Freelance elite hackers can make more than $500,000 a year searching for security flaws and reporting those issues at big companies like Tesla and organizations like the Department of Defense, according to new data released by ethical hacking platform Bugcrowd. The company, founded in 2012, is one of a handful of so-called "bug bounty" firms that provide a platform for hackers to safely chase security flaws at companies that want to be tested.

I spent three weeks studying FreeHacks, one of the dark web’s biggest platform for hackers. From passports to credit cards, nothing is safe.

Choosing a VPN can be tricky, but security experts agree it's a good way to safeguard digital privacy. Here are some pro tips from Consumer Reports to make the decision easier.

Biggest cyber fraud case in British history, pictures of accuse British-Pakistani Faizan Chaudhry aka Fizzy – are captured via social media.

In order to remain in a relationship and prosper in one, you have to place your trust in somebody else. People who are unable to trust other people rarely manage to stay in relationships because they nag and question too much.

We've seen dozens of erroneous DMCA takedown notices in recent years, many of which have caused their senders embarrassment. However, notices sent to Google last week by an anti-piracy company working for the Ultimate Fighting Championship are the most cringe-worthy yet, and a direct result of a carpet-bombing approach to takedowns when a precision strike was needed.

A survey finds substantial shifts in user behavior and attitudes in recent weeks.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe the "widening gap between rich and poor" is temporary. Maybe the steady growth in the proportion of jobs that are part-time and/or low-paid will soon reverse.

A recent study shows the limitations to cracking down on pirating sites: When one goes down, a dozen others spring up to take its place.

Skype has confirmed it has developed 3D video calls. The news was revealed by a senior executive in an exclusive interview with the BBC to mark Skype's 10th anniversary

Two security researchers blew by Dropbox's security features and wrote a paper about how they did it.

Spammers posting links on Facebook fan pages to send people to third-party scam sites are earning $200m every year, according to calculations by a team of Italian security researchers who have investigated hundreds of thousands of posts on the social network.

According to a profile by Matthew M. Aid for Foreign Policy, it’s a highly secret but incredibly important NSA program that collects intelligence about foreign targets by hacking into their computers, stealing data, and monitoring communications.

Australian researchers claim data can be discovered and harvested via the Snapchat Android and iOS API, even if an account is private.

Across the globe, 2.4 billion people are Internet users, a number that is expected to grow to 2.7 billion by the end of 2013. This expansion of the Internet shrinks the globe, bringing brands closer to new audiences in new areas.

A survey shows that people are becoming more aware of servers going down. It's truly cramping their lifestyle.

Following the Syrian Electronic Army's attack on a Melbourne IT reseller which resulted in the temporary compromise of domain name records for targets as diverse as The New York Times and Twitter, a group claiming association with Anonymous now says it has compromised SEA databases and servers.

Instagram blocks users from searching a number of hashtags. Read our unofficial list of banned and unsearchable hashtags on Instagram.

Recently, the Daily Beast ran a particularly troubling op-ed, written by a former inmate, illustrating how Chelsea Manning might fare in prison. It was a sensational piece, constructed around half-baked fantasies, and it was heavily edited after the online uproar began. There was only an editor’s note, which caused more people to click on it.

As we weigh taking action Syria, a strike using technology, rather than missiles, might be the best option.

As the United States escalates its likelihood of attacking Syria, the FBI has a message for the network managers of the world.

Dear Lifehacker, As a side project/experiment, I’ve started my own blog. The problem is, now that I have one, how can get people to actually visit it? My traffic is dismal so far, but I’m hoping to some day make money off the blog or at least become a more prominent blogger.

Anonymous is having a Hamlet-like crisis of conscience over OpSyria, the group’s operation to hack and expose the Syrian government and its semi-official hacking team, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). Some Anonymous members fear there’s significant chance the operation will end up costing actual human lives.

There are so many free services online because companies can profit from the data you provide. Companies like Facebook sell (or buy) your data to third parties, while ones like Google use your data to target ads directly at you. As the saying goes, if you’re not paying for something, you’re the product, not the customer. But if these companies can make money from your data, why can’t you make money from your own data?

The Syrian Electronic Army is the most intriguing anonymous hacking organization since, well, Anonymous. It's loosely tied with the ideology of President Bashar al-Assad's government, which stands accused by the U.S. of using chemical weapons against civilian rebels.

A series of hacks targeting South Korean think tanks, as well as the website for the country’s Ministry of Unification, has been traced to North Korea.

Internet freedom has gone from bad to worse in Vietnam as an online censorship law known as Decree 72 went into effect this month. It bans bloggers and users of social media from quoting, gathering, or summarizing information from press organizations or government websites. While the main justification for the law is to uphold "national security," Vietnamese authorities also claim that this law is aimed at combating online copyright infringement.

The Megaupload founder is suing the New Zealand government for $4.8 million, claiming it illegally spied on him in advance of a raid on his house, says Wired.

Hacking Team may not have any clients in the US yet, but it's not for lack of trying

The owner of the NSA.org domain is selling email addresses and subdomains for $100.

It’s spy vs. spy vs. blogger in the brave new world of online intelligence gathering

Talk of combat in the fifth domain has become a fixture in Washington. But let's not use that as an excuse to quash a free Internet, says a war studies academic.

Web products have followed a steady evolutionary path from the compound to the atomic. Today’s popular social sites are spin outs of behaviors that emerged from blogs and forums, the primordial soup of the early social web. Before there was Twitter, people were doing something similar to tweeting on so-called link blogs or micro blogs. Tumblr was a direct descendent of a particular strain of blogs known as tumble blogs.

There's a strain of thought that because of the way Internet culture has changed the way we work and play, we're now a different people, neurologically. We don't just behave differently because of the Internet; we think differently, too.

People keep adding me to their circles on Google+. It’s mostly people I’ve never heard of, but recently someone I’d really like to have as a job contact. I used to be active there, but it’s been years since I posted, and I feel like it would be really suspicious if I started back up again just because I am trying to impress/keep in touch with this person. But on the other hand... I am trying to impress/keep in touch with this person. Should I add them back? Should I reactivate my account?