Posted 09/27/08 at 09:24:14 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Online auction/shopping websites have been around for a long time. However, the proverbially long reach of the law hasn’t been observed when it comes to online stores for all these years. The absence of stern laws has fostered an illegitimate industry that has proved to be very profitable for thieves and charlatans galore, besides being less perilous then drug trade and other illegal businesses.

But online sellers dealing in stolen goods might soon be stymied by three new legislations, the E-fencing Enforcement Act, Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008 and Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2008. These bills are intended to combat Organized Retail Crime (ORC). There are numerous online sellers that are comfortably selling huge volumes of stolen goods – stolen directly from retailers – through popular websites like eBay.

If these bills get a nod from lawmakers, online stores and resellers will be required to disclose the contact information of any seller with annual earnings in excess of $12K to any competent party (retailer) that makes a request for such info. This will allow retailers to catch unscrupulous sellers red-handed. The proposed legislations will also put the onus of scrutinizing sellers on online stores. The National Retail Federation has placed its support behind the bills. What about you? Share your thoughts.

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Internet, legal, law, auction, retailers, online shopping, theft, web, store

Posted 09/15/08 at 11:14:57 AM by Paul Lilly

Forget about overpriced tickets to the big screen, you can get your fill of drama just by following the tech news. In what could pass as a Hollywood script, ex-Intel engineer Biswamohan Pani has been accused by the FBI of stealing trade secrets from Intel while working for AMD incognito.

According to an affidavit by FBI special agent Timothy Russell, the alleged storyline goes like this: Pani, playing the part of double-agent, informs Intel officials in May of his intention to resign so he can go work for a hedge fund and would utilize accrued vacation time until June 11, which would be his final official day. Here's where the plot twist comes in. There is no hedge fund, and Pani instead begins working for AMD on June 2. With time still left on the table at Intel, the suspected double-agent accesses and downloads 13 secret documents from an encrypted system.

Of course, movie scripts can never be so cut and dry, and so in this feature, Pani no longer works for AMD and denies any wrongdoing, even after a July 1 search of his home turns up eight Intel documents classified as confidential, secret, or the mother of them all, top secret.

Wondering how it ends? So are we. Stay tuned as this one plays out in real life.

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amd, intel, Security, cpu, processor, legal, court, theft

Posted 09/09/08 at 06:18:38 PM by Paul Lilly

In the end, it might be easier keeping a problematic IT administrator on board than to let him go. Top level execs take note - according to a new survey, which pinged 300 IT administrators still with a job, a staggering 88 percent admitted they would steal company secrets if they were laid off.

The information IT professionals not-yet-scorned said they'd take include the CEO's passwords, the customer database, R&D plans, financial reports, M&A plans, and the company's list of privileged passwords. And when it comes to that last one, administrators don't even need to be laid off in order to start poking around. More than a third of those surveyed claimed to have used privileged passwords to snoop on the network, look up salaries, and peek at other personnel details assumed to be private.

"Our advice is secure the most privileged data, and routinely change and manage them, so that if an employee's contract is terminated, whether sacked or made redundant, they can't maliciously play havoc inside the network or vindictively steal data for competitive or financial gain," said Udi Mokady, chief executive of security firm Cyber-Ark.

Sound advice, but is it futile?

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Security, Privacy, IT, theft, steal

Posted 07/07/08 at 08:03:55 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Ladies and gentlemen, please remember to fasten your Laptops every time you leave home for the airport. A fresh survey by the Ponemon Institute has corroborated a pretty obvious observation, that tons of laptops are lost in the twisty terminals of airports. In fact, the number of laptops lost at U.S airports annually is a truly stupefying 637,000 – about 12,000 laptops a week, according to the survey that encompassed 106 U.S airports.

But despite all the important information that might rest in displaced hard drives, 65% of the hapless travellers who misplace their notebooks don’t report the loss (out of shame, perhaps?). And apparently it is considered ignominious to loose a laptop in corporate circles, as only 1% of those polled admitted to having lost their laptop compared to the 84% people who claim to "know someone" who has. The survey was conducted at Dell’s behest to coincide with the launch of its new Laptop tracking and theft prevention service, Dell Mobility.

Those of you who have lost a laptop – or laptops – can commiserate in the comments section. And those of you haven’t lost one can discuss effective ways to maintain your impeccable track record.

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Security, laptops, hardware, Research, theft, loss, dell mobility, survey, study