Pentagon report: Chinese hackers accessed F-35B and other advanced US weapons systems

Many of the Pentagon’s most advanced weapon systems — including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and PAC-3 Patriot missile system — were compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a classified document obtained by the Washington Post. The list of weapons was part of an earlier DoD report condemning Chinese cyber-espionage activities, but had been confidential … Continue Reading

RIAA website caught sharing copyrighted content

The folks over at Torrent Freak have made a habit of monitoring certain known digital pirate havens using ScanEye, a BitTorrent tracking platform. While we assume that is mostly an uneventful task, yesterday they came across something very interesting: a dozen or so instances of adult content videos being seeded by an IP address originating … Continue Reading

US Entertainment Industry To Congress: Make It Legal For Us To Deploy Rootkits

An anonymous reader writes “The hilariously named ‘Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property’ has finally released its report, an 84-page tome that’s pretty bonkers. But there’s a bit that stands out as particularly crazy: a proposal to legalize the use of malware in order to punish people believed to be copying illegally. The … Continue Reading

Court Says Stores Can Be Sued Over Questionable “Discounts”

(dno1967b) We’ve written before — most recently about JCPenney — about retailers who mark up the original price of an item in order to make the “sale” price look better than it is. Some may say this is harmless marketing, as the retailer is going to charge that price regardless. Others say it’s a deliberately … Continue Reading

Hollywood Studios Use DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary

First time accepted submitter Aaron B Lingwood writes “As reported by TorrentFreak, Viacom, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate have all asked Google to take down links pointing to the Pirate Bay documentary ‘TPB-AFK.’ The film, created by Simon Klose, is available for no cost and has already been watched by millions of people. The public response … Continue Reading

Fed. Appeals Court Says Police Need Warrant to Search Phone

An anonymous reader writes “In a decision that’s almost certainly going to result in this issue heading up to the Supreme Court, the Federal 1st Circuit Court of Appeals [Friday] ruled that police can’t search your phone when they arrest you without a warrant. That’s contrary to most courts’ previous findings in these kinds of … Continue Reading

FBI Considers CALEA II: Mandatory Wiretapping On Every Device

Techmeology writes “In response to declining utility of CALEA mandated wiretapping backdoors due to more widespread use of cryptography, the FBI is considering a revamped version that would mandate wiretapping facilities in end users’ computers and software. Critics have argued that this would be bad for security (PDF), as such systems must be more complex … Continue Reading

Google+ Hangouts video chat won’t connect over AT&T

If you have a smartphone connected to AT&T, you just got a bit more incentive to hop over to WiFi whenever possible. The new Google+ Hangouts app group video chat feature appears to be disabled whenever you attempt to connect via the cellular network. We tested the feature using a Verizon handset as well — … Continue Reading

Records Labels Prepare Massive ‘Pirate Site’ Domain Blocking Blitz

An anonymous reader writes “In their ongoing battle against websites said to infringe music copyrights, record labels have initiated a fresh wave of actions aimed at forcing UK ISPs to carry out domain blocking. This third wave is set to be the biggest so far, affecting as many as 25 domains and including some of … Continue Reading

Obama Administration Secretly Obtains Phone Records of AP Journalists

The Department of Justice secretly obtained phone records for reporters and editors who work for the Associated Press news agency, including records for the home phones and cell phones of individual journalists, apparently in an effort to uncover a leak. SOURCE Threat Level