Two high school seniors in California were charged with "breaking into their school late at night and using stolen log-ins to hack into its computer system and change their grades," eCommerce Times reports. One faces a maximum sentence of more than 38 years for "34 felony counts of altering a public record, 11 felony counts of stealing and secreting a public record, seven felony counts of computer … [Read more...] about Felony charges for teen hackers
Security
Online aliases: The new privacy
Young people are increasingly finding the need to put up firewalls between private and public online lives. They're "assuming online aliases" on social-networking sites "to avoid the prying eyes of parents, college recruiters, potential employers, and other overly interested strangers," the Washington Post reports. "They are also being more selective in who they allow in as 'friends' by paring … [Read more...] about Online aliases: The new privacy
Computer security sea change & youth
You know that old argument about Mac vs. PC security? Well, it really is an old argument now. Computer security really isn't about what operating system your computer has anymore. Now it's really about 1) what browser you use and where you go online, and 2) how smart you are (or your child is) about protecting passwords and financial information online (social engineering), CNET reports. "Lots of … [Read more...] about Computer security sea change & youth
Common social-networking hack
We get a lot of questions in the ConnectSafely forum about people finding their profiles compromised in various ways. One way this can be done concerns social networkers' passwords - if they've either given their passwords to friends or their passwords have been stolen. A researcher colleague of mine in Portugal, Daniel Cardoso, sent me a heads-up about the latter. Here, a post in … [Read more...] about Common social-networking hack
Child ID theft
If your kids start getting credit card offers in the mail, it's no joke. It's quite possible their identities have been stolen. A way to find out is to check with the Social Security Administration, to see if they have earnings reports, SCnow.com in South Carolina reports. Just how can this happen? It's actually not usually an online problem. "Identity thieves can steal a child’s information in a … [Read more...] about Child ID theft