The hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow turns Google into a vulnerability scanner that scours Web sites for sensitive information, namely passwords and server flaws. Storage titan EMC buys Pi for its online storage functionality and, in so doing, rounds out its cloud computing initiative and continues marching into the consumer and personal data realm. Chipmaker AMD says it is making its performance library available as open source code so that developers can more easily and effectively build applications for x86 machines. Researchers at Princeton University find that hard drive encryption has an Achilles’ Heel, as they discover a trick for stealing encryption keys to access all of the data stored on a drive. Quebec police arrest 17 and break up a hacking ring that, they allege, is responsible for $44.3 million in damages to computer systems. And the strategy Microsoft unwrapped yesterday, along with open APIs may help Microsoft repair its tarnished reputation in the technology industry, though skeptics, including the European Commission, question whether Microsoft will really change its business practices, or truly be a friend to the open source community. Software Development