The National Security Agency’s website was unavailable for users on Friday afternoon. Twitter accounts associated with the loosely-affiliated hacker group known as Anonymous called attention to the outage moments after the site went down, but there was no way to immediate identify a cause for its unavailability. The website DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com [Keep reading]
“I work with Microsoft” the surprise caller says. “And your computer has a problem.” So begins the Microsoft tech support phone scam. In a high-tech world, the low-tech crime of simply calling innocent people and tricking them into sending money is remarkably effective. It is always important to remember that, [Keep reading]
Cell phone bills are now the second-highest monthly cost for some American families, trailing only mortgage or rent. That means it’s worth the effort to poke and prod on a regular basis looking for a cheaper option. You can probably find one. Change is afoot in the industry. With family [Keep reading]
Grandma and Grandpa are sexting? Yup, says a new survey of 50- to 75-year-olds conducted by security firm McAfee. The research suggests older social media and smartphone users are also oversharing at an alarming rate, putting them at greater risk for identity theft. More than half of older Net users have shared [Keep reading]
The young math teacher’s online footprint is an incredible celebration of life, of wit, of enthusiasm. Math geek jokes are particularly near and dear to my heart, and a week ago, she tweeted a doozy: “Parallel lines have got so much in common. It’s a shame they’ll never meet.” Now, [Keep reading]
Much of the criticism around HealthCare.gov has focused on the initial decision to force visitors to complete an application before they could see health care plan pricing. Critics say so-called “anonymous shopping” was killed late in the design process for political reasons. A completed application is required to determine each [Keep reading]
It’s true — if you want free shipping from Amazon now, you’ll have to spent at least $35, up from $25. Just in time for holiday shopping! Amazon says it implemented the change on Monday. Hope you have a bunch of $10 items on your wish list that you can [Keep reading]
The troubles with the Obamacare website offer this side benefit: consumers are learning a lot about the debate between “waterfall vs. agile” software development. During the next several weeks, we’ll probably learn about Brooks’ Law, too. I wish we were learning the word “pretotype.” And perhaps, we’ll learn about The [Keep reading]
When the Justice Department announced last week that it had indicted a Vietnamese national for allegedly masterminding an identity theft marketplace, it left out a crucial detail — where suspect Hieu Minh Ngo obtained the data dossiers he sold on 500,000 victims during a five-year crime spree. Thanks to security [Keep reading]
Surprisingly, the largest government computer systems integration in history isn’t going very well. Who would have predicted that? Imagine if Amazon’s checkout required 47 steps…and you couldn’t see a price before you finished those steps. That includes the most personal of personal information, and questions consumers you can’t readily answer. [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan