If hackers have it their way, you may not be getting that tax refund from the IRS. Online thieves were recently able to get their hands on taxpayer identification numbers before the Internal Revenue Service detected the attack and shut it down, the agency revealed Tuesday. The “Electronic Filing PINs,” meant to ensure information is …

Where are you right now? Can I see a list of everyone you know? Can I look through your photos? Those are impertinent questions from any source, including your smartphone. So it’s no surprise that people who use Google’s Android smartphone software wish they could say “no” more often. That’s according to a study presented Thursday at a Federal Trade …

Top federal law enforcement and security officials are in Silicon Valley on Friday, meeting with representatives from the biggest names in tech. At issue: how tech and government can work together to fight terrorism. The summit highlights the government’s heightened sense of urgency in the wake of the San Bernardino, California, shootings last month, when followers of the Islamic State …

This story is part of CES 2016. Our editors bring you complete CES 2016 coverage and scour the showroom floor for the hottest new tech gadgets around. CES is full of wild sights, but you don’t often see US marshals raid a display booth. On Thursday, gadget lovers were treated to the sight of federal law enforcement officials packing up …

An anti-government militia has taken over a federal wildlife refuge in rural southeastern Oregon and demanded its return to the county’s ranchers, prompting intense debate on the Internet. But unlike other social firestorms in recent memory, this event isn’t streaming live from hundreds of phones across services like Vine, Periscope and YouTube. First-hand information is coming from the government, the …

If terrorists are using the Internet, then take the Internet away. That’s what Donald Trump, the front-runner to be the Republican nominee for president of the United States, suggested last night at the final debate of the year. Trump tempered the remark by saying the US should shut down the Web in ISIS-controlled Syria and Iraq, but his idea could …

Hacker collective Anonymous has declared “war is unleashed” against ISIS, the Islamic militant group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks that occurred Friday in Paris. ISIS has used the Internet to recruit new members from around the world and to spread chilling images of executions and other violence. Anonymous, a loosely affiliated group of Internet users who hack and …

A competitor to Waze claims in a lawsuit the driving directions app stole its data, unjustly beefing up its product before selling to Google. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in a San Francisco federal court, traffic information app maker PhantomAlert claims it discovered the theft when it found its proprietary information on Waze, which Google purchased in 2013 for a …

Josh Miller/CNET When logging into your favorite social-networking site, do you hear a nagging voice saying the government and advertisers are tracking your data? These worries have become part of using social networks over the past couple years, though some hear that nagging voice louder than others. In response to outraged — or just creeped out — users of these …