Mexican drug gangs have kidnapped eight Mexican journalists since mid-February from Reynosa, in northern Tamaulipas state, reports the Inter American Press Association (IAPA).

The IAPA says that three of the abductees have been freed, one is dead and five are still missing.

In a new CSO article, senior editor Bill Brenner, presents a list of four overrated security technologies and asks the questions, "[A]re practitioners clinging to tools that outlived their usefulness long ago? Were those tools ever really useful to begin with?

By now it is widely known that the French government received information on 1,500 alleged French tax evaders that was stolen from the Swiss branch of HSBC. It's also clear that Germany is considering paying the same HSBC data thief for account information on about 3,000 suspected German tax evaders.

What HSBC announced today for the first time is that the former IT worker stole information on 24,000 current and former HSBC account holders. Approximately 15,000 of these are still customers of the bank.

CNN is reporting this morning that the background check conducted in 2009 on the Ohio State University custodial worker suspected of shooting two of his co-workers Tuesday "turned up no criminal record, even though he apparently served five years in prison."

A 24-hour general strike in Greece on Thursday (3/11) is expected to seriously disrupt all forms of transportation including rail, sea and air.

The work stoppage, which begins at midnight Wednesday, will also shutdown most government offices and schools, and force hospitals to operate with emergency staffing only.

The UK Cards Association on Wednesday (3/10) released its figures on card and banking fraud in 2009. And there is some good news and some bad news for Britons.

The summary results are:

• Fraud on debit and credit cards fell by more than a quarter in 2009 to about $658 million.
• Counterfeit card fraud (skimming and cloning) fell by over a half.
• Online banking fraud losses rose by 14% to $89 million.
• Check fraud fell 29% from $62.6 million to $44.5 million.

The UK Cards Association says that the debit and credit card fraud fell as a result of improved card security technology, more sophisticated fraud detection by banks and retailers, and the work of DCPU-the banking-sponsored special police unit.

And the increase in online banking fraud losses is being blamed largely on criminals attacking online banking customers' computer systems with more sophisticated techniques and malware, rather than targeting banks' networks.

The tech blogosphere has latched onto former Sun Microsystems chief executive Jonathan Schwartz's latest blog post titled "Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal", in which Schwartz informs his readers that both Apple and Microsoft threatened to sue Sun over perceived intellectual property (IP) infringement. And it is a good read.