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Do 'I'm on vacation' posts pose security concerns? (436 diggs) Most people wouldn't leave a recording on a home answering machine telling callers they're on vacation for a week, but users of social media think nothing of posting real-time vacation photos on Facebook showing themselves on beaches hundreds of miles from home, or sending out automatic e-mail messages that say, "I'm out of the country for a week."

Utilities investigate grid hack by Chinese spies (285 diggs) More bad news on the security front for the Smart Grid: The Wall Street Journal reports that the electric utility industry is negotiating with a defense contractor to determine whether spies from China and elsewhere have already hacked into the U.S. power grid.

McGrew Busts McGraw, Computer Science Student Stops Hacker (296 diggs) Wesley McGrew runs into hackers online all the time and usually turns a blind eye. However, in the case of "mentally unstable" security guard, Jesse William McGraw, he took action and contacted the FBI. McGrew was afraid McGraw was planning a virtual attack that might compromise public safety. He was arrested last Friday and due in Federal Court.

Insider Trading Suspected Ahead of Pirate Bay Sale (416 diggs) Securities regulators are investigating potential insider trading of Global Gaming Factory ahead of its announcement of plans to purchase The Pirate Bay. AktieTorget suspended trading in Global Gaming a week before the announcement as trading volume and share prices jumped without public news to account for it.

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack (2,408 diggs) You already know that if you want to lock down your Wi-Fi network, you should opt for WPA encryption because WEP is easy to crack. But did you know how easy? Take a look.

ATM Vendor Halts Researcher’s Black Hat Vulnerability Talk (449 diggs) An ATM vendor has succeeded in getting a security talk pulled from the upcoming Black Hat conference after a researcher announced he would demonstrate a vulnerability in the system. Barnaby Jack, a researcher with Juniper Networks, was to present a demonstration showing how he could “jackpot” a popular ATM brand by exploiting a vulnerability.

Police told: stop 'kettling' activists (421 diggs) Police chiefs must rethink the controversial tactic of "kettling" participants of mass demonstrations, a report said today.

EFF sues for publication of FBI domestic surveillance manual (595 diggs) If you wanted to know what guidelines the FBI sets for itself internally to govern the surveillance of US citizens, you'd be out of luck. The document that the FBI looks to for guidance in protecting your civil liberties from its own snooping is itself a secret, so the EFF has filed suit to have it released.

"Hate Blogger" Arrested for Second Time In Two Weeks (525 diggs) New Jersey blogger Hal Turner has been arrested for the second time in two weeks for threatening violence against public officials on his website.

EU Wants Tighter Privacy on Social Networks (284 diggs) Are social networks such as Facebook (Facebook) and MySpace (MySpace) doing enough to protect their users’ privacy? In the European Union, they might need to do more.

UK Gets Anti Hacking Tzar (229 diggs) Britain is to appoint its first national cyber security chief to protect the country from terrorist computer hackers and electronic espionage, Gordon Brown will announce tomorrow.

Has the RIAA's Fight Against File Sharing Gone Too Far? (2,088 diggs) Some legal experts question the constitutionality of a $1.92 million fine given to a woman accused of pirating 24 songs. A Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay that yesterday, saying she "willfully" violated music copyrights and should cough up $80,000 per illegally downloaded track.

Why Enterprises Shouldn't Limit Web Traffic (319 diggs) Web surfing attacks like Nine-Ball cause companies to limit employee Web traffic, citing security and productivity. However it is only a bandage since people look for ways to circumvent the system and it only takes one mistake to create damage. Rather, companies should look at employee education as ways to improve IT security.

Quantum Secrets: A New Standard in Crytopgraphy? (398 diggs) Quantum cryptography has been a Holy Grail for security researchers since the idea was proposed, the promise of a new standard in absolutely unbreakable communications. But it's a new standard in the Microsoft sense: "Use our brilliant new system, because we're making sure the old one doesn't work anymore."

Nine Ball attack strikes 40,000 Web sites (389 diggs) More than 40,000 Web sites have been hit by a mass-compromise attack dubbed Nine Ball that injects malware into pages and redirects victims to a site that will then try to download Trojans and keylogger code, Websense said today.

12 of America's Deadliest Unmanned Killing Machines (445 diggs) These 12 machines were purpose-built to kill and destroy while saving American lives in the process. It may be an ugly idea, but it works.

School & Government Websites Hacked to Sell Viagra and Porn (306 diggs) The hacked websites, which include primary schools, universities, the Driving Standards Association and various local government websites, such the Historic Scotland heritage site, have fallen victim to hackers exploiting loopholes in badly designed software. The websites were affected in different ways.

Media Misreports on Biased Pirate Bay Judge (673 diggs) Three judges are currently reviewing the judge that handled the Pirate Bay trial to discover if he was biased or not. No decision has yet been made but the New York Times and several other publications report inaccuracies and plain wrongs that claim otherwise. Time to get the facts straight.

EFF brief accuses DOJ of "backdoor wiretapping" (496 diggs) In a new brief, the EFF alleges that in order to get around wiretapping's "probable cause" requirements, the DOJ ordered a suspect's ISP to start accumulating his emails so that they could later come in and use the Stored Communications Act to subpoena the archive.

Look Ma, I created a botnet! (586 diggs) The abstract concepts of "botnet" and "Trojan" just became a lot more concrete for me. In less than an hour, I was able to use programs readily available on the Internet underground for as little as $300 to infect several Windows clients and take complete control of them in a test environment.

The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection (2,894 diggs) In the first 220 milliseconds, a lot of interesting stuff happened to make Firefox change the address bar color and put a lock in the lower right corner. With the help of Wireshark, a network tool, and a slightly modified debug build of Firefox, we can see exactly what's going on.

Hundreds of UK Government & University Websites Hacked (303 diggs) Hundreds of websites operated by the UK government appear to have been hacked to include links and references to illicit websites selling viagra, hardcore pornography, cialis and other dubious products.

How WIRED Editor's 'Toy Plane' Became a National Threat (430 diggs) The 4th annual Maker Faire Bay Area hosts Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired. Anderson discusses making low-cost, unmanned aerial vehicles like planes and blimps

Man made $112,000 in bank account hacking scheme (433 diggs) A Hampton, New Hampshire, man has pleaded guilty to fraud charges for his role in a scheme to empty brokerage accounts by installing malicious Trojan horse software on victims’ computers.

DefCon & Black Hat's Dark Tangent Joins DHS Advisory Council (453 diggs) "Godfather of Hackers" Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat and Defcon hacker and security conferences, was sworn in as one of the new members of the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council (HSAC). And we think it's a shrewd and thoughtful move. Obama seems to be getting serious about cyber security now by hiring "Dark Tangent."