Cyber Security

One afternoon late last month, security researcher Hristo Bojinov placed his Galaxy Nexus phone face up on the table in a cramped Palo Alto conference room. Then he flipped it over and waited another beat. And that was it. In a matter of seconds, the device had given up its “fingerprints.” Code running on the Continue Reading →

Google announced a policy change on Friday that lets the company create sponsored endorsements based on reviews it collects from YouTube, Zagat and other Google-controlled sites. In practice, this means that after November 1 (when the policy goes into effect), you may see yourself appearing in ads. Some people will be fine with this — Continue Reading →

“Who can look up your Timeline by name?” Anyone you haven’t blocked. Facebook is removing this privacy setting, notifying those who had hidden themselves that they’ll be searchable. It deleted the option from those who hadn’t used it in December, and is starting to push everyone to use privacy controls on each type of content Continue Reading →

Microsoft is set to become the latest tech giant to develop its own tracking technology to replace the ubiquitous “cookie,” which has become the focus of regulators and privacy advocates. The company is internally developing the technology that would enable tracking across desktop computers, tablets and smartphones running Windows, as well as the company’s Xbox Continue Reading →

Microsoft said on Tuesday it is paying a well-known hacking expert more than $100,000 for finding security holes in its software, one of the largest such bounties awarded to date by a high-tech company. The software maker also released a much anticipated update to Internet Explorer, which it said fixes a bug that made users Continue Reading →

Delivered with a spice of arrogance, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt on Monday declared the Android platform more secure than Apple’s iPhone. The comparison, made during a question-and-answer session at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, drew laughter from a packed-house audience. Gartner analyst David Willis, who is chief of research for mobility and communications and who runs Continue Reading →

We all live in public, at least as far as the US National Security Agency is concerned. As Internet users and global citizens become more aware of surveillance activities that the US and other countries are doing on the World Wide Web, there are those who seek to ensure that privacy and personal freedoms aren’t Continue Reading →

With the slew of improvements Microsoft is making to the new Kinect, some potential buyers have grown concerned about the device’s capabilities, particularly when it comes to how their personal information would be used. Of particular interest was whether or not the Kinect would be able to collect data for use in targeted advertizing. Thankfully, Continue Reading →

Can big email providers scan your messages in order to serve you relevant advertising? Google and Yahoo have long assumed the answer is yes, which is one of the reasons the giant companies provide free email to millions of people. Last week, however, a federal judge in California refused to throw out a class action Continue Reading →

Adobe has made the cloud an essential part of its business strategy, but on Friday it’s been dealt a major blow thanks to cyber attackers. The company has revealed that an intrusion led to an untold number of Adobe IDs and passwords falling into the hands of hackers. But it gets far worse. Adobe says Continue Reading →