LinkedIn confirms that user passwords were compromised
LinkedIn has confirmed that some of the more than six million password hashes which were stolen and published online correspond to accounts belonging to its members. The professional social networking web site has now disabled the passwords for affected accounts.
Affected users should receive an email from LinkedIn with instructions explaining how to reset their passwords. LinkedIn Director Vicente Silveira says that these initial password reset emails will not contain any links. This is most likely being done to protect users against possible phishing attacks in which attackers could, for example, send emails with instructions to reset passwords and links to web sites constructed to impersonate LinkedIn, in order to trick people into providing private information. Read more...
What to expect from HTC’s Playstation Mobile certification
As part of their attempt to broaden the PlayStation brand and increase total market share, Sony has opened up the PlayStation Mobile certification to any Android manufacturer willing to pay for it. The certification allows manufacturers to offer the exclusive PlayStation Mobile games that have, until now, only been available on Sony Android devices.
During the Sony presentation at E3, it was announced that HTC would be the first hardware manufacturer to add the PlayStation Mobile certification to their devices. What does that mean for HTC devices, and the app developers currently working with them? Read more...
Big Four Music Labels Hire Students To Chase File-Sharers
As the music labels of the RIAA prepare to launch their six-strikes initiative in the United States, elsewhere in the world their strategies are somewhat different. In Europe, labels including EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner are pumping money into an anti-piracy company who do everything from cyberlocker takedowns to the dirtiest of all anti-piracy tactics – extracting cash settlements from Internet users. According to an insider, the company employees dozens of students as pirate hunters.
While organizations such as IFPI have somewhat of a global plan for dealing with online piracy, in recent times it’s become evident that their member companies will pursue local strategies taking both the law – and what they can get away with politically – into consideration. Read more...
Nearly 1 in 5 smartphone users are sexting
Almost a year after Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal led him to resign from office, Americans seem to be as careless about using their smartphones as the former congressman was. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans who have a smartphone say they have used it for sexting, sharing explicit photos or text messages with others, according to a new survey.
The biggest age groups for sexting are 18- to 34-year-old men (32 percent) and 35- to 44-year-old women (25 percent), says Lookout Mobile Security, which sponsored the Harris Interactive poll of 2,097 adults. Read more...
A city’s history, made mobile
When Kris Pickel moved to Cleveland to take a job with a local television news show, she wanted to learn more about her new home. So she downloaded Cleveland Historical, a mobile historical application developed by the Center for Public History and the Digital Humanities at Cleveland State University. “I've spent hours walking around using the app. It's a great guide and introduction to Cleveland's history. I love downtown Cleveland and this app definitely helped spark that feeling.”
Cleveland Historical, which is available as a native app for iOS and Android and optimized for display on the mobile web, is just one of several dozen similar apps, each with their own twist on digital history. The majority, like Cleveland Historical, take advantage of a smart phone’s GPS capabilities to guide the user through the history of a neighborhood or a city, via text and photos and video. Read more...
Samsung fights Apple move to block Galaxy sales
Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it will fight Apple's move to stop U.S. sales of its new Galaxy phone in the latest flare-up of an intellectual property battle between the world's top smartphone makers.
Samsung said it will vigorously oppose Apple's request for a court to ban sales of the Galaxy S III smartphone and still plans to go ahead with the device's scheduled release in the U.S. on June 21.
The South Korean company said in a statement that it will "demonstrate to the court that the Galaxy S III is innovative and distinctive." Read more...
Hacker claims break-in of Mitt Romney’s Hotmail account
A hacker yesterday claimed to have broken into a personal email account linked to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney by answering "secret" password-reset questions.
Gawker first reported the break-in after the anonymous intruder made the claim via -- ironically -- email. The hacker also said the password used for mittromney@hotmail.com was the same that secured a Dropbox account associated with Romney.
However, the hacker had not provided evidence of the hack, such as screenshots of the account's inbox or messages, and Gawker, fearing legal repercussions, did not access either the Hotmail or Dropbox accounts with the password provided by the intruder. Read more...
Microsoft’s reaction to Flame shows seriousness of ‘Holy Grail’ hack
The exploit of Microsoft's Windows Update system by the sophisticated Flame cyber espionage malware was a "significant" event in the history of Windows hacking, experts said today.
And by its response, Microsoft appears to agree: It not only issued an immediate fix just days after the malware's public unveiling with one of its increasingly-rare "out-of-band" updates, but it has turned its certificate-generation process upside down and will revamp how it secures Windows updates.
"It was a very significant," said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer with Qualys, in an interview today. "It's the Holy Grail of exploits, and until now it had only been done in research." Read more...
Why were Windows Phone users left out of Foursquare’s latest update?
In case you missed it, foursquare completely ripped apart and revamped its app for iOS and Android to make exploring and discovery easier. They’ve hit the mark as far as I’m concerned, and users seem to be pretty happy about the massive upgrade. Not all users, though.
In all of the excitement about the new version, it seems like the company left out a segment of users who are fans of the app on Microsoft’s mobile devices. Oops. Read more...
Here’s why Apple will welcome Facebook’s App Center with open arms
Facebook announced its App Center early last month and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it will be available to the world sometime today or tomorrow. There’s a lot of talk about how this could compete with Apple, if Facebook were to launch its own phone, but they’re missing the point completely.
We know that Apple and Facebook are up to something, as hinted by Tim Cook’s recent comments at the All Things D conference. By its own admission, Apple isn’t very successful with social endeavors and features. Remember Ping? Me neither, let’s move along. Read more...