Mr. Know-It-All: Breathing in China, Tattling on eBay, Debunking a Snake Oil
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Wearing dust masks in Shenzhen, China is apropos, how to report scammers on eBay and shark cartilage as an alternative to chemotherapy. Who knew?
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Also: Paul Allen project maps the brain. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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A website goes the extra mile to make sure voters aren & rsquo;t confused this Tuesday.  Also: West Virginia organizes the first public supercomputer & hellip;.  FDA keeps its eye on a new pain relief drug & hellip;. and more.
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Also: The truth about shopping engines. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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Electrial problems. Unexpected stops. And a suicide bomber's strike. Inside Cheney's troubled Asia trip.
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(InfoWorld) - Questions abound overÂ the posting of confidential information from eBay members on one of the vendor's discussion forums, a sinister incident that has many of the online marketplace's buyers and sellers worried. Although eBay has provided some information about the brazen dump of member data that happened Tuesday morning, it's not known who the culprit is nor how and when this person obtained the information. Even more troubling: What has this "malicious fraudster," as eBay describes the person, already done with the names, addresses, member IDs, and possibly credit card numbers of at least 1,200 eBay buyers and sellers? Moreover, is this person still exploiting whatever hole, trick, or vulnerability led him to the data? Does he have data on just the 1,200 members listed or possibly on many more? "What makes this a big deal isn't just the amount of data compromised, but rather that this involves eBay," said computer security expert Mark Rasch, managing director of technology at FTI Consulting. As the world's largest online marketplace, eBay stores financial data on millions of users, and its platform is used to transact billions of dollars in sales. "Irrespective of the scope [of the data breach], the target makes it significant," Rasch said. This much is known: On Tuesday morning, someone posted confidential information on about 1,200 eBay members in the company's Trust & Safety discussion forum. Based on the initial reports of frantic users on this long thread, it appears that the "fraudster" posted data for about one hour until eBay shut the forum down. Hours later on Tuesday, an eBay spokeswoman confirmed the incident and said the vendor knew for a fact that the information wasn't obtained by breaching eBay's security systems, suggesting instead that the culprit stole the information from others via methods, such as phishing. However, many users have expressed skepticism in the forums over eBay's prompt declaration that its systems weren't hacked into. Rasch shares this skepticism. "I'd be reluctant to declare six hours after [such an incident] that my systems weren't breached unless I definitely knew what had happened or had already caught someone," he said. There can be many ways for someone to obtain this confidential data, including hacking a system and tricking individuals into disclosing the information via phishing, he said. It could also be a case of an inside job perpetrated by a disgruntled or corrupt employee at eBay or elsewhere with access to a database containing this data. "eBay has to thoroughly and comprehensively investigate this and keep people advised of what it finds and take corrective actions," Rasch said. This doesn't mean that eBay must provide hourly updates on the progress of its investigation, he said. However, eBay must at some point publicly close the loop on the incident and explain the scope of the damage and the causes. It's unclear if eBay intends to reveal more details about the breach. Beyond the spokeswoman's comments on Tuesday, the only other eBay statement on the matter is an official blog post made a few hours after the incident. By press time, eBay hadn't responded to several requests for comment on Wednesday. Jonathan Garriss, executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, agrees that eBay must inform users about the issue. "eBay really needs to address this publicly at some point and say where the leak came from," said Garriss, also CEO of Gotham City Online, an apparel store on eBay that also has its own site. That way, buyers and sellers will feel that the issue was addressed and remedied. It's clear that the data thief, in addition to profiting from the compromised information, also wanted very much to embarrass eBay by using the vendor's discussion forum for security issues as the vehicle for the data disclosure. "It was very brazen and very public," Rasch said. On Tuesday, the eBay spokeswoman said that the credit card numbers disclosed didn't match with the ones eBay has on file for the affected members. This brings up another question: Even if the numbers don't match the members, does eBay know if those numbers are nonetheless valid? Once data is posted on a public Web site, it must be assumed that others with malicious intentions copied it. "The bottom line is that this data is in the hands of people who shouldn't have it," Rasch said.
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A theft from a doping lab near London. A break-in at an office outside Dublin. Anonymous faxes and sinister turns. An investigative trail that stretches from Switzerland to Hong Kong.
