Citigroup is admitting that a May hack cost cardholders millions of dollars.
On May tenth 3,400 accounts had at least $2.7 million stolen from them. The total number of accounts that were hacked is more than 360,000.
Citi officials claim they notified customers quickly, yet those notices weren’t sent out until June 3. So far 200,000 credit cards have been replaced by Citi.
Idaho based Micron is reporting a drop in demand for computer chips. One semiconductor analyst calls it “anemic”.
Micron reports sales are down, even though profits are up 4%, from the previous quarter. How did they make a profit? Officially Micron calls it ‘reduction in manufacturing costs’. That means workers got laid off, in fact since 2008 more than 2000 Micron employees lost their jobs.
When you compare net revenues, year to year, Micron still lost money.
“The fact that there are three separate lines of evidence all pointing in the same direction is very compelling.”-Frank Hill, National Solar Observatory in New Mexico
Here in Idaho we can attest to claims that an ice age might be coming; we’ve had cooler and wetter weather this year. So much so that some farmers had to delay planting their crops, and local rivers are flooding.
Three separate studies have convinced U.S. astronomers that the Earth is about to begin a “Little Ice Age”. It’s based on decreased solar flare activity.
The decreased solar flare activity is being compared to the Grand Minimum of the 17th Century, in which Europe experienced a little ice age.
However, scientist who love their Global Warming hypothesis say any cooling trend caused by the Sun, will be countered by man made global warming. Come, join us in Idaho, we’d like some of that warming right now.
Even when turned ‘off’, most of your electronic appliances are still on. That’s because most appliances now contain tiny computers to remember settings, to run clocks, to sense your remote, etc.
Actually when you turn your electronics ‘off’ you’ve actually put them in a ‘standby mode’. This standby mode accounts for about 6 percent of household electricity use.
NEC and Tohoku University have developed a semiconductor to cut that standby power usage to zero. They say it uses a magnet, instead of electricity, to operate in standby mode. Unfortunately it will be a few more years before it hits the market, but they hope it will cut overall electricity usage by 25%.
Someone, or some group, calling itself Lulz Security has hacked Sony again.
They claim they’ve “compromised all admin details of Sony Pictures (including passwords) along with 75,000 ‘music codes’ and 3.5 million ‘music coupons.'”
Lulz Security also claims to have acquired unencrypted passwords, names, addresses and birth dates for thousands of Sony customers.
Sony says it will try, again, on May 31 to fully connect the U.S., and European markets with the PlayStation network.
Sony has tried before, but ran into trouble with its new security program, and even got hacked again.
Sony says its latest attempt will fully connect most of the world, except Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea.
According to nature.com, Homeland Security field tested the new Future Attribute Screening Technology system, at an undisclosed location in March 2011. Up ’till now testing was done in a laboratory setting, officials claim 70% success rate.
FAST is a system that is supposed to tell if you are going to commit a crime (they call it “malintent”). It measures things like heart rate, and eye movement. U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to use it at airports, sporting events, shopping malls, etc.
Many scientists question the rational of the FAST system: “Even having an iris scan or fingerprint read at immigration is enough to raise the heart rate of most legitimate travelers.”-Tom Ormerod, Investigative Expertise Unit at Lancaster University, U.K.
“I believe that the premise of this approach — that there is an identifiable physiological signature uniquely associated with malicious intent — is mistaken.”-Steven Aftergood, Federation of American Scientists
“Given the military targets, and that millions of compromised keys are in circulation, this is not over.”-Rick Moy, NSS Labs
Reuters reporting that several U.S. military contractors have been hacked. The cyber attack might have snagged codes for high tech weapons being used in Afghanistan and Iraq.
ECM corporation admits that several of its RSA security keys were copied by hackers several months ago. This played a role in allowing hackers to access dozens of contractor databases, possibly for weapons codes. So far officials are not saying what the hackers actually did.
May 24, Sony announced that their online services continue to get hacked. The latest involve countries like Greece and Thailand.
Japanese IT officials think hackers are just practicing, and that Sony’s security sucks: ‘‘Hackers are launching attacks apparently to hone their skills. Sony must review the security systems of its entire group to redress their vulnerability.’’-Information Technology Promotion Agency
Sony announced that they have lost, so far, $171 million because of the hacks. This adds to Sony’s year after year losses.
Sony announced on May 12, that its PlayStation blog was hacked. On top of that, their new security system is actually blocking users from the United States.
Sony apologizes for inconveniencing their customers, but they admit that everytime they planned to restart their online services they discover another hack job.