burglary

Video service Vudu began warning users today that it has instituted a systemwide password reset following an office break-in last month.

A burglary March 24 resulted in the loss of hard drives that contained users' sensitive personal information, including names, e-mail addresses, postal addresses, phone numbers, account activity, dates of birth, and the last four digits of some credit card numbers, Vudu Chief Technology Officer Prasanna Ganesan informed customers in an e-mail. He said no complete credit card numbers were stolen because the company does not store that information.

The stolen hard drives also contained encrypted passwords, and while Ganesan … Read more

A known hack of a popular hotel keycard reader was allegedly employed in the burglary of a woman's hotel room in Texas.

The hack, which was detailed at a security conference in July, was allegedly used in September to break in to the Houston Hyatt hotel room of Janet Wolf, a Dell IT services consultant, who reported the theft of her laptop. Lacking any sign the lock had been picked, suspicion immediately fell upon the maid service. However, hotel management soon determined that none of the maids' keys had been used to open the room at the time of … Read more

If you're going to burgle a house, iPhones can be very useful.

Sadly, for 23-year-old Emmanuel Jerome, his iPhone was useful to the police as well as himself.

Being of evidently subtle mind, Jerome decided not to turn the lights on at a home he and some of his friends burgled. Instead, he apparently used his iPhone as a flashlight.

Perhaps because his fingers were shaking with excitement or because his subconscious was desperate for him to be caught, he pushed another button too -- which ultimately plunged him into a painful darkness.… Read more

It's hard to know where to hold a party these days. Big venues are expensive. Small ones might even have a cover charge. And then there's all the legal responsibility.

Perhaps that's why some kids in Tega Cay, S.C., decided that it might be more, um, cost-effective to break into someone else's house and have the party there.

According to NBC Charlotte, the owners of the house were none the wiser. For they were out of town when the party allegedly happened. And when they returned they noticed nothing especially amiss.

That was, until their eyes were directed to some pictures on Facebook. Gosh, that house looked familiar. For indeed, it appears that pictures from the break-in party had been posted by the alleged miscreants. … Read more

The thief who robbed Steve Jobs' home in July may not have been clowning around. But one of the iPads he stole ended up doing so.

Professional entertainer "Kenny the Clown" reportedly received the hot iPad from a friend, 35-year-old Kariem McFarlin, who has confessed to the crime and is being held in jail in lieu of bail before he appears in court on Monday.

Jobs' Palo Alto home was robbed on July 17 of more than $60,000 in computers and other items, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office revealed on Tuesday. The burglar was … Read more

Whoever broke into the home of the late Steve Jobs is probably now wishing that a different house had been the target.

The Palo Alto, Calif., home was robbed on July 17 of more than $60,000 in computers and other items, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office. Kariem McFarlin, a 35-year-old man, was arrested and charged with the crime.

And apparently it wasn't hard for police to catch him.

After some of the stolen computers were plugged in, the PCs communicated with Apple servers to perform needed upgrades, according to The Daily. That alerted Apple security people and Palo Alto police, … Read more

The Palo Alto home of the late Steve Jobs was robbed on July 17 of more than $60,000 in computers and other items, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office.

Kariem McFarlin, a 35-year-old man from Alameda, Calif., was arrested and charged with the burglary and selling the stolen property, CBS News reported today. The defendant is being held with bail set at $500,000 pending a court hearing on August 20.

Despite the large haul of personal computers, the alleged thief seemed unaware of the home's famous owner.

"Based on the evidence, it … Read more

You may find there is something quite perplexing about the story of Antone Forrest Deedward Owens.

He was arrested this week for a crime that is troubling to fathom.

For, according to the Associated Press, Owens allegedly broke into people's homes with one sole purpose.

It wasn't to steal jewelry or cars. It wasn't to take away flat screens or entire home cinemas.

No, it was to sit in these people's homes and watch porn on their computers.

His urge was so strong that the 21-year-old Oregon man allegedly sometimes broke in while the occupants were … Read more

Think twice next time you're planning to tweet about what a great time you're having on your vacation, thousands of miles from your empty, vulnerable home.

A survey of 50 convicted burglars in the U.K. suggests the tools used by today's modern criminals include more than just a black ski mask and crowbar. Seventy-eight percent said they'd used Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other social-media sites to target properties.

Also notable, nearly three-quarters of thieves have stepped into the 21st century and take advantage of Google Street View to case joints that might be worth robbing.

The home of Israel Hyman in Arizona was burglarized a few years ago, shortly after he tweeted road trip status updates like "preparing to head out of town," "another 10 hours of driving ahead" and later, "made it to Kansas City" to his 2,000 followers.

Bloggers like myself rarely worry about this sort of thing since I write every CNET post from home and have everything delivered to me via Amazon Prime. In case I didn't make it clear, I never leave my house. Never. I'm way too far behind on polishing my gun collection to go out. And you know what else I like? Booby traps -- they really put the fun in home ownership.… Read more