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The number, variety and abilities of smartphone exploits is growing exponentially, but few talk about the risk phones pose as entry points, not as a source of data leaks. Even if they're banned from sensitive areas, how can you keep them out without frisking everyone at the door?

Consumerization turned IT from an ivory tower into an upscale mall where users could get any kind of technology they needed to mesh with their own habits and sense of style. Obviously some people didn't realize you could take that kind of thing too far.

Nokia has applied for a patent on magnetic ink that vibrates when the owner's phone rings. Incredibly cool in some ways, it's also one of the worst ideas in personal tech in a long time. Even fans don't like Nokia enough to want it under their skin for the rest of their lives.

Google may never have given more than lip service to the slogan "Don't be Evil," but it struck everyone else as pretty significant. Now that it appears to prefer effective exploitation of customers and bullying of partners, it's clear if Google ever was Good, it certainly isn't now.

HR 1981, the SOPA alternative proposed by SOPA/PIPA author Lamar Smith, tries to give more power and less culpability to copyright owners already abusing enforcement system so badly that 67 percent of takedown orders come from competitors, not from simple mistakes.

Real-world example of how the Internet works under the sway of pro-SOPA factions: Online service business JotForm is shut down by the Secret Service Wednesday with no explanation, by an agent "too busy" to tell JotForm's founder why he was out of business. Thursday JotForm was back, with no idea what it did wrong, how to avoid doing it again or any explanation at all.

Since early January someone wearing Anonymous drag on Twitter and Pastebin has been threatening to take down big parts of the Internet: first Facebook, then the root DNS servers that would 404 the whole 'net. Is it a realistic threat? An overreach? Or a complete fake from either radical factions of Anonymous, or opponents trying to make it look foolish?

Customers weren't thrilled when unlimited iPhone data plans ended, but none complained too much. Verizon got more expensive, but transparently. AT&T went with manipulation and cloaked accusations of data hoggery to push customers to tiered plans, or toward Verizon.

Anonymous is laughing it up at Symantec's reputed attempt to bribe hackers to not release source code. Symantec calls it extortion. That question is trivial compared to the reality that Symnantec broke trust with its customers and left them at risk for six years following the hack.

A Cisco executive speaking at the company's European user conference this week, criticized net neutrality provisions in the EU's new privacy regulations. Big companies won't be able to afford the investment in good broadband if they're forced to give customers what they paid for. Duh.

If you're into malware or selling dodgy schemes through deceptive advertising, the new site offering to sell traffic stolen from other sites might be a good source of business. But, if you're legit, it's a good way to contact people guaranteed to already be mad at you.

Some of the web's largest sites plan dramatic displays to mark their opposition not to the just-shelved House SOPA bill, but to the still-viable, still dangerous Senate effort at Internet censorship, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA)