dan tynan on Feb 25 2013 | Filed under: ITworld
I am hereby declaring the Pottery Barn Rule to be in effect for the entire Internet. Memo to all hackers worldwide: You broke it, you own it, now fix it. Let’s just recap the last week or so. We have the Mandiant report, published earlier this week by the New York Times, which details how [...]
dan tynan on Jan 16 2013 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, Life
Large swaths of the Internet are in mourning for Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old hacktavist who took his own life last week. I didn’t know Aaron and didn’t know much about him besides the thumbnail sketch that has now been repeated thousands of times across the Web. But it’s a heck of a thumbnail. At age [...]
dan tynan on Dec 18 2012 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, Privacy
In a couple of years the Internet might just kill you. At least, that’s one of the 2014 predictions from one security company. This is the time of year when everyone and their dog posts their predictions for what will happen in the wacky world of tech in 2013. The reason? Nobody wants to work [...]
dan tynan on Feb 18 2011 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, Spy v spy
Last week, in a straight-out-of-Hollywood B-movie plot, we learned that an obscure cyber security company was trying to take out a whistleblowing site on behalf of a Fortune 50 corporation, thanks to a shadowy group of uber geeks whose identities are as yet unknown. (Quick, get me Matt Damon. He’s not available? Get me someone [...]
dan tynan on Aug 02 2010 | Filed under: Apple, Cringley, Gadgets, Infoworld, iPhone, Privacy, Spy v spy
And you thought those iPhone 4 signal problems were bad. At last week’s Blackhat conference, a San Francisco firm called Lookout Mobile Security revealed that third-party smart phone apps are stealing user information and (literally) phoning home with it. And by ‘home,’ I mean China. But unlike those bogus Droid X signal problems, this problem [...]
dan tynan on Jun 11 2010 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, Privacy, Spy v spy
Getting a chance to bash AT&T twice in two weeks is like getting to hit a pinata filled with $100 bills. Hand me the stick and stand back, boys. Last week I wrote about AT&T’s parsimonious data plan (all-you-can-eat is dead, Jim) and its chowder-headed attempt to silence an angry customer who sent CEO Randall [...]
dan tynan on Mar 30 2009 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, National insecurity, Spy v spy
By now you’ve probably read about GhostNet, the vast spy network that was uncovered after the office of the Dalai Lama asked researchers at the University of Toronto to examine their computer networks for malware. The researchers not only found nasties there, they uncovered an entire network that connected almost 1300 computers in 103 countries [...]
dan tynan on Aug 11 2008 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld
(This post originally appeared on Infoworld’s Notes From the Field blog.) Want a pain-free way to break into a corporate wireless network? No problem. Eager to spy on private conversations through closed windows using nothing but a simple laser pointer and some audio equipment? Step right up. But if you’re thinking about using technology that [...]
