Cory Doctorow reports: A new bill from Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes personal, criminal liability for top executives of companies turning over more than $1B/year when those companies experience data breaches and scams due to negligence (many of the recent high-profile breaches would qualify, including the Equifax giga-breach, as well as many of Wells Fargo’s string…
UK: Council data leak leaves couple who adopted abused children living in fear
Nick Lavigueur reports: A couple who adopted abused children from another part of the country have told how a council blunder put their family at risk. Adam and his wife Jean, who are now based in West Yorkshire, had their world turned upside down when a council from the south of England provided their personal…
FTC says it only has 40 employees overseeing privacy and data security
Harper Neidig reports: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday told Congress that it only has 40 full-time employees dedicated to overseeing internet privacy and data security and requested lawmakers give the agency more resources to adequately police tech companies. FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, a Republican appointed by President Trump, wrote in a letter to…
This computer scientist beats hackers at their own game
Holly Ober reports: Fatemah Alharbi breaks things in order to learn how to fix them. Not just any old things. Computer operating systems, to be exact, and she conducted research that earned public gratitude from Apple. If she doesn’t look like a hacker that’s because she isn’t, really. She’s a doctoral candidate in computer science…
Ninth Circuit Upholds 27-Year Sentence for Russian Hacker
Nathan Solis reports: A Ninth Circuit panel upheld the 27-year prison sentence of a Russian computer hacker who was extradited to the United States while on vacation with his family in the Maldives to face charges he stole credit card numbers and millions of dollars. Roman Seleznev claimed the U.S. government kidnapped him when he…
The teenage hackers who’ve been given a second chance
Chris Quevatre reports: Step inside the offices of Bluescreen and you’ll find some of the UK’s most talented teenage hackers, dragged from a world of crime to fight for the other side. These young computer experts have swapped the confines of their bedrooms for a fairly ordinary looking cyber security company in Plymouth. Bluescreen employs…