Facebook Can Get You Killed

"WHNT NEWS 19 is tracking down new details on a murder-suicide in South Huntsville including information that shows the shooter and victim were friends at one time.

"Alan Brown is the man police say shot and killed another man before taking his own life. A friend of Brown says he leaves behind two children, a teenage son and a young daughter.

"The murder-suicide happened at an apartment off South Memorial Parkway. Witnesses in the area say they heard the two men arguing before hearing gunfire.

"WHNT NEWS 19 has uncovered a string of internet activity that links Brown to Lowhorne. It's on the social networking site, Facebook. We found postings from April made by Brown on Lowhorne's business page on Facebook. The comments were in a joking nature indicating the two may have been friends.

"There is also a recent picture on Lowhorne's personal Facebook page showing him with Alan Brown's wife, Christine, atop Lookout Mountain. Other postings on the page point to Lowhorne and Christine Brown having a romantic relationship. The page also show just a matter of hours before his death, Lowhorne had just changed his status on Facebook to `in a relationship.`

"WHNT NEWS 19 spoke with one of Brown's friends. Adrienne Griggs said Alan Brown, Christine Brown, and Ben Lowhorne were indeed friends. She also says her friend never showed he had the ability to kill anyone. The same friend believes something set Brown off.

"`I just couldn't see him doing anything like this. He was an extremely nice person,` said Griggs."

From WHNT News...

Microsoft: Sleeping With The Enemy... Again

"Microsoft has signed a deal to open its Windows 7 source code up to the Russian intelligence services.

"Russian publication Vedomosti reported on Wednesday that Microsoft had also given the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) access to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server source code, with hopes of improving Microsoft sales to the Russian state.

"The agreement will allow state bodies to study the source code and develop cryptography for the Microsoft products through the Science-Technical Centre 'Atlas', a government body controlled by the Ministry of Communications and Press, according to Vedomosti."

More at ZDNet UK...

IT Contractor Of The Month

"A former IT worker for the Bank of New York has admitted to stealing personal information of 2,000 employees and using it to steal more than $1m from charity bank accounts, city prosecutors said.

"Adeniyi Adeyemi, 27, used his position as a contract computer technician at the bank's headquarters to steal the personal identifying information of 2,000 employees, most of whom worked in the IT department. Over an eight-year span, he used the information to set up dummy bank accounts in the employees' names and then transfer stolen funds from at least 11 charities throughout the world.

"Adeyemi used publicly available routing numbers for the charities to initiate wire transfers through financial sites such as ETrade and Fidelity and deposit them into the dummy accounts. To better cover his tracks, he then transferred the funds to a second layer of dummy accounts, according to a press release issued by the New York City District Attorney."

From The Register...

$30M ERP Clusterf*ck

"California's Marin County has sued Deloitte Consulting LLP for $30 million over an allegedly botched SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project.

"The lawsuit, filed in Marin County Superior Court last Friday, accuses Deloitte of misrepresenting its skills and capabilities when originally pitching for the project in 2004.

"The 38-page complaint alleges that Deloitte was lying when the company promised to assemble a team of its "best resources" for the project and when it claimed to have `deep SAP and public sector knowledge` when marketing itself to the county.

"Deloitte's misrepresentation of facts resulted in a defectively designed and deficiently implemented project that resulted in the county having to pay millions of dollars to remedy, the lawsuit alleged.

"Meanwhile, Deloitte is claiming that it fulfilled all of its obligations under the contract..."

More at ComputerWorld...

Google To Defenestrate Windows

"Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees.

"The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.

"`We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,` said one Google employee.

"`Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,` said another.

"New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. `Linux is open source and we feel good about it,` said one employee. `Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.`"

More at FT.com...

Tax Dollars To Fund Government Time-Waster

"Federal employees and managers will be able to meet, interact, train and learn together in a government-only online virtual world being created in the vGov project.

"The Agriculture and Homeland Security departments, Air Force and National Defense University iCollege have joined to create the vGov virtual world behind a secure firewall that can only be accessed by federal employees with authenticated identities.

"Paulette Robinson, assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the iCollege, said at the Gov 2.0 Expo today the project will use the three-dimensional immersive experience of virtual worlds to bring employees together from locations worldwide for real-time interactions. People will use avatars to appear in the virtual world, where they can chat with other avatars and interact with the environment."

More at Federal Computer Weekly...

Tech CEOs Play Fiddle While Rome Burns

"Data security and breach prevention ranks low as a risk factor for most big technical companies, according to new research that identifies the most widespread concerns among the 100 largest U.S. public technology companies. The research, released by BDO, a professional services firm, examines the risk factors listed in the fiscal year 2009 10-K SEC filings of the companies; the factors were analyzed and ranked in order by frequency cited.

"Among security risks, natural disasters, wars, conflicts and terrorist attacks were cited by 55 percent of respondents as a risk concern and was 16th on the list, much higher than breaches of technology security, privacy and theft, which was mentioned by 44 percent of the companies, putting it at 23rd on the list..."

More at NetworkWorld...