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British TV presenter learns Web lesson: Never give out ID freely. Also: MBR Rootkit takes aim at Windows users.
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Today Jonathan Moore  and I headed over to LinuxWorld after lunch to see what kind of cool hardware and Linux hacks they had on the expo floor.  Only $15 to get in the door so I figure why not.  I'm a bit of a privacy freak.  When you're trading some security for liberty there are situations where it *might* be worth it.  In situations of extreme violence having the police by your side might be a good idea.    I think we can all agree that trading liberty for *nothing* isn't worth it. This country was *founded* on liberty after the British were abusing their colonial powers.  Every true American should cherish their liberty and think long and hard about just turning them over for no reason.  ...
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Match.com expands to China and France and breaks into the social networking game. Plus: Books get sampled.... Data thieves can't pull it off.... and more.
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HANGZHOU, China -- In spring 2006, an essay appeared on the Internet detailing collusion between the Chinese government's food and drug watchdog agency and a pharmaceutical venture. It accused the country's highest-ranking regulator of accepting a lakeside house and hundreds of thousands of dollars...
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Watching various people get on an airplane to go to Hawaii to an insider invite-only Silicon Valley conference (on Twitter), and thinking about the various business ideas the valley is floating these days, advertising, and how valuations work, and how unaccustomed the insiders are at having their ideas challenged, I came to a few rapid-fire conclusions last night on Twitter. (One good reason to follow me on Twitter is I tend to blurt out things there that would get me in trouble here on my blog.) Twit #1: "I have a theory that 'user generated content' is a last-gasp of the regal outlook of silicon valley, where we're all chumps or slaves." (Before UGC we were just supposed to be eyeballs, consuming their shovelware, buying stuff we see in ads. They had to adjust their thinking when it became apparent that we were also interested in creating.) Twit #2: "The role of the tech industry is to create tools and players. To enable creativity, not harness and control it." (I think this is when it all works best.) Twit #3: "If you're scared to hear what people really think you're not prepared for the world you live in." (I finally figured this one out. The reason why so many people in SV say I can't be trusted (it's observable) is because I'm equally likely to say your product sucks as I am to say it's great. This is a culture raised on Gee Whiz editorial coverage, the adulation of MSM. When blogs came along they had to hear that not everyone thinks they're so wonderful all the time. Who would you hate most but the guy who pushed the tools that made everyone with an opinion so audible. And would you expect such a person to keep his opinion to himself? Heh.) Even though I think this, I know I'm actually full of shit... Guy Kawasaki asked me once why so many people say I'm not a nice person, when in fact I am. If I saw you on the street I'd smile and say hello. I stop when someone is in the crosswalk. Nothing makes me happier than making a tool that people enjoy. I try to listen to everyone, and I don't care how much money you have. I never answered Guy's question, but here it is. If you asked me why some individual person thinks something, I'd say you'd have to ask them. That's basic respect. Let people speak for themselves. If you ask me why 100 people think something, I'm even more clueless.  BTW, Guy and I weren't friends for a long time after being good friends for a long time. I much prefer having him as a friend, I missed his company while we weren't talking. He doesn't suffer fools, and he's the first person to question his own thinking if someone says he's wrong. I've seen him do it, and I was totally impressed. People like that figure stuff out. People who don't want to learn about bugs in their thinking go through life with a lot of bugs. Today, and beyond, everyone has great tools for saying what they think. If you can't stand to hear it, you're not going to like the future very much, sorry to say.
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An Australian pleads guilty to fraud after posing as a dispossessed Nigerian to cheat people of their money. Also: eBay penalizes its own con men & hellip;. Microsoft's legal woes not quite over & hellip;. and more.
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IAC/InterActive spins off the online travel service. Also: PCs sprout second brain.... Nielson ratings show broadband users surpassing dialup.... and more.
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Science & environment: It now seems that just about anything can be sold as being 'green'. Ravi Somaiya goes in search of some of the more weird and wonderful examples.
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Don't like your Wikipedia entry? Mr. Know-It-All offers advice on how to set the record straight. By Clive Thompson from Wired magazine.
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&#160;China watchers, get your scorecards out: Google&#39;s YouTube is blocked,&#160;Wikipedia is still blocked, but, for the moment, Google blog site Blogspot.com is available and some pictures from Yahoo&#39;s Flickr photos can once again be viewed.