leaked

WikiLeaks makes a priceless MasterCard commercial

Just like any organization with charity at its core, WikiLeaks needs money to operate.

And, as exclusively revealed by CNET, MasterCard was at the forefront of making donations a little more cumbersome by withdrawing its own very useful service to that cause.

So what could WikiLeaks do but make an ad that encourages the charitable to find other ways to donate? Oh, and as a touching tweak to the nose of the official financial industry, WikiLeaks decided to use MasterCard's famous "Priceless" campaign as its inspiration.

What Does it Cost to Change the World? from WikiLeaks on … Read more

Anonymous warns NATO not to challenge it

Responding to a recent report from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization condemning Anonymous, the online "hacktivist" group has issued a public response warning the global organization not to challenge it.

Claiming that the NATO report singled it out as a threat to "government and the people," Anonymous defended some of its recent actions in the name of freedom and dissent. In its message (Google cached version), it also asserted that NATO fears the group not because it's a "threat to society," but because it's a "threat to the established hierarchy."… Read more

Quad-core AMD laptop CPU allegedly leaked

According to Turkish Web site Donanimhaber, which has successful track record of finding component leaks, AMD plans to release quad-core laptop CPUs as early as June. The report specifically mentions a 1.9GHz A8-3530MX part.

A Google-translated version of the page (as seen on tech blogs Engadget and Electronista) says the new CPUs will integrate Radeon HD 6620G graphics and DirectX 11 support. AMD calls this combination of CPU and GPU an APU, or Accelerated Processing Unit.

AMD has been on something of a roll lately, with its low-cost Fusion E-350 CPU powering our favorite 11-inch ultraportables, such as the … Read more

Google fixes Android Wi-Fi security hole

Google has plugged an Android hole that could have allowed someone to snoop on an unencrypted Wi-Fi network and access calendar and contact data on the smartphones.

"Today we're starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third-party access to data available in Calendar and Contacts," a Google spokesman said in a statement. "This fix requires no action from users and will roll out globally over the next few days."

Basically, the fix forces all Android devices to connect to Google Calendar and Contacts … Read more

Exclusive: eBay removes page that exposed data

eBay removed a page from its Web site that was leaking customer data after CNET inquired about the security issue.

Acting on a reader tip last night, CNET verified that an eBay Web page for sellers to order co-branded U.S. Postal Service boxes was exposing customers' names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. The site was automatically filling in a stranger's information when the page was accessed by a logged-in user.

eBay representatives did not respond to e-mails or phone calls from CNET last night. They did, however, take down the leaky Web page either late last night … Read more

Facebook plugs third-party access to user accounts

Facebook has plugged a hole that was inadvertently providing advertisers and other third parties access to user accounts via tokens that serve as "spare keys," Symantec said today after disclosing the problem to the social-networking company.

"Facebook was notified of this issue and has confirmed this leakage," Nishant Doshi, a senior software engineer at Symantec, wrote in a blog post. "Facebook notified us of changes on their end to prevent these tokens from getting leaked."

"We estimate that as of April 2011 close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage," Doshi … Read more

Assange: Facebook is an 'appalling spy machine'

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Facebook, Google, and Yahoo are actually tools for the U.S. intelligence community.

Speaking to Russian news site RT in an interview published yesterday, Assange was especially critical of the world's top social network. He reportedly said that the information Facebook houses is a potential boon for the U.S. government if it tries to build up a dossier on users.

"Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented," Assange said in the interview, which was videotaped and published on the site. "Here we have … Read more

Yankees' error leaks personal data on 21,000 fans

A sales rep for the New York Yankees accidentally e-mailed a spreadsheet containing names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and seat numbers of more than 21,000 season ticket holders to thousands of clients, according to blog site Deadspin.

"There are no credit card numbers, but there are account ID numbers. And on Yankees.com, licensees need only their account ID number and password to access their accounts," the report said yesterday. "With the spreadsheet, we have all the account IDs and can probably guess more than a few passwords via spouse's names, street names, and … Read more

U.S. nuclear regulator a policeman or salesman?

Reuters

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission exists to police, not promote, the domestic nuclear industry--but diplomatic cables show that it is sometimes used as a sales tool to help push American technology to foreign governments.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party, shed light on the way in which U.S. embassies have pulled in the NRC when lobbying for the purchase of equipment made by Westinghouse and other domestic manufacturers.

While the use of diplomats to further American commercial interests is nothing new, it is far less common for regulators to be acting in even … Read more