Andrew Blake

Google blames data loss at Belgium facility on electrical storm

Google says that a lightning storm in Belgium last week caused electrical outages to occur at one of its data centers. The Silicon Valley giant is now upgrading some of its equipment after admitting that a small amount of user data was irreversibly lost as a result.

August 20, 2015

Judge says marijuana dispensary video can be used in probe of California police

Surveillance video showing the police raid of a medical marijuana dispensary in California can be used by investigators, a judge has ruled, curbing law enforcement's efforts to keep the video from being entered as evidence in the probe concerning the conduct of the officers involved in the operation.

August 20, 2015

Cyberstalking, ‘traffic stop sex’ evidence details conduct that landed Ohio trooper in prison

Newly released documents from the criminal investigation of a former Ohio state trooper has unearthed shocking details about the conduct that landed the officer behind bars, including Facebook messages he sent to female victims, online solicitations for sex and dashcam footage from the traffic stop that ended his career.

August 20, 2015

‘Drinkable Book’ uses space-age pages to filter bacteria from water

Never mind eliminating illiteracy. A scientist's new book project in the works isn't geared towards bookworms, but rather the hundreds of millions of people without access to clean water -- and the author says the technology involved in printing the final product could end a global crisis.

August 19, 2015

Meth experiment gone bad blamed for explosion at NIST lab; ex-guard to plead guilty

Federal attorneys have charged a former security official at the National Institute of Standards and Technology with trying to make meth inside a laboratory on the agency's Gaithersburg, Maryland, campus.

August 19, 2015

NYPD went undercover to spy on Black Lives Matter activists, documents reveal

Law enforcement in New York City has deployed undercover police officers to events attended by members of the Black Lives Matter movement, new documents reveal, and kept details on the activities and whereabouts of activists and members of the media alike.

August 19, 2015

Hackers post account data for millions of Ashley Madison users

Personal data for millions of users of Ashley Madison, the adult dating website that was revealed last month to have been targeted by computer hackers, has been published online.

August 19, 2015

Smashed laptops once containing Snowden secrets pose privacy questions, researchers say

When British intelligence ordered the destruction of laptops containing copies of Edward Snowden's trove of stolen files in 2013, the U.K.'s efforts were scoffed at by many as merely symbolic. Now two researchers say an analysis of what is left of those computers raises questions about what it means to delete a file in the digital age.

August 18, 2015

Air Force makes plea for better online OPSEC: ‘Loose tweets sink fleets’

The Pentagon is reminding military personnel to be careful when posting on the Internet by warning troops that "loose tweets sink fleets."

August 18, 2015

N.Y. police probing prisoner’s death; witnesses say jailers responsible

Corrections officers at a New York state prison allegedly beat an inmate to death during a confrontation earlier this year in front of several witnesses, but prison officials have been far from forthcoming regarding details of the incident.

August 18, 2015

Encryption: Officials seek ‘backdoor’ entry points; critics decry government overreach

One of the top prosecutors in the U.S. is ramping up his war on encryption in the press, but now with the backing of other law enforcement figures worldwide and international companies eager to arm governments in the escalating cybergame of Spy vs. Spy.

August 17, 2015

Security flaw exposing billions of cellphones to spies, researchers warn

The world's telecommunications system is still vulnerable and can be exploited in order to spy on cellphone calls and text messages anywhere on Earth, hackers warn.

August 17, 2015

Doctor urges hackers to help mend medicine with 3-D printer tech

A Palestinian-Canadian doctor says his team has made a stethoscope from a 3-D printer that works better than any he's seen in Western hospitals.

August 14, 2015

Pentagon investing millions on ‘Multi-Object Kill Vehicle’ anti-missile program

The Missile Defense Agency has awarded nearly $30 million this week in order to bankroll research and development for a new war machine concept, the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle.

August 14, 2015

Car hacker finds flaws in Mercedes, BMW, Chrysler systems

Two weeks after a security researcher revealed how he could remotely control upwards of millions of GM automobiles by exploiting a vulnerability with its OnStar navigation systems, the hacker now says that cars sold by Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Chrysler are similarly susceptible to attack.

August 14, 2015

Chelsea Manning faces solitary for ‘contraband’ Vanity Fair featuring Caitlyn Jenner: lawyer

Attorneys for Chelsea Manning, formerly US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, say the WikiLeaks source faces indefinite solitary confinement as a result of new charges being brought by officials at the military barracks where she is serving a 35-year prison sentence.

August 13, 2015

Apple embraces facial recognition technology with photo-sharing patent

Apple has filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in which the Cupertino-based computer giant outlines a plan for using advanced facial recognition algorithms to let smartphone customers share photographs more easily with one another.

August 13, 2015

Russia lifts ban on Reddit; drug post had drawn fire from Kremlin censors

Russia's federal Internet regulator has lifted a ban on Reddit, one of most popular websites in the world, after briefly blocking access to the entire site because of a 2-year-old post containing instructions for growing psychedelic mushrooms.

August 13, 2015

AirDrop exploited; U.K. police probing iPhone ‘cyber flashing’

An iPhone user in London said unsolicited pictures of a man's penis were automatically loaded onto her mobile device by an individual who must have exploited a feature in AirDrop, Apple's wireless file-sharing service.

August 13, 2015

‘Privacy Visor’ goggles trick facial recognition tech

Scientists in Japan say they're preparing to release a "Privacy Visor," an over-the-ear contraption that's worn like ordinary eyeglasses but modeled to make it difficult for facial recognition technology to identify whomever is underneath.

August 12, 2015