Technology Talk

According to a July 2005 Pew Internet & American Life Project report, 68% of internet users - 93 million Americans - experience computer problems that can be traced back to adware and spyware.

There are two types of threats that can be considered spyware: Read the rest

According to a 2005 study by Javelin Strategies and the Better Business Bureau, 48% of all identity theft victims reported that employees, friends, acquaintances, relatives, or their own carelessness was to blame rather than hackers. Less than 12% was the result of computer related crimes.

Visa USA and the US Chamber of Commerce are sponsoring a nationwide lecture series to crack down on identity theft at the point of sale. They say businesses should work to improve data security in 4 key areas. Read the rest

This week, a federal grand jury charged 24 people in connection with 6 identity theft scams involving bank and mortgage fraud. Of those, two of the scams involved circles of 10 people.

In the first case, Charles White and Allen Smith allegedly headed up a 10 person group who defrauded banks to the tune of at least $1 million. By using the names, social security numbers, addresses, and dates of birth of potentially hundreds of customers of Commerce Bank, Wachovia Bank, PNC Bank, and M&T Bank, they were able to cash foreign and counterfeit checks as well as withdraw funds from current customers’ accounts. Read the rest

The Los Angeles News Service and its owner Robert Tur have sued YouTube for posting copyrighted footage on their website. Specifically, someone posted a video of the beating of trucker Reginald Denny during the 1992 LA riots.

Tur, who apparently has a reputation as “an active litigant”, is asking for $150,000 for each infringement (it was viewed 1000 times) - or $150 million in damages! He decided to sue YouTube rather than the person that upload because Read the rest

Just when you thought it might be safe to surf the web with the latest web browsers (or at least FireFox), hacker J.D. Moore has decided to publish one bug on his blog each day for the month of July - and no, FireFox and Safari aren’t safe either. Of the 9 bugs posted, 7 are in Internet Explorer, 1 in FireFox and 1 in Safari.

The expert reaction to the Month of Browser Bugs is mixed, with some people thinking that making the bugs public can only put pressure on companies to release security patches faster. Others think that going public with this info will only make it easier for hackers to exploit the bugs. Read the rest