To be expected.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/glancy-binkow-amp-goldberg-llp,741336.shtml

Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP, Representing Investors Who Purchased Heartland Payment Systems, Inc., Announces Class Action Lawsuit and Seeks to Recover Losses -- HPY

Posted : Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:15:24 GMT Author : Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP

LOS ANGELES - (Business Wire) Notice is hereby given that Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP has filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. (“Heartland” or the “Company”) (NYSE:HPY), between August 5, 2008 and February 23, 2009, inclusive (the “Class Period”).

… The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period defendants made false and/or misleading statements, and failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Company's business, operations and prospects. Specifically, defendants misrepresented or failed to disclose: (1) that the Company’s safety and security measures designed to protect consumers’ financial records and data from security breaches were inadequate and ineffective; (2) that the Company’s payment processing system had been infected with malware as early as May 2008; (3) that defendants were made aware of a potential breach of Heartland’s payment processing network; (4) that, as a result of the above, the Company faced liabilities associated with the breach and increasing costs associated with implementing appropriate security measures; (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, the Company was at risk of losing customers; and (6) that the Company lacked adequate internal controls.

For my Security classes. You never know when you might want to emulate Big Brother. (First instance of spyware distributed by SMS text that I'm aware of.)

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090307092145561

JP: Malicious software enables cellphone surveillance: CIB

Saturday, March 07 2009 @ 09:21 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews

The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) on Friday took into custody a manager of a company that sold illegal software allowing those interested in obtaining private information to send unidentified SMS text messages to infect cellphones.

Once a phone has been infected, the sender could listen in on private conversations and view the recipient’s text messages, police said, adding that people with cellphones using the Symbian 60 operating system were at the greatest risk of becoming infected.

Source - Taipei Times

[From the article:

The CIB said that bugs in the Symbian operating system were exploited by the software, which was first invented in China in 2007, replacing more traditional methods of phone tapping where a chip had to be physically inserted into a phone.

… Once a phone had been infected via the text message, those interested in gaining personal information could call the cellphone using a special SIM card, the police said.

The target phone, however, would not ring when called with such a SIM card and all conversations made on it could be secretly heard by the original sender.

Messages sent to an infected phone would also be relayed back to the original sender of the software.

Attention convergence advocates!

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/07/229227&from=rss

Why TV Lost

Posted by timothy on Saturday March 07, @05:36PM from the l-for-love dept. Television Communications The Internet The Media

theodp writes

"Over the past 20 years, there's been much speculation about what the convergence of computers and TV would ultimately look like. Paul Graham says that we now know the answer: computers. 'Convergence' is turning out to essentially be 'replacement.' Why did TV lose? Graham identifies four forces: 1. The Internet's open platform fosters innovation at hacker speeds instead of big company speeds. 2. Moore's Law worked its magic on Internet bandwidth. 3. Piracy taught a new generation of users it's more convenient to watch shows on a computer screen. 4. Social applications made everybody from grandmas to 14-year-old girls want computers — in a three-word-nutshell, Facebook killed TV."

[From the atricle:

The somewhat more surprising force was one specific type of innovation: social applications. The average teenage kid has a pretty much infinite capacity for talking to their friends. But they can't physically be with them all the time. When I was in high school the solution was the telephone. Now it's social networks, multiplayer games, and various messaging applications. The way you reach them all is through a computer. [3] Which means every teenage kid (a) wants a computer with an Internet connection, (b) has an incentive to figure out how to use it, and (c) spends countless hours in front of it.

Another excuse to beat your lazy children...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10191262-27.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

More free on-demand audio with Muziic

by Matt Rosoff March 7, 2009 3:17 PM PST

… Last week, I blogged about Spotify, a free and legal music player that offers a massive library of music on demand. Unfortunately, Spotify's library has some big gaps because of legal disputes with rights-holders, and it's not available in the U.S.

A couple days later, software developer David Nelson contacted me about Muziic, a company he started with his dad--he's 15(!) and has gone from public high school to online private high school to pursue this project. After checking it out for a few days, I think it's got just as much of a chance of revolutionizing how we listen to music as Spotify does.

… How did an unknown company run by a 15-year-old and his dad pull off this incredible licensing coup? Easy--they've basically built a customized front-end to YouTube. Any song that's been uploaded to YouTube is available in Muziic, including a lot of music that isn't available on most commercial services, like the full Pink Floyd's performance at Live 8 and Led Zeppelin's one-off performance in 2007.

...and this is why it's so popular? Very atypical WSJ article...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/020772.html

March 07, 2009

WSJ: How to Twitter

The Decoder: "Twitter is a mass text-messaging service that allows you to send short 140-character updates -- or "tweets" -- to a bunch of people at once. They are your "followers." It was designed to be read on a cellphone, though many people read it online, too."

...and were not so happy with all this talk about the earth being round.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10191181-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Pluto is a planet again! (in Illinois)

by Chris Matyszczyk March 6, 2009 10:37 PM PST

… Now, the bountifully deep and forward-thinking state of Illinois is showing its Illinoyance. It has decided that the IAU is comprised of downright plonkers and that Pluto will, on March 13, 2009, be reinstated as a full, mature rockstar planet.

… It appears that Clyde Tombaugh, the fine citizen who discovered Pluto, was born on a farm in Illinois--and that only 4 percent of the IAU actually cast votes when the body excommunicated Pluto from the planetary major leagues.