Security

In a stunning turn of events, hackers have broken into vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account, brazenly publishing several critical messages. The chaos isn't just limited to the Republican party, however; according to reports, ... the son of a prominent Democrat is under suspicion following an FBI raid. Serious questions are being raised this morning about the security of Palin's account, and whether the Alaskan senator should admit some responsibility for using Yahoo Mail for official business. The hacker, from a group calling itself Anonymous, published some of the stolen ... (view more)

Last fall, several communications companies reportedly conducted trials, in some cases lasting up to 6 months, of network-based technology designed to track a customer's Internet actions, attempting to amass refined data on web-surfer habits that ... may be sold at premium rates to advertisers. Cable One's 'trial' affected about 700,000 customers. Bresnan Communications conducted a similar 'trial' that was limited to about 6,000 broadband customers in Billings, Montana from April 1 to June 26, 2008. Knology tested it on about 230,000 of their customers from January until July 2008. WideOpenWest ... (view more)

Like covering your tracks online? Then you'll be happy to hear that Microsoft has recently announced a host of new privacy tools for Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) capable of better protecting users' privacy during and after their surfing. It's a major ... step for Microsoft, which has in the past been criticized for failing to improve IE's privacy settings. With a dominant market share over primary competitor Firefox (from Mozilla), it seemed the impetus for change simply wasn't there. Now that Firefox presents a greater challenge to Microsoft's browser dominance than ever before, the Redmond-based ... (view more)

It's one of the first rules of Internet 101: visiting questionable websites leads to viruses, which entices hackers to access your hard drive and monitor your every click. But can someone still be monitoring your web activity even if you're extra ... careful when selecting online destinations? The answer may just depend on which Internet provider you use. A few months ago, The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent out an open letter to 33 companies inquiring about their online targeting practices, or in other words, the extent to which the web activity of their customers is being ... (view more)

The US government has changed its rules on carrying laptops through airport security checkpoints. Whereas passengers previously had to keep their laptops in clear display, they can now keep them packed away in approved bags. While there's no ... official register of which bags are suitable, most existing laptop bags will not make the grade. That's because the guiding principle now is that security agents should be able to lay the bag flat on the X-ray belt and get a clear view of the contents when they scan it. The guidelines follow tests of 40 manufacturer prototype bags for Transport Security ... (view more)

Yahoo has launched new technology making it easier for users to get website information personalised to their current location. However, privacy advocates say the search engine's safeguards aren't enough to protect web surfers from misuse by ... third-party organisations. The new tool, FireEagle, is primarily designed for mobile devices such as handheld PCs and smart phones. The idea is that the system will be open so that any website you visit can use the information about your location without needing separate software or coding. A reported 50 or more sites have already begun using the scheme, ... (view more)

A school testing company's blunder left personal details of more than 100,000 students publicly viewable on the web. The Princeton Review, which produces courses designed to help students prepare for tests including the SAT (the standard entry exam ... for US universities), recently switched Internet providers. During the move, password protected mechanisms were inadvertently disabled, allowing for full public exposure to sensitive student records. Among those which lost their cloaking were one file with names and birth dates of 74,000 Virginia students, and another with more extensive details ... (view more)

While Apple has opened the iPhone to third-party applications, they are also reportedly keeping a very close eye on which applications are allowed to run on your phone. According to hacker Jonathan Zdziarski, the iPhone has the ability to 'phone ... home' and tell Apple what applications are installed, and if Apple doesn't like what it sees, they can neutralize the offending application. Zdziarski says this suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. He discovered this ability tucked away in a configuration file deep inside the iPhone ... (view more)

Three French journalists have been booted from a major security conference amid claims they were able to hack the laptops being used by fellow reporters. It's particularly embarrassing for those reporters, many of whom write for Global Security Mag, ... an official sponsor of the Black Hat Las Vegas event. Only one of the hackers, Mark Brami, has spoken out; though he blamed colleague Mauro Israel for the 'attack', he said it was meant as a prank. The men involved reportedly told organisers they were attempting to raise the issue of privacy risks among people using public Internet connections. ... (view more)

A new technique has reportedly been developed by two security researchers that bypasses all of the memory protection safeguards in Windows Vista. The tactic is expected to have far-reaching implications for Microsoft the rest of the tech industry. ... Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov of VMWare Inc. will discuss the new methods they've found to get around Vista's Address Space Layout Randomizations (ASLR), Date Execution Prevention (DEP) and other functions built into Windows Vista by using Java, ActiveX controls and .NET objects to load arbitrary content into ... (view more)