Bob Brown
Bob Brown is the former news editor for Network World.
eBay CISO receiving security industry lifetime achievement award
Dave Cullinane, chief information security officer at eBay, will be honored on March 28 in Boston with the SecureWorld Lifetime Achievement Award "for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of the information security...
Ads in mobile apps not just annoying, but risky
Many mobile apps include ads that can threaten users' privacy and network security, according to North Carolina State University researchers. The National Science Foundation-funded researchers studied 100,000 apps in Google Play...
Unboxing video of new iPad surfaces ahead of official March 16 availability
A Vietnamese blog has posted a video on YouTube that shows a new iPad being unboxed, ahead of the official March 16 availability date. There are no surprises in the video, though it might give true Apple enthusiasts a quick fix in...
Attackers have All They Need From Leaky Cellphone Networks to Track You Down
GSM cellular networks leak enough location data to give third-parties secret access to cellphone users' whereabouts, according to new University of Minnesota research. "We have shown that there is enough information leaking from the...
Lady Gaga Twitter, Facebook Pages Recover From IPad 2 Scam Hacks
Lady Gaga's Twitter and Facebook pages were hacked on Monday, tricking some of her millions of followers to a scam website looking to suck up victims' personal information. RELATED: Best & Worst celebrity tech moments of 2011The...
Virginia Tech on Lockdown After 2 Fatal Shootings
Virginia Tech, the Blacksburg, Va., school that was rocked in 2007 by the deadliest shooting rampage by a single gunman in U.S. history, has been locked down this afternoon in the wake of shootings that have resulted in at least two...
Cornell Prof: Carrier IQ Affair 'my Worst Nightmare'
A Cornell University professor is calling the controversial Carrier IQ smartphone software revelations a privacy disaster. "This is my worst nightmare," says Stephen Wicker, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at...
Researchers Use Woodpecker to Single Out Vulnerable Android Phones
North Carolina State University researchers say some Android smartphone makers' efforts to go above and beyond the Google mobile platform's basics open their devices to security breaches. "Some of these pre-loaded applications, or...
Dennis Ritchie, Father of Unix and C Programming Language, Dead At 70
Dennis Ritchie, the software developer who brought the world the C programming language and Unix operating system, has died at the age of 70. Ritchie (known by the username "dmr") was part of a dynamic software development duo with...
WiFi Users Blissfully Ignorant About Real Security, Research Finds
New research conducted on behalf of the Wi-Fi Alliance shows that while wireless users are making strides on the security front, theyre still leaving their Wi-Fi networks too open to intruders. BETTER WIRELESS: Software upgrades...
LulzSec Gets Google+ Boot, but Returns
Hacker group LulzSec ("the world's leaders in high-quality entertainment at your expense") has had its initial Google+ account nixed this week, though LulzSec has quickly and brashly re-emerged with a new one
Apple IOS 4.3.4 Security Fix Jailbroken Overnight
Apple's iOS 4.3.4 PDF vulnerability fix issued Friday didn't stymie jailbreakers for long -- a beta jailbreak tool for the mobile software update was released on Saturday.
Apple wins points for quickly squashing location tracking “bugs” with IOS 4.3.3
Apple's quick response to concerns about user location tracking via its iPhones and iPads – in the form of iOS 4.3.3 released Wednesday – is earning the company praise from mobile industry watchers.
Quora: the Next Social Network IT Pros Need to Know?
Quora is an increasingly popular social network for asking and answering questions on topics ranging from how Britney Spears was discovered to how to flee Tokyo following an earthquake. But the venture funded start-up, which was...
Cornell prof warns iPhone, iPad users: "We're selling our privacy"
Revelations that iPhones, iPads and other Apple iOS devices track your whereabouts have led a Cornell University professor to warn mobile device users about what they're sacrificing to use such gadgets
RIM PlayBook Launches: Here's Your Mini-Guide
Research in Motion Tuesday started making available its answer to the iPad: an enterprise-focused tablet computer called the PlayBook that starts at $500.
Royal Wedding: Will & Kate & YouTube
If you really can't wait for a recorded version of the Royal Wedding come April 29, Google's YouTube unit has announced that the Royal Family will provide a live video stream of the big day's events.
Google Video: it’S a Wrap
Google has warned users of its Google Video service that their content will be obliterated after May 13, as the company formally shifts its multimedia focus to YouTube.
Researchers out to defend Android users from privacy thieves
For Google Android, the best selling mobile OS in the world by some accounts, that popularity comes with a predictable price: Hackers, malware writers and other ne'er-do-wells are all over it.