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Apple announced last week at the 2012 WWDC that many automakers have signed on to integrate Apple's Siri in their vehicles, but few have said which cars or when. However, two compacts from General Motors may be among the first to include the new "Eyes Free" feature in its vehicles, reports blog GM Authority.

The Chevrolet Spark and Chevrolet Sonic will be the first GM vehicles to get this latest infotainment feature. The two vehicles are already available with MyLink, an infotainment system that integrates with the driver's smartphone. MyLink leverages the handset's Internet connection … Read more

Reddit is taking aim at some media heavyweights to reduce spam on the site.

The popular link-sharing site has banned a half-dozen prominent sites, including TheAtlantic.com and BusinessWeek.com, according to a recently created subreddit. Other banned sites include Phys.org, ScienceDaily.com, and GlobalPost.

Reddit users who try to submit links to these sites are greeted with a message that informs them that "this domain has been banned for spamming and/or cheating."

The site announced a crackdown on spammers last week but only specifically mentioned that it would now employ link shorteners:

LinkedIn has posted an update on what it's doing to protect its members following the appearance, earlier this week, of millions of member passwords online.

"First," the post says, "it's important to know that compromised passwords were not published with corresponding e-mail logins. At the time they were initially published, the vast majority of those passwords remained hashed, i.e., encoded, but unfortunately a subset of the passwords was decoded. Again, we are not aware of any member information being published at any time in connection with the list of stolen passwords. The only information … Read more

Three companies have warned users in the last 24 hours that their customers' passwords appear to be floating around on the Internet, including on a Russian forum where hackers boasted about cracking them. I suspect more companies will follow suit.

Curious about what this all means to you? Read on.

What exactly happened? Earlier this week a file containing what looked like 6.5 million passwords and another with 1.5 million passwords was discovered on a Russian hacker forum on InsidePro.com, which offers password-cracking tools. Someone using the handle "dwdm" had posted the original list and … Read more

LinkedIn said today that it has contacted police about the compromise of its users' passwords that hackers were actively cracking earlier this week.

"Yesterday we learned that approximately 6.5 million hashed LinkedIn passwords were posted on a hacker site. Most of the passwords on the list appear to remain hashed and hard to decode, but unfortunately a small subset of the hashed passwords was decoded and published," Vicente Silveira, a director at the professional social-networking site, wrote in a blog post. "We are also actively working with law enforcement, which is investigating this matter."

The … Read more

It's time to pony up for prepaid iPhones, avoid password scams and drop that mayor obsession:

The iPhone is coming to Virgin Mobile at the end of June. But you'll have to drop a hefty $650 to get the iPhone 4S, since there's no two-year contract. Plans start at $30 a month. It's cheaper in the long run to go prepaid with this plan instead of spending $200 upfront and paying for a more expensive monthly bill for two years (but you'll be limited with talk minutes). Virgin is on the Sprint network.

If Android … Read more

The dating Web site eHarmony got hit by the same group that released a list of LinkedIn member passwords yesterday, so be sure to change your passwords for both if you have accounts.

Buzzfeed also parsed through the list of leaked passwords to reveal some pretty depressing sentiments from employees. While many accounts used overly simplistic passwords like "LinkedIn" or "password1," some of the more disturbing pass phrases include things like "suicide," "solonely," "iwishiwasdead," and "divorce." They're still not very strong in terms of security, so be sure to add a special character or a number during the bleak changeover.… Read more

The years change, but the stories remain the same. Passwords are a crappy defense and most of us use poor ones in exchange for ease of use.

Scads of LinkedIn users have had their passwords stolen. Phishing attacks ensued to prey on LinkedIn users. Now eHarmony has had issues. Passwords are regularly swiped from Web mail accounts.

The problem: Passwords may be the most imperfect security measure around. Most users don't want to sacrifice usability for a good password.

Sure, there are encryption techniques, two-factor authentication and other enhanced security measures. The reality is that most of us stick … Read more

Earlier today rumors started sweeping across the Internet that LinkedIn account passwords had been leaked online. A few hours later, LinkedIn confirmed that the rumors were true; millions of account passwords had been compromised and posted online.

Almost just as fast as the story started spreading, a link to LeakedIn.org was being passed around as a way to check if your password was leaked in the security breach. To figure out if you're affected, LeakedIn requires you to enter your account password. Your password is then converted to its SHA-1 equivalent and then is compared to the list … Read more