Interesting news updates from the last week

450,000 ‘Yahoo! Voices’ passwords hacked
In yet another password breach and exposure, around 450,000 login credentials affiliated to Yahoo! Voices were released on the web. The group responsible, D33ds, has said that they hope to raise awareness about password security. Yahoo! had stored these credentials in plain text, which is just ludicrous. Moreover, people continue to risk their accounts by using simple passwords like ‘123456’, ‘password’, ‘welcome’ etc. Web services need to hash and salt their password databases whereas people need to start using stronger passwords to avoid such incidents.

Facebook scans chats and posts for criminal activities
In rather reassuring news, Facebook scans through various posts and chats in order to catch users indulging in criminal activities. This rarely discussed technology informs employees when potential criminal keywords enter into conversations and this is something Facebook should be commended for. Many young adults may not be too happy about this but its usefulness cannot be debated. In other news, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter makes many users feel insecure about themselves.

Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. refrain from offering phone support
If you have ever wondered why Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like don’t offer phone support, it’s because they just don’t want to. Since their business models are based online they prefer to deal with user issues and customer support online as well. They stay away from phone support and subtly discourage people from using this channel. There are some users however, who just prefer the sound of a human voice when they have a grievance to air.

Wearable tech designed for US Army pilots
Wearable technology like Google Glasses are creating waves in the tech world. It is almost certain that law enforcement agencies and armies will be early adopters. The U.S. Army is working on such designs and you can read about the Aviation Warrior system here. The technology works on Android and Windows systems and contains a portable computing device, a display panel attached to the wrist and a helmet with a flip-down viewing monocle. As of now the devices are being designed for pilots, but in the not too distant future they are sure to be adopted by other soldiers and law enforcement personnel as well.

Rahul Thadani