request they receive.

Only 50 percent trust that their connections will keep their information private. Yet more than 24 million … Read more

This is a depressing Top 5. Seems like pretty much all the entities that should know how to protect our Social Security number still don't.

For the full, gory details, check out McAfee's list.

If you happen to have your precious iPhone stolen from you in the broadness of daylight, you might wish that you might be helped in your quest for justice by something fast and airborne.

One distressed iPhone owner in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, enjoyed just such fortune after her iPhone was stolen in a hospital.

According to the Age, the alleged perpetrator, a 16-year-old, sped away with the iPhone on a bike. Which was, coincidentally, also allegedly purloined illegally from its owner.

It just so happened that the police had a helicopter flying around in the vicinity.

The Age … Read more

If you were a UPS employee, would you be tempted, just occasionally, to open packages? Perhaps, out of curiosity? Or because they didn't smell quite right? Or because they did?

This difficult question arises because of the story of Richard Lynch from Grass Valley, Calif.

Lynch told ABC News 10 that he used UPS to ship a laptop for repairs. The laptop reportedly disappeared en route, the box allegedly arriving with just sheets and soda cans inside.

Keen to prove his notion that someone at UPS has thieved his laptop, Lynch reportedly rigged another package and took it to … Read more

If you were a famous violinist who happened to carry a $1.9 million Stradivarius around with you, it would surely be hard to concentrate on anything else.

Unless, perhaps, there was an iPhone in the vicinity.

You might be familiar with the new ad campaign for Windows Phone (they've dropped the "7" in the ads, as it confused people). This would be the campaign in which people look very silly because they're staring into their iPhones (presumed) all day instead of, say, paying attention to their scantily clad lovers.

Perhaps Min-Jin Kym, being a well-traveled … Read more