Week in review: Big boys get busy

(continued from previous page)

In a disclosure that hasn't been widely reported, one of the compromised servers, which held Social Security numbers belonging to 137,000 people, was penetrated by U.S. and overseas-based hackers for at least a year and possibly much longer.

Personal information belonging to 26.5 million U.S. veterans was also seized following the theft of the data from the home of a government employee, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. According to a message posted on the department's Web site Monday, one of the department's data analysts violated procedure by taking home the information on a laptop without authorization. The employee whose house was robbed was placed on administrative leave.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses the Motion Picture Association of America of hiring a hacker to steal information from a company that the MPAA has accused of helping copyright violators. The lawsuit doesn't identify the man the company says was approached by an MPAA executive.

The suit calls the man a former associate of one of the plaintiffs and alleges that he was asked to retrieve private information on Torrentspy.com, a search engine that directs people to download links. Torrentspy's complaint includes claims that the man the MPAA allegedly paid $15,000 to steal e-mail correspondence and trade secrets has admitted his role in the plot and is cooperating with the company.

Baby you can drive my car
How far can you go on a tank of ethanol? Some students in France this weekend showed that the answer could be in the thousands of miles. That is, of course, if you don't mind driving a car not much bigger than you are.

An ethanol-powered vehicle engineered by students from the Lycee La Joliverie took top honors at the Shell Eco-marathon, a contest to build a car that can drive as far as possible using the least amount of energy. The vehicle averaged an astounding 2,885 kilometers per liter, or approximately 6,786 miles per gallon, according to an announcement released Sunday by race officials.

Meanwhile, vehicles in London could soon be fitted with technology that would automatically slow them down if they break the speed limit. Transport For London, or TFL, said it is investigating the technology and plans to run a trial next year in an attempt to cut road traffic deaths.

The idea is that if the vehicle exceeds the speed limit, the engine revs are automatically limited so that it slows down again. Motorists often claim that they are speeding because they don't know the limit in a particular area. But this would no longer be an excuse if their GPS satellite navigation system could alert them to changes in speed limit as they drive.

As technically advanced as cars are becoming, it was only a matter of time before vehicle-related hacking came along. Prius owners tend to be passionate about the car, but they also are finding there are certain factory-set features they don't like, and they're increasingly finding ways to take matters into their own hands to change them.

Unlike early generations of car buffs, the Prius hackers are more interested in saving the planet than winning a drag race. Of course, it's not just about the mileage.

On late-model Priuses, for example, when the car is in reverse, there is a loud beeping sound. There's also a similar sound when the driver or the front passenger isn't wearing a seat belt. Some people want to turn off the beep. Another hack makes it possible to use the car's onboard navigation system while driving, something that is impossible on a Prius right off a showroom floor.

Also of note
Shares of the newly public Vonage slid almost 13 percent from its initial offering price after the company's stock completed its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange...A new instant messaging worm installs a rogue Web browser called "Safety Browser" and hijacks the user's Internet Explorer home page...Jason Poland won Legoland California's national search for a new master model builder, beating out 22 other finalists from throughout the country after two days of sometimes tense, stressful competition.