A start-up has launched a service meant to let people check if their personal data is being traded online by criminals, but critics say it could be a boon for those same crooks.

The service, dubbed “StolenID Search,” lets anyone with an Internet connection search a database with more than 2 million credit card and Social Security numbers found in the dark alleys of the Internet, Redwood City, Calif.-based TrustedID, said Tuesday.

“This is an opportunity for any consumer to find out whether or not their credit card number or Social Security number has been compromised,” Scott Mitic, TrustedID’s chief executive, said in an interview. “In many cases, absent this service, there is no way for consumers to find out if their data has been compromised until it is too late.”

Source: News.com

China is on pace to surpass the United States within two years as the nation with the most Internet users, the government and news reports said Wednesday.

China’s online population grew by 23.4 percent last year to 137 million people, about 10 percent of its 1.3 billion population, the China Internet Network Information Center reported on its Web site.

“We believe it will take two years at most for China to overtake the United States,” the official China Daily newspaper quoted an official of the agency, Wang Enhai, as saying.

About 210 million of the United States’ 300 million people are online, according to the U.S. government. China would reach 210 million users in two years if it keeps up a 24 percent annual growth rate.

Source: AP

Microsoft on Monday released a utility that allows users to edit photo file metadata from within Windows Explorer.

Microsoft Photo Info 1.0, available for free download, can edit image files with EXIF and IPTC info by batch, as well as individually.

Source: News.com

Sun Microsystems Inc. returned to solid profitability Tuesday after years of red ink, easily exceeding Wall Street’s tepid expectations thanks to the growing popularity of its corporate computers and its newest operating system for servers.

For the three months ended Dec. 31, the server and software maker earned $126 million, or 3 cents per share, up from a net loss of $223 million, or 7 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Fiscal first-quarter revenue totaled $3.57 billion, up 7 percent from $3.34 billion in the year-ago period.

Excluding special expenses, including $58 million in stock-based compensation charges and $26 million in restructuring costs, Sun earned $148 million, or 4 cents per share.

On that basis, which does not comply with generally accepted accounting principles, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected the company to earn $26.4 million, or 1 cent per share, on sales of $3.52 billion.

The earnings report ends years of losses for Santa Clara-based Sun — one of the highest-flying companies during the 1990s Internet boom. It bled more than $5 billion since 2002, when computer-related spending dried up and lower-cost offerings from competitors encroached on Sun’s turf.

Source: AP

Malware designed to steal users’ Windows Live Messenger password has been released onto the net. The password stealer was released for download via BitTorrent earlier this week by a hacker using the handle “Our Godfather”.

The malware comes in the form of an IMB download confirmed by anti-virus firm Sophos as containing a password-stealing Trojan horse. Victims would need to be tricked into downloading and executing the malware, which might be renamed in a bid to disguise its identity, in order for the exploit to work.

“It displays a fake Windows Live Messenger Login Screen and prompts for login details. Username and password are captured and stored in C:\pas.txt,” explained Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley.

Source: The Register

Malicious software that was sent out in millions of spam messages over the weekend has now infected about 300,000 computers, making it the worst malware outbreak since 2005, Symantec said Monday.

The so called “Storm Worm” e-mail messages first started appearing last Wednesday, advertising attached news reports on topics like “230 Dead as storm batters Europe,” or “U.S. Secretary of Sate Condoleeza Rice has kicked German Chancellor.”

The attachments have names such as “Full Story.exe” or “Full Video.exe.” Once they are launched, these files install malicious software that then waits to receive further instructions over the Internet.

Source: Yahoo

Popular online social network MySpace said on Tuesday it will begin sending online alerts to users in certain U.S. regions to help find missing children as part of an expansion of plans to expand safeguards for users.

MySpace struck a partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to enable MySpace AMBER alerts, a program between the media and law enforcement to issue early warning broadcast bulletins in serious child abduction cases.

It is part of an upgrade by News Corp.-owned MySpace of safety features designed to address concerns of child safety advocates, some of whom say it has been slow to keep its many teenage members safe from adult predators.

Source: Reuters