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A group of German hacking enthusiasts says the country's government is unlawfully spying on people online. It says officials are secretly using a monitoring tool in a way not authorized by the courts. The accusations come from the Chaos Computer ... Club (CCC), a group of hackers who seek to find creative and unconventional uses for technology rather than merely causing disruption by illegally accessing data. Ironically, that's exactly what they say the German government is doing. The claims involve Bundestrojaner, a government-run application that is effectively a Trojan horse, software that can ... (view more)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has come up with an idea to help rural Americans gain access to broadband. It involves an overhaul of the system that currently guarantees telephone service to virtually all of the population. The current ... system, the Universal Service Fund (USF), relies on a 15 per cent levy on telecommunications services revenue. This money is then used to subsidize telephone line provision in areas where suppliers say it isn't commercially viable to install lines and still make a profit. The fund also covers the costs of making sure schools, healthcare facilities ... (view more)

Tests have shown that MacBook Air laptops could perform very differently depending on which model hard drive is installed in the machines. The models in question use Solid State Drives, or SSDs, in place of traditional hard drives. The SSDs work in ... a similar way to RAM (random access memory), or flash drives, as they have no moving parts. Although more expensive, SSDs have several key advantages over traditional drives: they make no discernible noise, are less vulnerable to damage from shocks, can access information much more quickly, and are considerably smaller in physical size. They also ... (view more)

The United States government has offered help after defense contractor Lockheed-Martin suffered a "tenacious" cyber-attack. It appears to be linked to problems with a system used for authorizing access from external locations. Lockheed-Martin, which ... is the leading supplier of IT services to the government, says the attack was the latest in a line of frequent attempts to breach its security, which certainly makes sense given the confidential nature of some of the material it handles. But it has described the latest attack as "significant." As a result, the company has reset all user passwords ... (view more)

In computer science, session hijacking is the exploitation of a valid computer session (commonly known as a "session key") used to gain unauthorized access to information or services in a computer system. For example, when a user logs in to a web ... site, the user's PC is tagged with a session key using a browser cookie (a cookie is a small file stored on the users PC that the browser reads). Any time the user requires access to a restricted area of a website (usually requiring login), the session key is extracted from the users' PC and compared to the key stored on the web server. If valid, the ... (view more)

Website LinkedIn.com has received some tough criticism as of late, after one security researcher revealed that the cookies used on the website leaves user accounts open to an online attack. In a recent blog, independent researcher Rishi Narang ... warned members of the business-oriented social network that the cookies found on the site may continue to remain active for up to one year. Extended Expiry Time Aids Hackers Once a user completes their login procedures, LinkedIn creates a file on their computer which the site uses for quicker access later on (similar to the cookies found on many other ... (view more)

U.S. and Canadian PlayStation Network (PSN) users will soon get access to free game and video downloads as a sort-of reparation payment for this past month's arduous outage. Sony is slowly bringing all of its users back online in the wake of a ... massive hack that left PlayStation 3 gamers without access to the PSN online network. The news comes right from Sony itself, which made the announcement about free games and video downloads on its official PlayStation blog Monday evening. For a period of 30 days following the full reactivation of PSN, Sony will offer both PlayStation 3 (PS3) and ... (view more)

Credible reports suggest Microsoft users will be able to carry a copy of Windows 8 in their pocket. It also appears personal settings can be synchronized to the web to allow remote access when on the move. The details come through leaked screenshots ... of what's formally known as Build 7850, but commonly referred to as Milestone 1: the first full-fledged developmental edition of Windows 8. Windows 8 Build 7850 was released to developers late last year but details have only just leaked. Of course, Microsoft is keeping quiet about whether the leaks are genuine, so there's no cast-iron guarantee ... (view more)

A hacker recently made a post stating he'll give anyone willing to pay $499 behind-the-scenes access to confidential network files, including those of the US Army. The hacker posted a price list for access to a range of sites on an underground ... digital forum, along with offers for other illicit services. While there's no way to be certain the offer is legitimate, at least one security expert says he's seen evidence which suggests that offer is in fact genuine. (Source: krebsonsecurity.com ) US Military Intelligence Website Vulnerable Among the most high profile web sites said to be vulnerable ... (view more)

A recently-arrested hacker reportedly used personal information found on Facebook to access women's email accounts. He then used the access to acquire and distribute bare photos of his victims to everyone in their contact lists. George Bronk, a ... 23-year-old Sacramento, California man, pleaded guilty to hacking dozens of email accounts, almost all of which were owned by females. According to reports from the Associated Press, Bronk was able to access the accounts by perusing Facebook for those who had posted a) their email addresses and b) lots of personal information, including their favorite ... (view more)