Associated Press

A man fired from a Texas auto dealership used an Internet service to remotely disable ignitions and set off car horns of more than 100 vehicles sold at his old workplace, police said Wednesday.

Austin police arrested Omar Ramos-Lopez, 20, on Wednesday, charging him with felony breach of computer security.

Ramos-Lopez used a former colleague's password to deactivate starters and set off car horns, police said. Several car owners said they had to call tow trucks and were left stranded at work or home.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the world's No. 2 maker of computer microprocessors, reduced its CEO's pay package 14 percent last year. The company cut executives' pay in response to falling sales.

CEO Dirk Meyer received a package for the 2009 fiscal year that AMD valued at $4.5 million. That's according to Associated Press calculations based on a regulatory filing late Friday. For 2008, his pay package was valued at $5.3 million.

Ben Zimmer in Word Routes:

by Michael Blim

Michael Blim

Question: 

The Barack Obama Administration in its first year has been
characterized by: 

1.    
fecklessness

by Michael Blim

I have been participating in WeMedia events for years. I think the world of Andrew and Dale who started pulling this together when they were with the American Press Institute a few years back. WeMedia is an eclectic mix of leaders from new and traditional media and technology and marketing and…. That’s the point. It’s not another echo chamber event.
You should consider attending - especially as I have a neat code that gets you in at “friends of Ogilvy” pricing: WM-OGV.

The cracking of GSM encryption by 28-year-old German security expert Karsten Nohl has sent shock waves through the wireless industry. But the crack should come as no surprise to an industry that has long given short shrift to security, an analyst says.

Nohl -- working with others around the Internet -- has created a guidebook for cracking the Global System for Mobile communication's 64-bit A5/1 algorithm, which was adopted in 1988. 3G networks use 128-bit encryption to protect caller privacy and the new A5/3 algorithm is being "phased in," GSM Association spokesperson Claire Cranton said.

Like a much-awaited new book, the reviews of Barnes & Noble's nook e-reader are coming in -- and many are not exactly thumbs-up. Several major reviewers have criticized the device, which has been touted as the major competitor to Amazon's Kindle, as slow and clunky.

David Pogue of The New York Times, in a review Wednesday titled Not Yet the Season for a Nook, wrote that "every one of the nook's vaunted distinctions come fraught with buzz-kill footnotes."

'Balky and Non-Responsive'

Hoping to use its youth megaphone to counter "digital abuse," MTV announced Thursday a multi-year initiative called A Thin Line that includes a coalition of organizations, special programming, and public-service announcements. Digital abuse includes "sexting" -- sending sexually provocative texts and pictures by cell phones -- as well as cyberbullying and digital dating abuse.