Hacked Twitter accounts can be more valuable than stolen credit cards

Hackers operate by the same rules of economics as we all do. Thanks to a high profile breach like Target's , a glut of stolen credit cards has made them cheap cheap cheap. So you know what's a more valuable target these days? Your Twitter account. 

That's all outlined in a new cybercrime report by RAND Corporation and Juniper Networks that delves into the economics of hacking. Days after a breach, credit cards along with home addresses and account information appear for sale in the black market. They're valuable at first-fetching $20 to $135 each-but quickly plummet in value, dropping to as low as 75 cents per account. 

Meanwhile, social media accounts can range from $16 to $325+ depending on the account. It's not just your followers that hackers are after. As social media has become part of the fabric of our lives, access to a Twitter account gives hackers access to a whole lot more. Michael Callahan explains it on Juniper Networks's blog about the report: 

Depth: Social media and other credentials include usernames and passwords, which can often be used as an entry point to launch attacks on that person's accounts on a number of other sites. Given the number of people that tend to use the same username and passwords, hacking one account can often yield other valuable information such as online banking or e-commerce accounts. By stealing Joe Smith's account information on one site, the criminal might gain access to his information on 10 sites. 

Reach: An individual's stolen account information can be used to spear-phish the accounts of friends, family and co-workers for additional financial gain. 

Silicon Valley is no country for old men

Dr Seth Matarasso is a cosmetic surgeon in San Francisco. When he started his practice two decades ago, his patients were middle-aged and female. Today, most of his patients are from Silicon Valley, and in their twenties. 

Tech is young people's business. This is an impression that has been reinforced by the images of a young Jobs and Wozniak, beaming over their prototype Apple II, or by Mark Zuckerberg telling a Stanford audience that "young people are just smarter" and companies saying that they want people who have "Their Best Work Ahead of Them, Not Behind Them."

The New Republic's Noam Scheiber looks at the extreme ageism of Silicon Valley. He quotes an engineer in his 40s who met a tech CEO who was trying to acquire the company he worked for. The CEO looked at him and said: "You must be the token graybeard." The engineer responded that he was the token grown-up . 

Snappy comebacks apart, Silicon Valley is notorious for its prejudice against older people. "In 2011, Google settled a multimillion-dollar claim brought by a computer scientist named Brian Reid, who had been fired when he was 54. Reid said colleagues and supervisors had frequently referred to him as 'an old man' and 'an old fuddy-duddy' ... ". 

Scheiber follows the attempts of Nick Stamos, a 40-something techie and former CTO of a billion -dollar tech company, to raise venture funding for his idea. Stamos gets steadily frustrated as VCs happily fund companies founded by pimply kids with half-baked ideas, throwing in good money after bad. The funders he talks to believe that his idea is good, and his grasp of technology is excellent, but when it comes to funding, they say nothing. 

Ultimately, the idea of young innovators may just be a mirage. About 15% of the winners of the Nobel prize in scientific disciplines are in their 20s - and the percentage holds good for 50-somethings as well.

How Employers Can Create a Sustainable Culture of Empowerment

A recent CareerBuilder survey suggests that 21% of workers plan to change jobs this year -– a 17% jump from last year, and the highest percentage since the recession.

For employers, this turnover rate can be a frightening thought, especially when you consider the potential impact that the loss of an employee can have on productivity and morale. In this competitive environment, many employers are likely wondering how to keep their brightest stars and how to bring promising fresh blood neatly into the fold.

Not long ago, Big Spaceship held a hack day, in which members of our crew could self-organize to produce anything that made our agency a better place. There were a number of results — from solutions for a healthy workplace to tools to appreciate daily moments of humor and joy. Big Spaceship has been evolving its culture for 14 years, but it wasn’t until recently that a printed book -– a rarity in the digital age -– would illuminate the ins and outs of our company values and what they mean to employees new and old.

In depth: The future of facial recognition: big brother or our new best friend?

The future of facial reconigiton

For better or worse facial recognition has become the technological elephant in the room. It's there, but nobody really likes to think about or talk about too much.

