CourseCast of the Week

Episode 0061, 08/09/2008

Title/Description:

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 61, recorded August 9th, 2008.

This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information.

This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.

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Story 1 - Identity Theft Ring Busted

The US Department of Justice has charged 11 hackers from around the world with numerous crimes including conspiracy, computer intrusion, fraud, and identity theft. The case is being called the "largest and most complex identity theft case ever charged in this country". The hackers stole millions of dollars using 40 million credit card numbers that they stole from dozens of stores including TJ Maxx, Office Max, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, and Sports Authority. The hackers installed "sniffer" programs on the retailer's networks to collect credit card numbers and passwords as they streamed over the network. Governments around the world have coordinated with the US to apprehend the criminals.

Source: "40 million stolen credit cards later, DoJ charges 11 hackers" [Ars Technica], "Update: Eleven indicted in massive ID theft scheme" [Computerworld]

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And that brings us to News Briefs.

• It looks like Delta will be the first airline to provide Wireless Internet access on all of its US flights. The airline will begin rolling out the service this fall, and promises to have all of its aircraft equipped with WiFi by the end of the year. Airlines are looking to wireless Internet as a way to attract more customers, and increase profits from the $10-$13 Internet service fee that will be charged.[Ars Technica]
• The House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to more than 30 of the nation's largest telecom and Internet companies, demanding to know if the companies are tracking user's Internet activities in order to target online advertisements. It is hoped that the inquiries could lead to general privacy legislation that would safeguard consumer data gathered both online and off. [NYTimes]
• Microsoft has announced that it will build a huge data center in Des Moines, Iowa, 130-miles east of Google's $600 million Data center. IBM is spending $360 million on a data center in North Carolina. These are three of dozens of mega data centers that are going up this year in preparation for the growing number of online services that make up cloud computing. [Information Week]
• Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have worked together with human-rights groups to hammer out an Internet code of conduct for doing business with repressive regimes like China. [NewsFactor]
• Thailand has banned the sale of the violent video game Grand Theft Auto after a teen murdered a taxi driver in an attempt to recreate a scene from the game.[New York Times]
• A new Web site that allows you to run name searches on criminal record archives of 50 states and 3,500 counties in the US is causing some privacy concerns. By the way, the Ken Baldauf with all the traffic violations isn’t me. I've never even driven in Tucson. I swear! [New York Times]

That's it for this week's CourseCast. Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at www.course.com/coursecasts. Email us with your suggestions for the show at course.coursecasts@cengage.com. Until next time have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!