Tag Archive for: pizza

Child hacking warning for parents after boy, 8, orders AK-47 and free pizza online | UK | News

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Children as young as eight are learning to hack online

Children as young as eight are learning to hack online (stock image) (Image: Getty)

Parents have been warned to be careful of their child’s online behaviour after a UK mum says her eight-year-old son ordered a loaded AK-47 to their house.

Barbara told Express.co.uk about how her son got learned how to hack online from a young age – initially ordering pizza to their house for free, before having the fully automatic gun online delivered to her home as part of an online challenge.

Meanwhile, another young hacker tells of how he was expelled from school for breaking into their online systems after starting by simply watching YouTube.

Barbara said her son started to wake up “in the early hours to access the computer when the rest of the house was asleep.”

She added: “He was so involved in what he was doing that he had devised a coded language when speaking to people online, using phrases such as ‘Hey, Pitt is joining us.’… which meant I had entered the room and they needed to switch screens.

READ MORE Briton jailed in US for hijacking Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Barack Obama

“Once I cracked the code, I confronted him, and at this point the physical and mental stress he had put himself under finally made him reveal that he was collaborating with an international group of hackers.”

It started with the eight-year-old ordering pizzas to the house without paying for them from a local pizza company by tricking their computers into believing the food had been paid for, with his mother growing increasingly suspicious of his activities.

But Barbara stepped in when a fully loaded rifle arrived at the front door.

Her son had ordered it from the dark web, she said – an area of the internet only accessible through certain web browsers.

She said: “I was utterly shocked at first, I just couldn’t believe my son was capable of doing such things online. Subsequently, I felt worried and decided to take the matter into my own hands by seeking help from the police and reading up about the dark web.”

AK-47

The child used the dark web to order an AK-47 online as part of a challenge (stock image) (Image: Getty)

“I must say I was also impressed with his technical skills,” she added.

Barbara said he did it as part of…

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Social Security numbers stolen in California Pizza Kitchen data breach

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The Social Security numbers of more than 100,000 California Pizza Kitchen Inc. employees have been stolen in a data breach.

According to a Nov. 15 regulatory filing the company lodged with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the data breach was detected in September. How the data was stolen was not specified and described only as an “external data breach (hacking).”

In a breach notice to employees, both current and former, the company provided further information, saying it had detected “suspicious activity in its computing environment” on Sept. 15. Having detected something untoward, California Pizza Kitchen then secured the computing environment and engaged third-party computer specialists to launch an investigation. By Oct. 4, it says, it had confirmed that certain files could have been accessed without authorization.

While Social Security numbers were highlighted in the breach notice, data stolen also included the names of former and current employees.

California Pizza Kitchen went on with a stock-standard response to a data breach: efforts to secure its systems from future attack, reporting the incident to law enforcement and offering employees credit protection.

In a regular data breach case, that might usually be the end of the story but in this case, the lawyers are already circling. The law firm Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP said in a statement today that it’s investigating claims on behalf of current and former employees of California Pizza Kitchen whose information may have been stolen.

Although it doesn’t provide proof, the law firm claims that the data may already be for sale on the dark web, a shady corner of the internet where illegal activity thrives. It’s not an unreasonable suggestion, but likewise, names and Social Security numbers alone are not as appealing as a full data set of employee information. Still, the stolen data, if matched with other stolen data, could easily be used for nefarious purposes.

“Every business like California Pizza Kitchen possesses valuable personally identifiable information data, which makes them a prime target for attackers,” Bassam Al-Khalidi, founder, co-founder and co-chief executive…

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Monster Energy Loses Appeal On Monsta Pizza Trademark Ruling

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Monster Energy, maker of caffeinated liquid crank, has a long and legendary history of being roughly the most obnoxious trademark bully on the planet. It faces stiff competition in this arena of bad, of course, but it has always put up quite a fight to win that title. The company either sues or attempts to block trademarks for everything that could even possibly be barely linked to the term “monster” in any way. One such case was its opposition to a trademark registration for Monsta Pizza in the UK. Pizza is, of course, not a beverage, but that didn’t stop Monster Energy from trying to keep the pizza chain from its name. It lost that opposition, with the IPO pointing out that its citizens are not stupid enough to be confused between drinks and pizza.

