theft

To the surprise of probably no one, Take-Two Interactive Software has rejected Electronic Arts' hostile buyout offer.

In an announcement Wednesday morning, Take-Two said its board of directors and company officers have recommended that shareholders reject EA's bid of $26 a share. The board also said it's developing alternative strategies for possible alliances with third parties, including EA, that would kick in after the April 29 of release of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Take-Two's board noted that "substantive discussions" about possible alliances have yet to occur, although it did emphasize that the company is now … Read more

A government laptop housing the medical information of 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen, potentially exposing personal data.

The computer was stolen in February from the trunk of a car driven by a lab chief of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, but officials did not notify the patients of the theft until Thursday, saying they didn't want to spread unnecessary alarm, according to The Washington Post.

The laptop contained seven years worth of clinical studies on the patients, including their names, ages, medical record numbers, and MRI reports. Social Security … Read more

A Seattle man has been sentenced to more than four years in prison in what prosecutors say was the first federal case against someone using file-sharing software to steal identities.

Gregory Kopiloff, 35, was sentenced Monday to 51 months in prison, according to a report in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Kopiloff pleaded guilty in November to mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and accessing a protected computer without authorization to further fraud. Kopiloff used programs such as LimeWire to gain access to personal information in tax returns, credit reports, bank statements, and student financial-aid applications of more than 50 people, according … Read more

A Maine-based supermarket chain on Monday reported a data intrusion into its computer network that has put some 4.2 million customer credit and debit card accounts at risk, according to the company and press accounts.

No personal information, such as names or addresses, was accessed, said Ronald Hodge, chief executive of Hannaford Bros. in a letter apologizing to customers. "The stolen data was limited to credit and debit card numbers and expiration dates, and was illegally accessed from our computer systems during transmission of card authorization," he said.

Hodge added that the intrusion affected customers at Hannaford … Read more

The drama surrounding Electronic Arts' attempt to buy Take-Two Interactive is, increasingly, playing out like a combination action-adventure and shooter game.

As noted in a story published Friday in The New York Times, Take-Two has become a moving target not only because of maneuvering by the company's officers but because of changes in its shareholder group.

The offer EA presented on Thursday directly to Take-Two shareholders--$26 per share, or about $2 billion--is essentially the same one it offered the video game publisher in February. But as the Times story points out, Take-Two's shareholder population has in … Read more

Harvard says about 10,000 of last year's applicants may have had their personal information compromised. At least 6,600 Social Security numbers were exposed. Worse, a compressed 125 M-byte file containing the stolen student data is currently available via BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer network.

In a statement published Monday night Harvard officials said the database containing summaries of GSAS applicant data for entry to the Fall 2007 academic year, summaries of GSAS housing applicant data for the 2007-08 and 2006-07 academic years, and administrator information had been compromised. The server had been taken offline for several days last month … Read more

Someone apparently hacked into a computer belong to an employee of MTV Networks and possibly gained access to names, birth dates, social security numbers and compensation data of 5,000 employees.

MTV Networks, a unit of media conglomerate Viacom, notified employees of the security compromise on Friday and said that while the computer files pertaining to employees' private information were password protected, the company can't be sure they haven't been opened.

"Once we learned of the incident, we immediately launched an internal investigation," the company said in a statement. "We ... contacted appropriate law enforcement authorities, … Read more

Electronic Arts is not alone in its interest in buying Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required to read entire article).

SEC filings show that Take-Two says it has received other offers, but has spurned those as well as the original $2 billion offer EA made last Friday and announced last Sunday, the Journal reports.

EA issued a public statement on Sunday saying it had made an earlier offer to Take-Two that was rejected and that it was boosting the per-share price it was willing to pay to make the deal … Read more

Customers of HSBC, Bank of America, and Washington Mutual suffer the highest rates of identity theft in the banking industry, according to an investigative study released Wednesday by a UC Berkeley Law School researcher.

The Federal Trade Commission received over 245,000 reports of identity theft in 2006, but does not typically publish the names of the financial firms and companies listed in the reports. Through an extensive Freedom of Information Act request, Chris Hoofnagle, a staff attorney at UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law, was able to get detailed records on the individual consumer complaints.

Hoofnagle received detailed … Read more