Sony admits a third data breach

Sony has suffered a third data breach with revelations of details of customers who entered a product sweepstake being discovered on the internet.

And in a blog post on the company’s website, Sony’s Senior Director, Corporate Communications and Social Media, Patrick Seybold said its online entertainment arm had been unaware of the extent of the hacking of its site, first revealed a week ago — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Internet users clog mobile network

Insatiable demand for smartphones, tablets and data-enabled devices is putting telephone networks under so much pressure they are struggling to cope.

Critics suggest mobile phone companies have signed up too many people when their networks are unable to provide the service they are selling. That assertion is almost impossible to confirm, but some industry analysts are convinced it is true — via redwolf.newsvine.com

FBI set to kill secret-stealing Russian botnet. Is your computer infected?

The FBI might be asking your permission soon to reach into your computer and rip something out. And you don’t know it’s there.

In a first for US law enforcement efforts to make the Internet more secure, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has seized control of a Russian cybercrime enterprise that has enslaved millions of personal computers and may have gained access to US diplomatic, military, and law enforcement computer systems — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Waterbear

Waterbear, a new Scratch-like visual programming language, made its debut at a JavaScript conference this week. Basically you can put together a JavaScript program by putting blocks together and entering some parameters. The output is JavaScript that you can use in other web pages. The Waterbear system runs in a browser, it’s HTML5 based, and needs no installation. You can’t help but think that this is the way all programming will be done in the future.

Scammers Swap Google Images for Malware

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a single tainted digital image may be worth thousands of dollars for computer crooks who are using weaknesses in Google’s Image Search to foist malicious software on unsuspecting surfers.

For several weeks, some readers have complained that clicking on Google Images search results directed them to Web pages that pushed rogue anti-virus scareware via misleading security alerts and warnings. On Wednesday, the SANS Internet Storm Center posted a blog entry saying they, too, were receiving reports of Google Image searches leading to fake anti-virus sites. According to SANS, the attackers have compromised an unknown number of sites with malicious scripts that create Web pages filled with the top search terms from Google Trends. The malicious scripts also fetch images from third-party sites and include them in the junk pages alongside the relevant search terms, so that the automatically generated Web page contains legitimate-looking content — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Homeland Security Wants Mozilla to Pull Domain Seizure Add-On

Homeland Security’s ICE unit is not happy with a Firefox add-on that allows the public to circumvent the domains seizures carried out during the past several months. In an attempt to correct this vulnerability in their anti-piracy strategy, ICE have asked Mozilla to pull the add-on from their site. Unfortunately for them Mozilla denied the request, arguing that this type of censorship may threaten the open Internet — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Furniture rental company spies on PC users

A major furniture rental chain provides its customers with computers that allow it to track keystrokes, take screenshots and even snap webcam pictures of renters using the devices at home, a Wyoming couple said in a lawsuit Tuesday.

Computer privacy experts said the firm has the right to equip its computers with software it can use to shut off the devices remotely if customers stop paying their bills, but they must be told if they’re being monitored — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Ignore The SEO Snake Oil And Build A Site People Find Useful

Everyone and their dog has an opinion on how to perform search-engine optimisation (SEO) and make your online business more visible in major search engines; how do you distinguish the potentially useful tactics from the snake oil salesmen? The simple answer: put your energy into building a quality site rather than worrying about the search impact of what you have done — via redwolf.newsvine.com

IP-Address Is Not a Person, BitTorrent Case Judge Says

A possible landmark ruling in one of the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. may spell the end of the pay-up-or-else-schemes that have targeted over 100,000 Internet users in the last year. District Court Judge Harold Baker has denied a copyright holder the right to subpoena the ISPs of alleged copyright infringers, because an IP-address does not equal a person — via redwolf.newsvine.com