Despite the continued advancements of software and algorithms that would elicit gasps of awe in some of the other tech sectors, the ever-improving ability for machines to put a name to human faces is considered, in most cases, unwelcome.

Take Facebook's recent unveiling of its DeepFace research paper for example. The algorithm, which is still seemingly long way from being integrated into consumer-facing element of the social network, uses 3D analysis of human faces to identify them with a 97.25 per cent success rate. The human brain only can do a fractionally better job with 97.5 per cent.

As incredible as that breakthrough appears to be, you'll struggle to find reports that don't contain words like "creepy," "scary," or "stalkerish," just like the verdicts on Facebook's previous iterations of identifying tech, that have been protested in some countries and banned in plenty of others.

Which Version of Microsoft Office Is Best For Your Needs?

Which Version of Microsoft Office Is Best For Your Needs? is a post by Travis Pope from Gotta Be Mobile.

Microsoft’s Office suite of productivity apps aren’t just best in class. Chances are that if you’re have a business of some scale or are a student you live in Office’s Word, the suite’s word processing utility. With all of that utility and power comes a big problem: there are a handful of different versions of Microsoft Office 2013, all with their own unique features, distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Here’s how to cut through all of that noise and choose the version of Microsoft Office that is best for your needs.

Office 365

We’ll begin with the newest and most important version of Office, Office 365. To understand why it’s so important, you first have to understand that Office 365 isn’t a program in the traditional sense of the word. Yes, there’s still a local version installed on your computer, but instead of paying one flat fee for a version of Microsoft Office that never updates, Office 365 essentially allows users to rent five copies of Microsoft Office for $99.99 per year, or $9.99 a month. That’s right, Office 365 isn’t a one-time purchase. It’s a subscription service.

Subscribers to Office 365 get Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher and Outlook on their Windows 7, Windows 8 or Mac devices. They also get access to the mobile phone versions including Office for iPhone, Office for Android phones and Office for iPad. Office 365 will also sync your documents between multiple devices if you want it too.

Really, there are only two problems with Office 365. One is pricing. A standard version of Office 2013 Home and Student, includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for $139. While it’s true that copy can only be used on one PC instead of five and doesn’t include Access or Outlook, I still think it’s a better deal for anyone who doesn’t need those particular apps.

What happens when you stop paying for Office 365 is the other big issue. Users will still be able to read their documents in the online version of Office and in Office on other PCs, but their desktop version of Office will stop working if they’ve stopped paying on it.

For big families Office 365 is great deal. For any single person looking for Office 2013, picking up a copy of Office Home & Student 2013 is a much better deal over the long-term.

Office Online

Though not as new to the Office ecosystem as Office 365, Office Online is still a fairly new product for Microsoft. Think of Office Online as a web app like its Outlook email service. Microsoft continuously updates the suite’s copies of Word Online, OneNote Online, PowerPoint Online and Excel Online. As such, you’re always up to date. The trick is that Office Online lives in the web browser. As such, users need to be connected to the internet to use it.

Office Online ’s free price tag makes it great for anyone just looking to edit a few documents. Users can store and download any documents created in Office Online to their PC, Mac or any other device. Documents are automatically stored on Microsoft’s OneDrive service for free by default. These apps aren’t as feature rich as their Office 2013 desktop counterparts, though. I suspect casual users will be hard-pressed to find the difference despite this.

Office 2013

Lastly, there’s Office 2013, or what people traditionally think of when buying Microsoft Office. It’s literally a software package that users install on their PCs. Which version you choose depends heavily on your specific use case.

Office Home & Student 2013 allows one user to install Word for writing documents, Excel for making spreadsheets, PowerPoint for presentations and the OneNote note taking app on their PC for $139.99. As the name suggests, home users, students and anyone that doesn’t need Outlook are better off purchasing this version.

Office Home & Business also includes one install of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. It adds Outlook, Microsoft’s email and calendar utility and a bit more to the base price tag. This version costs $219. If you must have Outlook because you run a business or belong to a business that relies on Outlook than this is the way to go.

