thefts

Somebody breaks into your e-mail account and sends phishing spam from your address to everyone in your contacts list. Somebody else steals your online bank ID and password and cleans out all the money in your accounts. And another crook swipes your Social Security number and opens credit card, cell phone, and other accounts in your name.

All three of these crimes fall under the umbrella of identity theft. Reports of declines in identity-theft incidents from such security research firms as Javelin Strategy & Research and government agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC's consumer-complaint statistics for 2010--pdf), … Read more

Oracle is involved in a number of legal battles at the moment--most notably with Google and Hewlett-Packard, among others--but a ruling yesterday is shaking everything up.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton is rejecting a $1.3 billion award that a jury offered to Oracle months ago in its corporate theft trial against SAP. That decision can be read online on SAP's Web site (PDF).

Here's a copy of the new ruling:

Oracle Sap New Trial

Oracle originally argued that SAP's subsidiary TomorrowNow wrongfully and illegally downloaded millions of Oracle files.

The reversal is not to say … Read more

It's a tenet of modern existence that if you are online (and even if you're not) someone might be watching. Is there a limit, though, in what they're allowed to see?

I mention this existential conundrum because of a case in Ohio, which has seen a judge decide that it might not be alright for a laptop-tracking company to espy some of the more intimate parts of your life and body--even if they are being displayed on a stolen laptop.

A Wired report suggests that Absolute Software was quite wired in to where an allegedly stolen laptop … Read more

A 19-year-old woman was arrested late last month in connection with an investigation into the theft and trashing of property from an apartment that had been rented out via a Web site rental service, San Francisco police confirmed to CNET today.

The arrest stems from an incident a San Francisco woman blogged about on June 29. The woman, who goes by EJ, wrote that she rented her apartment out to a stranger through the Airbnb site and returned home to find her place trashed and her jewelry, electronics, money, and other valuables missing. The post went viral this week, prompting … Read more

A few days ago, one Airbnb member's horror story of her home being ransacked went viral. Now she has spoken out again--and things aren't any better.

In case you're not familiar with the account, basically, a woman named "EJ" in San Francisco rented out her apartment while she was on vacation. When she returned, she found her home trashed and vandalized, with some of her most personal belongings as well as several documents related to her identity stolen.

Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky responded publicly, albeit briefly at first, saying that they would pledge their … Read more

The weekend is all about downtime. Well, maybe not for everybody, but we certainly hope you get a little time to yourself. In any case, it's always good to have some great time-wasters on your iPhone for whenever you get a break in the action. Fortunately, some excellent games came out recently (and one went on sale) that you really should check out.

This week's iOS apps are all top-shelf titles that are perfect for taking a break. The first is a popular console remake with tons of content that has hit its lowest price to date. The second is a very well-designed platformer that's skyrocketing up the iTunes app charts. The third app takes zombie destruction to a whole new level--way up in a machine-gun-equipped airplane.… Read more

A New York City hospital is using patients' palms, not insurance cards, to pull up their records, according to a new report.

The New York University Langone Medical Center started scanning palms last month to reduce paperwork and prevent identity theft, the New York Daily News reports, using a device that images the veins in a patient's hand.

Shaped like a butter tray, the black PatientSecure device uses infrared light to scan palms, then links the unique biometric trait to a patient's electronic health records.

That's right: no need to pore through a purse for an insurance … Read more

On today's show, Google already runs out of disk space for Google +, and we're running low on disk space ourselves. The first Google eBooks integrated e-reader is landing soon, Apple takes another run at HTC, and we're discovering the most evil cities on the Internetz. --Molly

Are you the type of airline passenger who, when your hand luggage goes through security, tries to peer all the way into the machine, just to check that nothing will be tampered with?

You may have good reason to do so, if a story from Florida holds up in court.

According to WSVN-TV, a Transportation Security Administration worker allegedly had a systematic scheme for removing passengers' electronics and selling them on Craigslist.

In one incident, Broward County Sheriff's Office says that Nelson Santiago, 30, allegedly removed an iPad from a passenger's suitcase and then, well, stuffed it down … Read more