murdoch tabloid under fire after hacking into murder victims phones

even families of 7/7 victims 'were targets of phone hacking'*

from guardian: Police officers investigating phone hacking by the News of the World are turning their attention to examine every high-profile case involving the murder, abduction or attack on any child since 2001 in response to the revelation that journalists from the tabloid newspaper hacked into the voicemail messages of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The move is a direct response to the Guardian's exclusive story on Monday that a private investigator working for the News International tabloid, Glenn Mulcaire, caused Milly's parents to wrongly believe she was still alive – and interfered with police inquiries into her disappearance – by hacking into the teenager's mobile phone and deleting messages. News of the impending police action capped a dramatic day of unfolding developments in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

update: no more news of the world -
murdoch journalists stunned by paper's closure

as smartphone scandal grows, tech firms run for cover

while they reap windfall profits...
from antifascist calling: Recent revelations that Apple's iPhone and iPad, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating systems collect, store and transmit records of users' physical locations to central databases--secretly, and without consent--have ignited a firestorm over Americans' privacy rights in an age of hypersurveillance.

And with a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Florida by two iPhone users, The Register reports, Apple guru Steve Jobs was forced to respond to complaints after the firm's usual tactic--deafening silence--failed to assuage customer's anxieties.

The lawsuit alleges that "irreparable injury has resulted and continues to result from Apple's unauthorized tracking of millions of Americans," plaintiffs Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito averred. They are requesting their case be granted class-action status, a move likely to send shudders along the silicon spine of the secretive Cupertino high-tech powerhouse.

In response to the outcry, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple "is scaling back how much information its iPhones store about where they have been and said it will stop collecting such data when consumers request it, as the company tries to quell concerns it was tracking iPhone owners."

But as journalists Yukari Iwatani Kane and Jennifer Valentino-Devries point out, "a week of silence on the growing controversy, raised new questions and criticism about its data-handling practices."

related video: assange calls facebook 'most appalling spy machine' ever

9/16 defcon: tracking devices & small worlds

have cell phones become personal tracking devices?
what your phone could be telling the govt*
fired google engineer stalked teens, spied on chats*
mom obsessed with video game 'small worlds' neglects children, dogs starve to death*
chase's online bank service still facing problems*

defcon 9/9: sex, spies & vulnerabilities

craigslist unexpectedly pulls adult services listings*
cia money behind wi-fi positioning system, or wps*
google pays $8.5m to settle buzz privacy invasion suit*
video: google creepier & more omnipresent with 'instant search'*
court ok's warrantless cell-site tracking*
nsa: US must secure the internet*
dhs cybersecurity watchdogs miss 100s of vulnerabilities on their own network*
cyber task force passes mission to cyber command*
cyber warfare: US military hackers & internet spies*
canada unveils new speed bump: optical illusion of a child*

defcon 7/15: tracked, traced & databased

10 ways we are being tracked, traced & databased*
consumer group sniffs congresswoman's open wi-fi*
this is what it sounds like when the internet cries*
white house plan to safeguard cyberspace*
cybersecurity consensus: 'we haven't done enough'*
nasa space shuttle firm to cut 1,000 jobs*
hacking the electric grid? you and what army?*
fmr nsa exec thomas a. drake may pay high price for media leak*
nsa executive leaked after official reporting process failed*
mobile phones 'causing memory loss'*
US scientists create cloth that can listen, produce sound*
1000s of laptops stolen during 9hr heist*
video: teens using digital drugs to get high*