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Just in case you don’t think that using the same, easy to guess password for all of your online accounts won’t come back to haunt you, think again.

Last week, the website TechCrunch.com, reported that a Twitter account containing confidential Twitter documents had been hacked into, and the documents had been published online. Now, the hacker himself, known as Hacker Croll, has revealed to Tech Crunch that he used “Hotmail’s inactive account feature.” to accomplish the hack.

According to Hacker Croll, he was able to access the Twitter account of an employee of Twitter by researching the employee online in order to gain information that would help him to guess their Gmail account password. This helped the hacker to ascertain that the Twitter account was also associated with a Hotmail account, which was currently inactive, but he was able to reset the account and specify a password of his own.

ComputerWorld.Com reports that Twitter is now threatening legal action against some of the sites, including TechCrunch, that have published the stolen documents, but that legal experts were not sure if this would actually succeed.

With so much personal information being stored online nowadays, it only makes sense to take extra security measures when it comes to passwords. So if your password for everything is something that is easy to guess, i.e. your birthday, middle name, or child’s name, you owe it to yourself to consider changing it to something more secure.

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No Clean Feed
Image by trib via Flickr

What some are calling the “great Aussie Firewall” may make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries if the measure is approved, reports Yahoo! Tech News.

The mandatory filter would block access to some 1,300 government prohibited sites, including sites that feature or advocate drug use, terrorism, child pornography, graphically excessive violence and other controversial issues/topics. Critics insist that this measure, if approved is nothing less than censorship and that the money would be better spent on raising awareness about the prohibited topics.

“The filter may not be able to in fact protect children from the core elements of the Internet that they are actually experiencing danger in, “ Holly Doel-Mackaway, an adviser with Save The Children, one of the world’s largest child advocacy groups, told Yahoo recently.

Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, who proposed the filter, told the Associated Press via email that “this is not an argument about free speech.”

“We have laws about the sort of material that is acceptable across all mediums and the Internet is no different. Currently, some material is banned and we are simply seeking to use technology to ensure those bans are working.”

This proposed filter announcement comes in the wake of a recent historic ruling by Australian officials, which allowed a lawyer to serve a lien on behalf of his client via FaceBook.

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New York Proposes Electronic IPOD Download Tax

December 22, 2008

In what one industry trade group is calling a
“stupid” idea, New York Gov. David Patterson
recently announced this tax, dubbed “the iPod tax”
or iTax” by the media, as one of 137 proposed tax
increases in an attempt to allow the state to recover from a
$15.4 billion short fall.
According to the state budget website, “with the passage
of this [...]

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More Movie Studios Turning To Online Marketing Campaigns

December 9, 2008

According to a recent study, film trailers, and radio and TV ads are no longer the primary way that movie studios advertise their newest releases. Since so many people utilize the Internet, social networks, mobile phones, and other electronic means of communication, studios and marketing agencies are turning to them to [...]

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DeBeers Demands Disablement Of Parody Website

December 8, 2008

Diamond mega-conglomerate, South Africa-based De Beers, is doing its best to shut down the domain Joker.com, a spoof website, which recently published a fake De Beers ad. Joker.com is similar to The Onion in that is a parody news and pop culture website, and also publishes free newspaper-style inserts.
One such insert, a [...]

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Amazon.Com To Base Holiday Marketing Strategy On Customer Reviews

December 1, 2008

As Black Friday ushers in the official start of the holiday shopping season, online retailers like Amazon.com are doing their best to attract and retain customers. I’ve personally seen many online deals advertised (some in my own inbox) with promises of deep discounts, free shipping, and other incentives.
Amazon.com announced recently that it has formed a [...]

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Spyware-Pornography Case Against Former Teacher Closed

November 25, 2008

Four years ago, Julie Aronson, Connecticut substitute teacher, faced up to 40 years in prison after being convicted of endangering minors. Why? Apparently, her computer became infected with spyware that started displaying pornographic images, which were inadvertently viewed by the students in her class.
Computer security professionals, including Sunbelt Software Inc, CEO Alex [...]

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Ice Cream Chain Launches Mobile Marketing Campaign

November 24, 2008

The Marble Slab ice cream chain is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a mobile marketing campaign called “Gr8 2 Go,” reports Dianna Dilworth of DMNews. As we’ve previously reported on this blog, mobile marketing campaigns are all the rage, so to speak, with advertisers, and have been used to sell everything [...]

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Cat Food: The Next Big Thing In Social Media Marketing?

November 17, 2008

As more businesses realize the value of interactive website
features and social media techniques, DelMonte, makers of Meow Mix cat food, has recently debuted a new interactive website and a game show to promote its new Wholesome Goodness line of cat food.
The website features interactive games called Cat Capades, which allows players to use their “house [...]

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Yahoo! Expands Yahoo Buzz

November 10, 2008

Image via CrunchBase

Yahoo Inc recently added new social features to its Yahoo buzz social news site, currently in beta version. Among the new features are the ability for users to incorporate information from their Yahoo profile onto the site, and an updates section which allows users to find content that their friends [...]

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