And that should have been the end of the story, except that this is Monster Energy we’re talking about, so of course it appealed its loss. Its grounds for appeal amounted to “Nuh-uh! The public really might be confused!” Thankfully, Monster Energy lost this appeal as well.

However, the bid was rejected “in its entirety” at the Court of Appeal.

Chris Dominey, who founded travelling pizzeria Monsta with Christopher Lapham in 2017, said he had been “immensely relieved” to reach the end of the battle but the business remained in debt due to legal fees which could not be recouped.

He said: “It feels great, I have got my business back, and it does feel good to beat a ‘big bully’ so to speak. If you are confident that you are right you should go for it, but but I would tell other small businesses to beware that it does cost a lot of money.”

He’s not kidding. In all, Dominey’s business is out over eight thousand pounds in legal costs, having only been able to recover a fraction of what it cost him to defend his business against what appears to be a completely frivolous trademark opposition. That’s how trademark bullying works, of course. Large companies like Monster Energy rely on that onerous cost to be able to get away with its spurious demands. That simply is not how trademark law is supposed to work.

But in the modern age, there are ways a business can get its customers to help fight back against such bullying.

The business uses a monster-shaped pizza oven, which its logo is designed to represent, meaning a name change would have required considerable upheaval. Mr Dominey thanked people who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign which helped pay for some of the legal costs, and those who “gave us support and told us to keep fighting”.

The world needs more companies like Monsta Pizza fighting back against this kind of bullying to have a more global impact on trademark bullying. For now, we’ll just have to enjoy another Monster Energy loss.

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Monster Energy Loses Trademark Opposition With Monsta Pizza In The UK

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For readers of this site, we writers would simply need to utter the name “Monster Energy” to get their eyes rolling. The makers of energy beverages have been notorious in their trademark bullying habits and have built a reputation for being both blowhards and litigious. If one actually reviews our stories about the company, however, these bullying attempts just as often lead to pushback and losses for Monster Energy. And now it seems we have another such instance on our hands.

A little over a year ago, a pizza joint in the UK applied to register its business name, Monsta Pizza, as a trademark. Monster Energy, which again I will point out makes drinks and not pizza, immediately opposed the registration, citing its own trademarks and claiming that the public would somehow be confused. A year and lots of legal fees later, the trademark office has finally ruled that Monster Energy’s opposition is denied and Monsta Pizza’s mark will be granted. The pizza company will not need to change any of its branding moving forward. Monster Energy has also been ordered to pay some of Monsta Pizza’s legal fees.

The folks at Monsta Pizza are understandably pleased.

“On Thursday George Salthouse of the UK Intellectual Property Office ruled that Monster Energy Drinks had failed in their attempt to prevent us using the the name Monsta Pizza.

Its been a long and frustrating battle, which started in June 2017 when we applied to register our trademark, and finally ended in a tribunal hearing in London a few weeks ago and the decision last week.

They objected to our use of the word Monsta on all possible grounds. We decided to fight it rather than give up and rebrand for two reasons; firstly, we really like our name, it perfectly encompasses what we do and our customers like it too. And secondly, we believed their objection was wrong and we weren’t prepared to walk away from all our hard work just because a bully didn’t like what we were doing.

I’ve done that before and its the only thing I’ve ever really regretted.

We’re so pleased that common sense prevailed and incredibly grateful for the support and encouragement we received from everybody who heard about it when we finally made public what was going on.

Now that this is all over we’re roaring to go.

Or as the Monsta says, ‘Pizzaaaaaargh!’

As we’ve said before, trademark bullying often works, mostly because large companies can drown smaller companies in expensive litigation and oppositions. But it’s good to see that occasionally the victims of this bullying are willing to fight back, not to mention that courts occasionally lighten the burden by awarding legal fees.

That said, I don’t think anyone expects Monster Energy to cease being such a monster trademark bully.

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