hack

One of the hackers accused of involvement in the massive data breach targeted at T.J. Maxx's parent company, arguably the largest security breach worldwide, reportedly pleaded guilty on Thursday.

Damon Patrick Toey pleaded guilty to wire fraud, credit card fraud, and aggravated identity theft, and will be released subject to electronic monitoring, according to a report on the Wall Street Journal's Web site. Eleven defendants total are facing charges in federal court in Boston.

TJX Companies, the parent company of T.J. Maxx and Marshall's, said in March 2007 that 45.7 million accounts were compromised … Read more

The Best Western hotel chain has given details of a hack involving one of its hotels, but downplayed reports that 8 million customers have been affected.

In response to an article published in Scotland's Sunday Herald, Best Western rejected claims that it had suffered a massive compromise of customer details.

Best Western confirmed on Tuesday that it had suffered a breach at one of its German hotels, but denied Sunday Herald claims that every customer using Best Western European hotels since 2007 had had their booking details compromised.

"We can confirm that on 21 August, 2008, three separate … Read more

We thought latte stencils were pretty cool, but this really takes the cake--er, foam. A new company called OnLatte has grabbed the attention of food blogs (and mainstream press like The Wall Street Journal) with its tech-centric approach to the practice of latte art.

The project began last year, when inventor Oleksiy Pikalo saw a video on latte art and decided to make a machine that would decorate his lattes for him. Using a hacked x-y flatbed plotter and edible brown ink, he built a prototype and jokingly filmed it printing a Starbucks logo on a homemade latte.

Pikalo demonstrated … Read more

This post was updated at 1:45 p.m. PDT with comment from MBTA General Manager Daniel Grabauskas.

BOSTON--The three Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who have been barred by a court order from discussing subway card vulnerabilities are now free to say what they want.

In a ruling certain to be cheered by computer researchers, a federal judge here Tuesday let the 10-day-old gag order expire. U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. refused to grant a preliminary injunction requested by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority that would have blocked the students from talking about their findings until … Read more

Gary McKinnon, a British man accused of hacking into U.S. military systems, has been granted a short stay of his extradition.

Last month, McKinnon lost his battle in the House of Lords against extradition to the U.S. to face charges of hacking various military systems. His final recourse now will be if the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) agrees to hear his appeal.

The London law firm representing McKinnon, Kaim Todner, stated on Tuesday that the ECHR will consider as soon as August 28 whether McKinnon can appeal.

"The presidents of the European Court (of) Human … Read more

We tried to give NBC the benefit of the doubt when it comes to Olympic streaming, but then we tried it. And it's ridiculous. Also, we wonder if the iPhone makes you fat, even as it fattens Steve Jobs' wallet. We also discuss the technicalities of invisibility cloaks, and opt-out of Obama's aggressively hip Internet outreach campaign.

Defcon ends with researchers muzzled, viruses written http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10013156-83.html

Judge orders halt to Defcon speech on subway card hacking http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10012612-83.html

Apple hits 3 million … Read more

In the fine tradition of subject lines that tell you nothing about the show or clue you in to the fact that this is, in fact, a tech show. But sometimes, we also like to talk about cowboys. And dogs. And extra-malicious hackers at Black Hat, Vista security "rendered useless" by same, and the low, low interest in Blu-Ray.

Times Online: 'Fakeproof' e-passport is cloned in minutes http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4467106.ece

How I got hacked at Black Hat http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/How-I-Got-Hacked-at-Black-Hat/ … Read more

Updated Friday with details about TG Daily notifying CNET News about the breach.

LAS VEGAS--I should have known it was only a matter of time.

I've been covering security conferences on and off for about 14 years and considered myself lucky not to have been hacked, that I knew of. Until Thursday.

Here's what happened. I was in one of the press rooms at the Black Hat security conference trying to upload some video to the Web. It was a slow process using my Sprint wireless air card, so I decided to plug into the local area network … Read more

Why buy the Lordship when you can just choose the title from the drop-down? Also on the show today, Black Hat 2008 shatters our faith in all that is technology (just like it does every year), and we engage in a lively discussion about the relative crappiness of the applications on the App Store, as well as the moral ramifications of Apple being able to nuke those crappy applications remotely.

Times Online: 'Fakeproof' e-passport is cloned in minutes http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4467106.ece

Black Hat: DNS … Read more