After heightened hacks, Twitter releases two-factor authentication

Twitter launched its two-factor authentication security product today, which will take the form of text message codes. The move comes after a number of publications were hacked, resulting, in one case, in a reaction from Wall Street.

AVG buys web privacy firm PrivacyChoice & its smart Privacyfix dashboard

Web security firm AVG has already demonstrated its dedication to user privacy by adding Do Not Track to its software. Now it's doubling down on that by buying privacy firm PrivacyChoice.

This $22K sniper rifle comes with a WiFi server, USB ports, an iPad mini … and aims itself

"Think of it like a smart rifle. You have a smart car; you got a smartphone; well, now we have a smart rifle," company President Jason Schauble says.

Pentagon gives green light: Now those hundreds of thousands of iPhones, iPads, and iPods can actually be used

The problem with clearing smartphones for use in top secret environments is that they are, essentially, full of radios: Bluetooth, WiFi, cellular.

Google Glass faces hailstorm of privacy questions from U.S. government

Congress sent Google a letter recently demanding to know just how the company plans to protect the privacy of Google Glass users -- and non-users.

Senate immigration reform bill would create a national biometric database for adult Americans

Critics fear it will be like creating a national identity card.

Apple has a waiting list for law enforcement iPhone access requests

Apple is wait-listing law enforcement when they ask the company to unlock iPhones and other devices as a part of evidence discovery.

Cloud data-protection firm PerspecSys raises $12M, plans for global sales push

PerspecSys, the Toronto-based cloud data protection company, has closed $12 million in its second round of funding. The company plans to use the capital injection to further develop global sales and marketing efforts and continue product development.

450M lines of code say large open source and small closed source software projects are worst quality

The good news is that software keeps getting better, with fewer than one error per thousand lines of code. The bad news is that both large open-source projects and small proprietary software projects tend to have worse quality than average.

Mass marketing vs personalization (infographic)

We're going back to the future, according to Monetate: going back to a time when all commerce was personal.

Obama steals new privacy head away from Twitter

Twitter is losing its legal director Nicole Wong to the White House in the name of privacy. President Obama has tapped her as his newest Chief Privacy Officer.

Google Glass is the new Segway

Really, you wouldn't have thought a proposal to Borg the entire human species would have met with such resistance.

Pentagon directly accuses China of hacking to steal U.S. defense intelligence

The Pentagon spoke out about Chinese government-sponsored hacking today, directly accusing the country of "intelligence collection."

McAfee to buy network security biz Stonesoft for $389M cash

Security heavyweight McAfee has agreed to acquire network firewall business Stonesoft for $389 million in cash so it can offer more powerful firewall protection to its clients.

Avast acquires Secure.me in privacy/security lovefest

"I am overwhelmed that our vision has reached its destination," wrote Secure.me co-founder Mario Grobholz on the company blog. "The deal with Avast is the most crucial milestone in our company’s history."