Hasta La Gadget!

On October 10, the Secret Service notified South Carolina state officials that an international hacker had gained access to approximately 3.6 million state tax returns, as well as 387,000 credit and debit card numbers. The breach happened when the hacker infiltrated the South Carolina Department of Revenue’s computer system, where state returns from 1998 to present resided containing unencrypted social security numbers and 16,000 unencrypted credit and debit card numbers. According to the Secret Service, it’s possible the hacker got into the system as early as the end of August.

Said South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, “In the past two weeks, state and federal law enforcement along with the Department of Revenue have come together and done everything they need to make sure those [security] holes have been plugged and we no longer have any holes we are aware of at this point.” The security breach was “completely closed” by October 20. State officials stated that it did not appear much damage had occurred between the discovery on October 10 and the repaired system ten days later.

The hacker failed to access all of the tax information on the system. State officials revealed that the hacks originated from an international IP address, but did not specify the country. In addition to the involvement of the fed, Mandiant, a private information security company, has been brought in to investigate the matter.

When questioned about why residents weren’t notified of the security breach earlier, Gov. Haley responded with, “This is the difference between finding the person and how they did it. We need to find the person.” Anyone who has filed taxes in South Carolina from 1998 to present, whether via paper or online, has been asked to call 1-866-578-5422.

[via Myrtle Beach Online]

Hacker accesses 3.6 million South Carolina tax returns is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

And so it passed that Congress didst layeth its blessing on the jailbreaking and rooting of all manner of devices; the hacking community saw the miracle and rejoiced. But that amendment to the DMCA two years ago was just a temporary exemption and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been vigorously lobbying to get it reinstated. The Library of Congress has now done just that through a new three year extension, but with some serious caveats: After 90 days, unlocking of new phones will be verboten and all tablet mods will still be illegal. This differs from the 2010 decision which did allow unlocking, because the Librarian decided that a recent copyright ruling means fair use rules no longer apply to a handset’s OS. It also said the exception isn’t needed anymore because carrier rules regarding unlocking are now more liberal — although the lawmaker may be confounding chicken with egg by that reasoning.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

DMCA update shuts down new phone unlocking next year, allows rooting (but not for tablets) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today book retailer Barnes & Noble confirmed that 63 of their retail stores have been compromised with tampered PIN pads. We originally reported the breaking news earlier this morning, but the company completed an internal investigation today that revealed one PIN pad in each of the 63 stores were tampered with, and that customers who used a credit or debit card on the machines were at risk of stolen personal information.

According to the company, the PIN pads were implanted with “bugs” that allowed the recording of credit card information and debit card PINs. Barnes & Noble ended up disconnecting all of its PIN pads on September 14, and is now only allowing credit card purchases directly through their cash registers for the time being.

Barnes & Noble says that the tampering affected only about 1% of all the company’s PIN pads around the US, and the 63 stores affected are only in a handful of states, including California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. To see if your local store was one of the affected locations, check out the full list of all 63 stores.

Barnes & Noble is urging customers who have swiped their cards at the affected locations to change their debit card PINs as a precaution, as well as keeping an eye on credit card statements for fraudulent charges. However, the company notes that their database hasn’t been breached, and purchases made elsewhere aren’t affected.

Barnes & Noble lists 63 stores affected by PIN hack is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Zap-happy channel-surfers could soon control a lot more than cable TV from their remotes. Michael Ossmann, co-founder of Great Scott Gadgets, is developing HackRF, a software-defined radio (SDR) that lets you switch between radio frequencies on the fly. More »

As much as we love the Arduino Uno, it’s not the most powerful of hobbyist microcontrollers. Fortunately, the folks in Turin have just put the finishing touches on a 32-bit upgrade with buckets of potential. At the heart of the Arduino Due is an 84MHz Atmel CPU, based on ARM’s Cortex M3 Architecture, which is capable of being the brains inside your own flying drone or homemade 3D printer. It should start trickling out onto shelves from today, setting you back $49, but hey, that’s a small price to pay to automate your drinking adventures.

Continue reading Meet the Arduino Due, the 32-bit board that’ll let your projects fly (really)

Filed under: Misc

Meet the Arduino Due, the 32-bit board that’ll let your projects fly (really) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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