irs

Taxpayer data at risk from IRS security flaws

The Internal Revenue Service's failure to use strong passwords, install patches quickly, and adequately control access to computer systems and information makes the system vulnerable to insider threats and attacks from outside, a new government report concludes.

The IRS has failed to fix almost 70 percent of control weaknesses and program deficiencies identified a year ago, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released last week.

Specifically, the IRS has corrected or mitigated 28 of 89 weaknesses and deficiencies found, but left 61 of them unresolved, according to the report.

For example, the agency continues to install patches … Read more

Feds consider going undercover on social networks

The next friend request you receive might come from the FBI.

The Obama administration has considered sending federal police undercover on social-networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

A confidential U.S. Department of Justice presentation (PDF) on social-networking sites made public Tuesday said online undercover work can help agents "communicate with suspects," "gain access to nonpublic info," and "map social relationships."

Federal police agencies organized under the Justice Department include the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

The 33-page presentation noted … Read more

Your next universal remote could be an iPad

The world of universal remotes, IR blasters, and signal repeaters is an automated, macho technoscape of high-priced components and intimidating remote controls. But if the complexities (or price) of something like Logitech's mind-blowing Harmony 900 super remote are more likely to induce a panic attack than a stream of drool, a $49 adapter made for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad might be a more ideal match for you.

The RedEye Mini boils down the essential hardware components of a universal remote control into an inch-long plastic tube that fits in your headphone jack. Remote navigation features such as … Read more

Pointless tax prep

Tax Assistant for Excel is a set of Excel worksheets that assist users in completing their income taxes using forms 1040 or 1040A. We're not sure why a user would want to use Excel for taxes when there are so many programs and Web sites that are better-suited to the job, and functional problems in Tax Assistant for Excel make it even less attractive.

The workbook presents users with Excel versions of IRS forms and workbooks with an introductory page that's supposed to provide instructions. Unfortunately, we kept receiving error messages about macros (although we had enabled macros … Read more

Troubleshooting the Apple IR remote

Apple's IR Remote may stop working for a number of reasons, either because the device itself is not functioning correctly or because the computer cannot pair with the device. There are several troubleshooting steps to take when testing the Apple remote, to isolate problems and hopefully get the remote up and running again.… Read more

Simple small business accounting

Cashbook Complete Accounting can help manage your company's finances. It can handle most any bookkeeping task. It will manage incoming and outgoing expenses, employee timesheets, list of contacts, and invoices for projects and jobs. You can also use it to run and print invoices, balance sheets, and profit and loss reports, and e-mail them to your customers or export them to financial-planning software. It will manage your company's bank accounts and even import data from your bank. There's a built-in backup utility, too.

Cashbook Complete Accounting is a good accounting solution for small- to medium-size companies. The … Read more

Webware Radar: March Madness reaches the sky

Aircell, the company that offers Gogo Inflight Internet service to airline passengers, announced on Thursday that based on internal research, Gogo customer visits to NCAA-focused sites increased 953 percent during the first and second rounds of NCAA Tournament play.

Visits to sports-focused sites in general were up 123 percent from February. The most visited NCAA site on Gogo was CBSSports.com (Disclosure: CBSSports.com is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News.)

Real-estate search site Trulia announced Thursday that it set new records for site traffic in the first quarter of 2009. According to the company, visits … Read more

Logitech to give PS3 Harmony Remote support

It appears as if Logitech is about to silence the complaints of thousands of PlayStation 3 owners who are frustrated with the system's lack of an infrared port. Those with Harmony remotes--or any universal remote for that matter--up until now have had to rely on clunky, hacked-up IR-to-Bluetooth USB dongles for their all-in-ones remotes to take control of their PS3. It seems the Logitech Harmony Adapter for PlayStation 3 will play nicely with the line Harmony remotes right out of the box.

Among our largest concerns is whether the new device will have the capability to power on … Read more

Review: Grace GDI-IR2000 Wi-Fi radio packs extra features, but won't please audiophiles

When we reviewed the Grace ITC-IR1000B Wi-Fi radio last year, we were almost uniformly impressed, except for two criticisms in the features department; the unit lacks a remote and an auxiliary input for connecting an iPod. So when Grace announced its new lineup of Wi-Fi radios for 2009, we were particularly excited by the GDI-IR2000, which looked nearly identical to last year's model but added a remote and auxiliary input.

So then how did the GDI-IR2000 receive a lower score than last year's model? Sound quality. We put the GDI-IR2000 head-to-head with the ITC-IR1000B, and the new model … Read more

Beware the bogus economic-stimulus e-mail

Online scammers, always quick to exploit the latest news event, are sending out e-mails promising economic-stimulus package payments but that instead steal sensitive data, the US-CERT warned on Friday.

The e-mails are disguised to look like official Internal Revenue Service communications. They offer a link to a Web site that asks for personal information or include a form that needs to be filled out and returned, the security organization said in an alert.

People who receive the fraudulent e-mail messages are encouraged to send the e-mail message and the Web site URL to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov.

CERT … Read more