3,000,000 Adobe Accounts Cracked

The company had to admit that more than 3 million of its customer accounts were recently hacked. As a result, the intruders stole customer names, encrypted credit and debit card numbers and expiration dates. Adobe claimed that it was the target of a major security hack.

The senior director of security for Adobe products and services revealed that customer data and unauthorized access to source codes for many Adobe products were stolen in the hack. For instance, source code for Acrobat, ColdFusion, and the ColdFusion Builder was lifted, but the company claimed there was no risk to customers. What does pose risk to customers is that the intruders have nicked 3 million of Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords, while experts don’t think the hackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from the systems.

At the moment, the company is resetting the passwords on breached customer IDs, so users will get emails telling them they can be affected. Adobe promised to tell people whose credit or debit card data was compromised and offer them an option of enrolling in a 1-year complimentary credit monitoring membership.

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Facebook Will Build Its Kingdom

The social network is considering building its own town so its employees never have to leave work. The campus in Menlo Park will include a $120 million, 394-unit housing community within walking distance of its offices. Dubbed Anton Menlo, the 630,000 square-foot rental property is supposed to include a sports bar and a day care for pet dogs.

Media reports admit that the move towards a 24-hour work lifestyle is new, even for Silicon Valley. The social network insists that employee retention is not a major factor in the plan. Instead, it is a great idea to have more housing options closer to campus. Facebook believes that people will want to live there because they believe in the company’s mission.

The sources revealed that there will be many amenities on the site, including cafes, a store, a sports pub, bike repair shop with onsite storage, pool, spas, and gyms. This move may fix some of the company’s accommodation problems for workers. Indeed, a housing shortage is reported in Menlo Park and some employees couldn’t find places to stay near the corporate campus.

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Microsoft Former Employee Doesn’t Trust the Company

An ex employee has warned that people should be very careful about trusting the software giant anywhere near their personal data. Microsoft ex privacy analyst, who left the company two years ago, claimed that he doesn’t trust Microsoft after Edward Snowden leaks about Internet government surveillance.

Analyst said that earlier he had some difficulty making anyone else in the European Union understand his concerns. He approached many of the EU authorities with his concerns, but they just shrugged. However, after the Snowden leaks proving him right, an ex employee suddenly found itself in demand as a pundit.

Microsoft and other tech giants are fighting a public backlash after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden proved they were handing over user information to an American surveillance program called PRISM.
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Google Will Offer Free Wi-Fi at Starbucks

The tech giant recently announced its plans to roll out faster, free Wi-Fi connections to all Starbucks stores in the US over the next year and half with speeds up to 10x faster than now. Google agreed that the Internet has become as vital to our lives as other utilities, being used by people to plan their day, stay connected with family and friends, stay informed, and a whole slew of important activities that everyone sometimes takes for granted. This is why Google believes that a fast and reliable connection is a constant cause for concern.

Apparently, the tech giant is continually doing its best to ensure that people are online more frequently in order to increase its advertising revenue. Now Google has realized that the easiest way to do so is to directly offer consumers cheap and fast Internet connections.

The company announced that coffee shop plus Internet is a pairing that many of people have come to rely on. Wireless access to the Internet makes work time, downtime and travel time more enjoyable. Now Google is teaming up with Starbucks to deliver faster, free Wi-Fi connections to all 7,000 stores in the US. The company promised that when 

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Bradley Manning to Face 136 Years in Jail

Pfc. Bradley Manning, known for handing 700,000 secret documents to whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has recently been cleared of “aiding the enemy” charges, but still faces a maximum sentence of 136 years in military custody.

A few days ago Manning was convicted for 19 of the 21 charges he was charged, including 5 counts of espionage and 5 of theft. In court, he was declared “guilty” over and over again with the charges being listed. In the meantime, the guilty verdicts included 7 out of 8 counts brought under the Espionage Act. Manning was accused of disclosing Afghanistan and Iraq war logs, files on Guantanamo, and embassy cables, with the government claiming that he had reason to believe such data could be used to the injury of the United States or the advantage of any foreign nation. The Manning is also known for disclosing a “Collateral Murder” video, which showed American military forces killing journalists and unarmed civilians in Iraq.

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Australian Teenager Exposed Apple

The tech giant is trying to plug the source of a leak exposed by an Aussie teenager. A boy named Sonny Dickson seems to be causing Apple serious problems by leaking prototypes of the company’s products online long before they are officially revealed. However, Apple can’t find the way to silence the boy.

In addition, the teen has also been making money by selling off some of the kit he gets his paws on. For instance, Sonny published a snap of an iPhone 5 battery before the launch of the device, and both the battery and specifications listed on it later turned out to be real. Local media reported that the tech giant fails to stop him simply because the guy is neither an employee nor a worker from one of its suppliers’ plants.

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EFF Claimed War on Patent Trolls

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has recently issued a statement, saying that it was leading a group of entities and law schools to start a new online resource called Trolling Effects. The idea is to crowdsource information, including demand letters, in order to help people fight patent trolls.

According to EFF activist Adi Kamdar, patent trolls should no longer manage to hide under a cloak of legal darkness. The new service is expected to shine a light on entities which abuse the patent system to shake down innovators. The problem is that patent trolls use the threat of expensive and lengthy patent litigation in order to extort settlements from innovators of any size. However, most of these threats never evolve into lawsuits, so most of the threatening letters never show up in public dockets.

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