Unsecurity

If hacking back becomes law, what could possibly go wrong?

Representative Tom Graves, R-Ga., thinks that when anyone gets hacked -- individuals or companies -- they should be able to "fight back" and go "hunt for hackers outside of their own networks." The Active Cyber Defense Certainty ("ACDC") Act is getting closer to being put before lawmakers, and the …

Rhode Island bill sees highway surveillance cams ticketing uninsured motorists

The $120 fines would be split evenly between contractor and the state.<p>A Rhode Island legislative committee has approved a bill that would greatly …

Russia's Cyberwar on Ukraine Is a Blueprint For What's to Come

<b>The clocks read</b> zero when the lights went out.<p>It was a Saturday night last December, and Oleksii Yasinsky was sitting on the couch with his wife and …

How Analytics Has Changed in the Last 10 Years (and How It’s Stayed the Same)

Ten years ago, Jeanne Harris and I published the book <i>Competing on Analytics</i>, and we’ve just finished updating it for publication in September. One major reason for the update is that analytical technology has changed dramatically over the last decade; the sections we wrote on those topics have …

GOP data firm that exposed millions of Americans' personal information is facing its first class-action lawsuit

A data-analytics firm hired by the Republican National Committee last year to gather political information about US voters accidentally leaked the sensitive personal details of roughly 198 million citizens earlier this month. And it's now facing its first class-action lawsuit.<p>Deep Root Analytics, a …

Mark Zuckerberg explains why he just changed Facebook's mission

Mark Zuckerberg has spent the last dozen years making sure you know what your friends' babies look like and what your high school friends think about politics.<p>And, of course, transforming media and politics by presenting news and opinion -- true and fake -- to billions of people around the …

Donald Trump Is Still Holding Campaign Rallies Because No One Else Will Validate Him

BloombergMake America Very SadDonald Trump Is Still Holding Campaign Rallies Because No One Else Will Validate HimThings have gotten pretty pathetic. Last night, Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Iowa, where he said a bunch of dumbass Donald Trump things. He ranted about the Paris Agreement, …

WannaCry cyberattacks are still happening. Just ask Honda.

It's not making as many headlines as a month ago, but the WannaCry worm is still crawling through the internet.<p>Just this week, automaker Honda (HMC) said the ransomware virus infected computers at one of its plants in Japan, disrupting vehicle production.<p>About 1,000 units were not produced as …

Trump: I did not make recordings of Comey

<b>(CNN) —</b> President Donald Trump did not record his conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey, he tweeted on Thursday, ending weeks of speculation kick-started by the President himself.<p>"With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of …

CPA member anger grows as bottom line boosted by graduates resitting exams

It is said "success breeds success", but at troubled professional accounting body CPA Australia, it seems failure is delivering a pretty healthy …

NSA's use of 'traffic shaping' allows unrestrained spying on Americans

By using a "traffic shaping" technique, the National Security Agency sidestepped legal restrictions imposed by lawmakers and the surveillance …

German intelligence 'spied on White House'

Newly revealed documents show German intelligence spied on White House personnel for years, according to a news report. In 2015, German intelligence …

This brave little firewall is here to protect your devices

Just to let you know, if you buy something featured here, Mashable might earn an affiliate commission.<p>The new ideal of the "smart home" imagines a Jetsons-esque world in which all of your devices are connected to the internet, communicating with each other and adapting to your preferences to create …

Uncle Sam Wants Your Deep Neural Networks

SAN FRANCISCO — The Department of Homeland Security is turning to data scientists to improve screening techniques at airports.<p>On Thursday, the department, working with Google, will introduce a $1.5 million contest to build computer algorithms that can automatically identify concealed items in …

Government and Brandis must learn from data retention mess with encryption

As Canberra turns its attention to the issue of accessing encrypted communications between potential terrorists, nobody's opposed to the principle …

Back-ups and cloning remove the risks of cyber attacks and computer crashes

If there's an upside to data devouring malware like WannaCry, it's the way it concentrates our minds on back-up strategies.<p>Predictably, after a few …

No Is Not Enough by Naomi Klein – Trump the master of disaster

Klein’s new study in shock politics is a warning of the enormous toxic potential of the Trump presidency and a call to oppose it. Refusal needs to turn into resistance<p>Lately the pace of news has felt so fast and its volume so overwhelming that the very idea of a political book seems quaint, a relic …

A look at Uber and Lyft's lobbying efforts in Texas as the companies pushed for a state bill

Uber’s Lesson: Silicon Valley’s Start-Up Machine Needs Fixing

Travis Kalanick’s spectacular rise and fall at Uber contains many lessons for the technology industry. But one lesson should rise above the others: This was not just Mr. Kalanick’s failure — it was far bigger.<p>What happened at Uber is an indictment of everyone who enabled Mr. Kalanick’s worst …

Hello Melbourne: city of start-ups, knowledge workers and hubs

A start-up culture driven by entrepreneurial knowledge workers based in co-working hubs is becoming a larger part of central Melbourne's economy and …

Big data, ample opportunity: property sector embraces analytics

The property sector is latching on to the power of big data.<p>The 21st-century coupling of algorithms and large pools of information, made possible by …

The Australian claims another scalp as it hounds Press Council boss out of office

The Australian has run a vicious three-week campaign against Weisbrot and the McGrath appointment, and this morning the paper gloried in its kill. …

Ethereum crashed from $319 to 10 cents in seconds on one exchange after ‘multimillion dollar’ trade

The price of ethereum crashed as low as 10 cents from around $319 in about a second on the GDAX cryptocurrency exchange on Wednesday, which is being …

My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

Hello Spicy Compatriots,<p>I know this is not typical on a business blog, but I want to share what happened to potentially help someone in a similar …

Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

One of the open internet’s fiercest defenders has a new boss<p>In 2014, Tumblr was on the front lines of the battle for net neutrality. The company stood alongside Amazon, Kickstarter, Etsy, Vimeo, Reddit, and Netflix during Battle for the Net’s day of action. Tumblr CEO David Karp was also part of a …

How Uber Backers Orchestrated Kalanick’s Ouster as CEO

Partners at Benchmark began hatching a plan a few weeks ago to pressure CEO to resign<p>Travis Kalanick’s decision to step down as chief executive of Uber Technologies Inc. stunned his more than 12,000 employees and rippled through Silicon Valley, but it was the culmination of weeks of maneuvering by …

Good riddance Travis Kalanick: one woman's victory against sexist tech

The Uber CEO has finally stepped down in the wake of endless corporate sexism allegations and scandal – and the end all started with a blogpost<p>So then, zero stars for Travis Kalanick. The Uber co-founder and CEO has stepped down after a tumultuous period culminating in a spotlight being shone on …

The tragedy of FireWire: Collaborative tech torpedoed by corporations

"Show us that it's being adopted in the industry, and we'll put it in.”<p>The rise and fall of FireWire—IEEE 1394, an interface standard boasting …

Tracey Holmes: My mobile phone number was hijacked and it could happen to you

Last week somebody successfully ported Tracey Holmes's number without her permission. What ensued was a sleepless night wondering where her number …

Facebook Is Introducing New Tools to Protect Women in India

Facebook on Wednesday is unveiling new features that it hopes will make women in India feel safer on its platform.<p>The social network is introducing …