Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
Sony officials held a news conference in early May
in Tokyo. They apologized for the theft of personal
information from millions of users of the company's
online services. Hackers targeted Sony's PlayStation
Network, Sony Online Entertainment and Qriocity
music systems. In all, Sony says information may
have been stolen from more than one hundred million
accounts. The data includes information like names,
addresses, phone numbers and birthdates. In some
cases, even credit and debit card numbers may have
been stolen. The United States Federal Bureau of
Investigation is looking into the cyber attacks.
Sony shut down its PlayStation Network on April
twentieth. The company is being criticized for not
telling its users about the stolen information until
a week later. Sony has also been criticized for not
making its accounts more secure by encrypting the
data. Sony officials say they have now taken steps
to improve security. Peter Warren is chairman of the
Cyber Security Research Institute in London. His
group studies technology crimes and their effects on
our computer-dependent world. Mr. Warren points out
that what happened at Sony is not rare: "We've seen
a number of very large companies that have suffered
some tremendously embarrassing losses of data."The
problem, he says, is that there is far more interest
in developing technology than in keeping it safe. As
he puts it: "Lots and lots of people are being
allowed to connect a lot of technology up before
it's really been particularly well-tested." Peter
Warren also points out that many people have a false
sense of security online. "On the Internet," he
says," they seem to be so blindly trusting of
anybody and of any website, no matter how suspicious
it may look." His message to users is simple: try to
be more careful on websites. He says: "The Internet
is just like any other street and there are some
twists and turns that can take you in to some very,
very unsavory places."For VOA Special English, I'm
Alex Villarreal. To read and listen to more
technology news and for English teaching activities,
go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us
on Twitter and like us on Facebook at VOA Learning
English.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
