IT News HeadLines (HardOCP) 07/07/2010

Employees Challenged To Crack Facebook Security, Succeed
Want to make sure your system is secure? Do what the folks at Facebook did, challenge your employees to crack your system. Shortly afterwards one of the senior engineers at Facebook responsible for SRE (site reliability engineering) challenged Facebook employees to try to compromise him and gain access to Facebook's administrative system via information obtained from him. They succeeded. Comments
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Girl That Recorded Movie Sues Theater
Remember the girl that got arrested for filming a few small parts of Twilight on her cell phone during a birthday party? She's suing the theater. Normally I'd be making fun of her for a frivolous lawsuit but this case isn't your normal shaky-cam-crook story. The woman filed suit Monday, claiming emotional distress and malicious prosecution on behalf of Muvico Theaters, whose manager allegedly demanded her arrest in a bid to win a financial reward. The MPAA, and the National Association of Theater Owners offers $500 rewards (.pdf) to movie-house workers who catch pirates. Comments
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Waterproof Power Strip?
Need a power strip that works under water? No? Me neitherÂ…but I'd like to see somebody (besides me) try this out: Comments
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Disasters and Global Warming Fuel the Malware Flames
I know many of you will find this hard to believe but the scumbags out there pumping out malware are opportunists that take advantage people at every turn. This concludes your totally obvious message of the day, carry on. One of the easiest targets for spam and malware is natural disasters. When events like the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, or the massive volcano eruption in Iceland capture the headlines, people are curious about the details and anxious to offer support in any way they can. In the wake of such disasters, users are very likely to click on and respond to invitations that seem even remotely legitimate. Comments
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The Web Is Completely Outdated
"The internet is completely over, outdatedÂ…washed up" so sayeth Prince. Thankfully we have the old, outdated and washed up internet to deliver this message or we never would have known. "The Internet [is] completely over," Prince told U.K. publication The Mirror, which published an interview with the music icon on Monday, the eve of the debut in that country of his latest CD, 20TEN. Perhaps not coincidentally The Mirror plans to soon give away copies of the disc with every purchase of the paper. "The Internet [is] like MTV," Prince said later in the Interview. "At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated." Comments
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Global Chip Sales Up 4.5% in May
Good news, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, global semiconductor sales rose 4.5 percent in May. Worldwide semiconductor sales rose 4.5 percent in May from April to $24.7 billion, helped by strong sales of personal computers, cell phones, corporate information technology, industrial applications and autos, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said. SIA expects unit sales of personal computers to grow by 20 percent and sales of cell phones to grow by 10 percent to 12 percent this year. Comments
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Lenovo: Apple Losing Out in China
Liu Chuanzhi, head-honcho at Lenovo, had a few interesting things to say about Steve Jobs and Apple. Get this: Speaking of Apple's chief executive, Lenovo's founder and chairman, told the Financial Times: "We are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn't care about China. If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble." Comments
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MSI H55M-ED55 LGA 1156 Micro ATX
Aside from a few minor gripes, it looks like the crew at PC Perspective really liked the MSI H55M-ED55 LGA 1156 Micro ATX motherboard. The H55M-ED55 is a great example of their commitment to quality boards that are geared toward overclockers and gamers. We saw good performance results in both of these categories during testing and were impressed with how flexibilty and feature rich the BIOS was. The only complaints we could make about it would be the lack of USB 3.0/SATA3.0 support, but most boards at this price point and class do not have these features standard. Comments
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Man Stung by $8,000 iPhone Bill
I'd like to blame this $8,000 phone bill on Virgin Mobile or the iPhone but this is pretty much owner error here. "It's criminal," said Boutang of his June statement saying he owed Virgin Mobile $7,763.70 after using the phone for three days while traveling in France Comments
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Burglars Thwarted by Technology, Homeowner 1700 Miles Away
BwahahahahahahahahahaÂ…stupid criminalsÂ…you can't defeat technology! A man in Nova Scotia contacted the Lee County Sheriff's Office because two men were burglarizing his home in Lehigh Acres, reports said. The victim, who had a surveillance system in his Lehigh Acres home, emailed deputies photos of the suspects. Comments
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