Hacks, Passwords, Cash Registers and the Metadata Question

Time reports Facebook, Gmail and Twitter Hacked, 2 Million Passwords Stolen. "Hackers have stolen some two million usernames and passwords from 93,000 websites, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and LinkedIn. CNN reports that the cybersecurity firm Trustwave traced the massive breach to a server in the Netherlands. Security experts said the confidential information on the server came from a piece of malware which recorded users’ keystrokes at login screens."

Trustwave has some analysis of the of the passwords, they're pathetic.

Ars reports, Credit card fraud comes of age with advances in point-of-sale botnets. "Underscoring the growing sophistication of Internet crime, researchers have documented one of the first known botnets to target point-of-sale (PoS) terminals used by stores and restaurants to process customers' credit and debit card payments." Yes cash registers now have viruses. And also, I will never read PoS as Point-of-Sale.

Meanwhile The NSA says it ‘obviously’ can track locations without a warrant. That’s not so obvious. In that article, Andrea Peterson puts the original Smith v Maryland SCOTUS case in some modern perspective.