Microsoft Twitter accounts hit again by Syrian Electronic Army

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) hacktivist group has hijacked the Microsoft News and Xbox Support Twitter accounts, marking the second attack on the firm's social media accounts this year.
The SEA targeted the accounts over the weekend, leaving tweets that said: "The Syrian Electronic Army was here." Blogs on its Technet pages were also compromised for a short time. Microsoft confirmed in a statement to V3  its services were breached, but said no user data was affected.
The statement said: "Microsoft is aware of targeted cyber attacks that temporarily affected the Xbox Support and Microsoft News Twitter accounts. The accounts were quickly reset and we can confirm that no customer information was compromised."
The offending messages from its accounts and blogs have now been deleted.
The attack is the second by the SEA to target Microsoft's Twitter accounts this year. The SEA hacked into Skype's blog and Twitter accounts earlier this year. In the previous attack the SEA used the hijacked accounts to post a series of messages criticising Microsoft's privacy practices.
The hacks will no doubt serve as an embarrassment to Microsoft, especially as it would have been working to try and ensure a similar incident could not happen again. The SEA said the attack was designed to punish Microsoft for its supposed involvement in the National Security Agency's (NSA) PRISM campaign.
News of the PRISM campaign broke in 2013 when ex-CIA analyst Edward Snowden leaked documents to the press proving that the NSA was siphoning vast amounts of web user data from several companies, including Microsoft.
The NSA has since moved to downplay the significance of PRISM, claiming its agents only saw 0.00004 percent of the world's web traffic during their missions. Experts have since warned that the PRISM campaign will cause lasting damage to the global economy, despite the NSA's claim.

Google creates privacy concerns with Gmail and Google+ email address sharing plans

Google has raised questions over privacy with the announcement of a new Gmail feature that allows users to email people without knowing their email addresses. The function, which links users' Gmail and Google+ contact lists, will be opt-out, so users who do not want to receive unsolicited emails will have to alter their privacy settings.
Every Google+ user – apart from celebrities and public figures with many followers – will by default be able to receive messages from anybody using Gmail who has added them to their Circles. The email address of the recipient is not revealed unless they reply (pictured below). This policy differs slightly to Facebook, which allows users to reply but keeps the interactions within the Facebook platform.

With Gmail, emails sent in this way will end up in the "social" section of a user's inbox, which separates marketing, personal and social media emails into separate inboxes, depending on a user's preference.
Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), told Reuters the new feature was "troubling", likening it to the Google Buzz tool, which automatically created social networks based on users' email address books. Google Buzz was shut down in 2013 after the firm settled with the Federal Trade Commission two years earlier.
Google is making the most of Gmail's huge user base, attempting to entice users to its other products such as Google+. While the Google+ user base continues to grow – to beyond 300 million active users, according to Google – several of the firm's services now require a Google+ sign-up in order to use them, such as YouTube.
Google said in a blog post that it would be sending emails to users to fully explain the change as the feature is gradually rolled out. David Nachum, product manager, tried to explain the positive behind the move: "Have you ever started typing an email to someone only to realize halfway through the draft that you haven't actually exchanged email addresses?"
If you are nodding your head 'yes' and already have a Google+ profile, then you’re in luck, because now it's easier for people using Gmail and Google+ to connect over email."
However, it looks as if Google is opening itself up for another privacy backlash, at a time when it is being hit with fines for its privacy policies in nations across Europe.