Finally, there’s Office Professional 2013. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook and Publisher for making flyers, banners and newsletters. There’s also Microsoft’s Access database software here too, for those who really need it. This version costs a rather robust $399.99 and can only be installed on one PC too.

Buying either of these versions is great as long as you don’t need to install Microsoft Office on more than one machine. If you need more installs, paying for Office 365 could quickly turn into a better short-term deal for you.

Either way you go, Microsoft Office is the world’s premiere productivity suite. Millions of buyers use one of these versions of Office to get work done every day. Don’t be intimidated by your choices. Examine which apps you might need and which ones you won’t use. Office 365 is the only way iPhone, iPad and Android users are going to get their hands on mobile versions of Office, take that into consideration too. Look at how many devices you need to install it on and go from there.

IIM-Indore graduate gets Rs 32 lakh annual salary offer

A salary offer of Rs 32 lakh by a domestic company is the highest in the current year's placement programme at Indian Institute of Management, Indore. 

This year's highest offer is Rs 2 lakh less than best one last year. 

Without disclosing the details of the employer, an IIM spokesman said the highest package of Rs 32 lakh per annum was offered to a student of PGP 2012-14 batch for appointment in India. 

Various companies that took part in the placement programme offered jobs to all 475 pass-outs of the 2012-14 batch. The average annual package offered was Rs 12.13 lakh to the participants, he said. 

A total of 152 companies showed interest in taking part in the placement process and out of them, 41 came for the first time. 

The maximum (26 per cent) jobs were offered in the sales and marketing line while 24 per cent were from the consulting side. 20 per cent students bagged the opportunities in financial sector, 13 per cent in general management, human resources, 10 per cent in IT and seven per cent in operations. 

Earlier, IIM-Indore chairman K V Kamath distributed diplomas to nearly 638 students of different programmes during the annual convocation ceremony in the presence of noted historian and writer Ramchandra Guha. 

Addressing the pass-outs, Guha said the country is facing challenges in various fields and the nation badly needs good leaders in every field. 

Kamath also addressed the young managers and called upon them to become good leader in their respective fields as this is the right time to do so. 

He also expressed regret over collapse of a dais yesterday during photo session before the convocation in which nearly 24 students suffered injuries. Five seriously injured students were admitted to a hospital in Indore. 

Kamath has constituted a committee to probe the mishap which will submit its report within two weeks.

Executives to expect 15-20 per cent salary hike: Experts

With economic prospects looking better, executives are expected to see their pay packets increase as much as 20 per cent in the next financial, feel experts. Although the salary hikes could see significant variations across sectors, pharmaceutical and automobile industries are likely to see the maximum increases, HR experts said.

"The expected hike is estimated to be 15-20 per cent. It should be better as economy is looking upwards," HR firm Unison International's Managing Director Udit Mittal said. According to him, some multinational companies might also extend additional perks to their senior level executives.

Latest projections by executive search firm MANCER Consulting showed that middle and senior level professionals in the country are likely to get a pay hike in the range of 10 to 20 per cent. Similar increases could also been with respect to bonuses.

MANCER Consulting CEO Satya D Sinha said executives especially in the pharmaceutical, automobile and realty sectors, are expected to see better appraisals next fiscal.

While pharmaceutical industry is anticipated to get salary hike of 14-15 per cent, that in automobile segment is likely to 13-14 per cent. Real estate sector is projected to register 12-14 per cent increase in pay packets. Executive search firm Spectrum Talent Management's Director Vidur Gupta said that sectors such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and consumer goods sectors, that are largely dependent on domestic economy, could see significant hikes.

"With a general election to be concluded by the end of May 2014, many are looking to the country's next government to break India out of its economic doldrums. "A stable government will definitely have a positive impact on the overall economic condition and hence there will be something good for employees as well," he said.

Striking an optimistic note for the coming months, Sinha said services, mining, construction and infrastructure are expected to up their hiring activities as well as increase salaries.

"A hike of 2-4 per cent is expected in hiring in 2014. This is owing to positive growth in GDP and high expectations from Lok Saba Elections in 2014," he noted. Experts also opined that companies need to be careful while carrying out appraisals since there is need to retain performers and provide them with decent pay hikes.