New advances in technology for smartphones, tablets and computers, while eagerly embraced by users, often bring new risks of data breaches or loss of data privacy. Companies that allow their employees to use their own personal devices for work-related purposes may be especially vulnerable. Because of these risks, IBM recently decided to ban the use of Siri — the powerful voice-recognition software on the new iPhone — on employees’ phones.

It’s time to double-down the locks on the Dropbox factory as today the company confirms that there was indeed a break-in and that a “small number” of account names and passwords have been stolen. This news comes after several hundred users reported spam being delivered to email addresses only associated otherwise with Dropbox, this thusly meaning that the Dropbox forums and/or larger database had been broken into. Dropbox today is confirming the attack and is making sure it never happens again.

Net neutrality might be a bit of a touchy subject in the United States, but progress is being made in Europe. The Netherlands has become the first country to enact net neutrality laws, preventing ISPs from blocking or slowing down different types of internet traffic. It also stops ISPs from charging extra to access specific websites or services. The legislation was first put forward in June 2011, but just passed into law on Tuesday.

This week the inventor of the internet Tim Berners-Lee spoke on several subjects involving data sharing on the web – perhaps most important of all on CISPA, a bill currently up for review in Washington. We’ve spoken about CISPA before – also known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, and have gotten some positive and very negative feedback on it from you, the readers, and groups like Facebook – who say it’s great. Berners-Lee, generally considered an expert on how the web works since he invented it, after all, is worried about the bill’s implications.

Chinese media are reporting that a youth was so desperate for an iPad that he sold a kidney to pay for one.

The 17-year-old boy, a resident of Anhui province, reportedly came upon online information describing how he could hawk a kidney over the Internet – just what he needed, as he was in need of cash to buy an iPad 2.