John Lister

The United States government has agreed to pay $50 million in compensation after effectively committing large-scale piracy. The problem? The US Army installed software on 9,000 military computers without a proper license. The software, which was ... produced by Texas-based firm Apptricity, was used to track the movement of troops and supplies in real time. The system allows staff to get a complete picture of everything they are tracking on a single screen, yet have the ability to drill down to fine detail -- such as finding which particular compartment in a vehicle or plane a specific item is ... (view more)

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned a $99 genetic home testing kit. The agency says the company responsible for the kit, '23andme', failed to prove its marketing claims and insists that the product could put customers' ... mental and physical health at risk. 23andme was founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The company's kit allows users to collect a saliva sample and send it in for genetic analysis. The company then provides a report that can be used for tracing family connections. It also includes details about 240 health conditions ... (view more)

Sony has applied for a patent on a new, high-tech wig. It's the latest "wearable technology" device to emerge. Sony says the wig will allow the user to wirelessly access various gadgets, like a smartphone or a global positioning system (GPS) device. ... Sony suggests that, when hooked up to a navigation or mapping app on a phone (or using a built-in GPS chip), the wig could buzz on the left or right side of the head to give you directions when walking. (Sony says the head is much more sensitive to touch than many other areas of the body.) That would eliminate the need to keep pulling out your ... (view more)

Microsoft has launched a new set of merchandise carrying anti-Google slogans. It's just a publicity stunt, but the blistering nature of the attacks may land Microsoft in legal trouble. The merchandise is the latest step in Microsoft's "Don't get ... Scroogled" campaign. That term, a mix of "screwed" and "Google", is Microsoft's way of arguing that its rival has a much more aggressive approach to using customer data for its own means. The campaign has largely centered on the fact that Google scans messages sent through its Gmail service and then uses the content to produce relevant advertising. ... (view more)

Google has agreed to pay a $17 million penalty for cheating a privacy system in Apple's Safari browser. Google was fined because it effectively lied to customers about its privacy policy. The case involves cookies, small text files placed in a ... user's web browser so that websites can quickly get information about the user. In some cases this can be beneficial; for example, a movie listing site can make a note about a user's ZIP code so that they immediately receive localized listings when they visit the site. In some cases, though, advertisers will use cookies to track which sites a user ... (view more)

Against the advice of security experts, a police department has paid a $750 ransom to cybercriminals who corrupted its file system using a 'ransomware' attack. The Swansea Police Department in Massachusetts was hit by a virus called 'CryptoLocker' . ... It's not yet known how the virus got onto the police department's system, though the most likely explanation is that somebody opened an email attachment laced with the virus. Many previous CryptoLocker infections have come through bogus emails claiming to carry a delivery note from a courier company. The good news was that the virus didn't affect ... (view more)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says it's time to update America's outdated landline telephone network. Chairman Tom Wheeler is calling for an all-digital system that works much like the Internet. At the moment, all landline phones in ... the United States connect to a single analog network made up of old copper wire and switches. Many of the key components are in such short supply that they are extremely expensive to replace, or simply aren't made any more. That not only makes it difficult for phone companies to maintain the network, but it means adding new lines or dealing with ... (view more)

Google has already patched a security flaw exposed by a public hacking contest. Chrome and Internet Explorer were both hacked at the Tokyo event, though contestants said doing so is getting tougher all the time. The contest is called "Pwn2Own," and ... the idea behind it is that the first person to successfully hack a computer or mobile device wins the compromised hardware and a cash prize. But winning is really about gaining prestige in the security community. Similar contests have concentrated on desktop computers, but this event focused on mobile devices. One participant successfully ... (view more)

A 19-year-old man has pleaded guilty to blackmailing women after hacking their webcams and taking compromising pictures. Miss Teen USA winner Cassidy Wolf was among Jared James Abrahams' victims. According to prosecutors, Abrahams carried out his ... crimes over a two-year period, targeting women in the US and Europe. The youngest victim was just 16 years of age, with the others in their teens and early 20s. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) Abrahams used malicious software to infect the computers of his victims. This software allowed him to view the webcam video whenever the computer was switched on, even if ... (view more)

It's not uncommon for an employee to plug a USB stick into a computer and unwittingly install malware on a work network. Unfortunately, that appears to have happened on the International Space Station. Eugene Kaspersky, the man behind the Kaspersky ... antivirus software, claims Russian astronauts brought USB sticks onto the space station. At least one of the sticks turned out to contain malware that infected computers on the station. Exactly when this happened hasn't been revealed, though it was probably before May last year, when the station switched to using Linux-based computers. Before that ... (view more)