Domestic Dispute
As Sony Corp. relaunches the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services after hackers forced a nearly monthlong shutdown, it is having trouble persuading Japan's government to let its launch go live in that country, according to a
Kazushige Nobutani, director of the Media and Content Industry department of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said the Japanese government had two requirements before Sony, which is based in Tokyo, could restart the network there: proof that the company could prevent another attack, and a guarantee to customers that Sony could protect its data.
Various news estimates indicate that the personal information of nearly 100 million consumers may have been compromised in the attack.
"We are asking Sony whether their measures are good enough when compared to countermeasures taken in the past," Kazushige told Dow Jones.
Sony began to restart the network in many regions on Saturday, restoring online games but not its PSN store, where users can spend money on game and video downloads. Sony required all users to select a new password as they signed in.
The Wall Street Journal
Windows Shopping
Microsoft Corp. says its current operating system, Windows 7, is four to five times more secure than its old workhorse Windows XP, CNet.com
Microsoft described its findings in its Security Intelligence Report for 2011.
The findings are important to bankers because millions of their customers rely on Windows operating systems to access their online banking services.
The report found that users running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 had 2.5 infections per 1,000 computers and those running the 32-bit version had 3.8 infections. By comparison, computers running XP with service packs 2 and 3 had 19.3 and 15.9 infections, respectively.
Windows Vista, the less popular successor to XP and predecessor to Windows 7, had approximately double the Windows 7 infection rate; it was still significantly lower than XP's rate, CNet reported.
Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., said that the lower infection rate for the higher-bit-processing version may be related to the users' increased computer sophistication.
ID Theft Arrest
Police in Oakland, Calif., shut down an alleged identity theft operation that involved potentially thousands of Bay Area victims, The Oakland Tribune
Mishel Caviness-Williams was arrested as she left her apartment, the newspaper said. She reportedly had $4,000 in cash with her.
Upon searching the apartment, police reportedly found card printers, laptop computers, thousands of blank checks with no bank name or account information on them, and nearly 1,000 blank cards that could be used to make fake ATM, credit and debit cards.
Police also found phony driver's licenses, all with Caviness-Williams' picture on them but with different names. They also found documents with the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of thousands of people, as well as a number of blank Social Security cards.
The arrest of Caviness-Williams was the result of a four-month investigation that included the Bay Area Identity Theft Task Force and the U.S. Secret Service. The investigation began when a city of Oakland employee discovered that someone had cashed a check bearing someone else's name but her account information, the Tribune reported. Similar checks worth $1,000 had been cashed at businesses all over the Bay Area.
Police compiled evidence of Caviness-Williams' alleged crimes during some of the fraudulent transactions, which were caught on surveillance cameras at area ATMs. Caviness-Williams was reportedly convicted in 2000 of welfare fraud.
Earned Trust
Consumer fears about online fraud are growing, but they view banks and other financial services companies as potentially the most secure places online, according to ThreatMetrix and Ponemon Institute's 2011 Consumers' Reaction to Online Fraud
Eighty-one percent of consumers said they would be more willing to use a bank, credit card company or payment processor if it informed them they were taking extra measures such as better authentication or more stringent efforts to combat online fraud.
Only 56% said they would be willing to browse or shop at an online business if it informed them they were making the same efforts.
Nearly 40% of the consumers surveyed said they would be most comfortable sharing mobile location with their banks for the purposes of combating online fraud. Only 10% said they would share that information with a trusted online business.
Ponemon surveyed 607 adults, the majority of whom have used the Internet for 10 years or more.
Forty-two percent of respondents said they had been the victims of online fraud, with 4% saying they had suffered monetary loss; 67% said they were concerned or very concerned about online fraud, up from 61% in the 2010 survey. Fifteen percent said they were not concerned, down 4 percentage points from the previous year.
Snoozer
A homeless man accused of stealing $200 by using an ATM card left behind in a machine in Cambridge, Mass., was cleared of wrongdoing because one of the jurors slept through part of the trial.
According to a
Felton Dyous admitted to taking the money but denied that he pulled a knife on the card's owner.
The judge, Michele B. Hogan, wrote in his decision that every citizen has the right to a trial by an impartial jury.
"Inherent in that right is the requirement that an impartial juror must also be attentive," Hogan wrote.
