Tack Us Down
Phish Monger
We so dislike media that don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to technology. And a double-heaping-helping of shame is due the BBC for this :
iTunes accounts linked to PayPal have been targted in a scam with a number of users complaining that they have been cleaned out.
Apple and PayPal refused to discuss the details of the incident.
Experts have told the BBC there is no security hole in iTunes or Apple servers and that it is most likely users have fallen for an online scam.
"I just got hacked for $1,000 worth of software, videos and music," tweeted one victim.
(sigh)... Where do we begin? Perhaps we should explain it is impossible to get ‘hacked’ when you participate in giving up private, personal information. That is properly called ‘phishing’. Or if one wanted to use proper English : social engineering. In the parlance of our parents : a con, bunko, flim flam, gaffle, grift, hustle, scam, scheme, swindle or bamboozle.
But it is not a ‘hack’.
Had someone compromised iTunes it certainly would have been extraordinary, and newsworthy. It also would have properly been a ‘hack’. Unfortunately, there are people out there (there always have been) who fall prey to con games. We simply fail to see how someone being gullible and doing things not in their best interest is Apple or PayPal’s fault or responsibility.
However, it is the fault of the BBC for perpetuating the misuse of proper terminology :
PayPal nor Apple would talk about the scale of the problem or how many people or accounts had been hacked.
Ummm, Beeb - that might be due to the fact that no accounts were hacked; the accounts were freely compromised by their owners.
Analyst Mike McGuire of Gartner said that Apple needs to ensure it stays on top of the situation."If they don't aggressively sort this out, it can undo a lot of brand building and trust as they become this transaction hub for 150 million people's credit cards at last count."
Oh, for the love of Mike.
Someone please explain to us precisely why any of this is Apple’s fault, or PayPal for that matter. If we travel the lovely streets of New York City and fall prey to a game of Three-card Monte is it our bank’s responsibility to see to it we never lose our cash in that manner? Or is it our own responsibility to learn and to not let it happen again?
Apple Kills iPhone
At least, some people seem to think they will if you “jailbreak” your iPhone :
Apple has applied for a patent on technology that would allow it to detect unauthorized iPhone users and remotely terminate services to those devices.
The patent, revealed last week, covers a range of uses that Apple considers to be illegitimate, including "hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removal of a SIM card," according to the application, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
It sounds more to us like Apple is trying to kill two birds with one stone.
We certainly agree with Apple’s ability to keep the iPhone running without interference from malware, adware, and other malicious software. It’s ability to do so is hampered by some random knucklehead getting in over their head in the murky waters of jailbreaking. Make that a gaggle of random knuckleheads.
On the other hand, we are big proponents of freedom here at Aquariant Technologies. We would love nothing better than to be able to do whatever the smurf we want with our iPhone. But then our inner-adult points out the craptacular mess that is the Android marketplace and the feeling ebbs.
There must be a way for Apple to make money and keep the anarchists happy. We do not presume to have all the answers, but we do have an idea : sell pre-jailbroken iPhones.
Before you think we have lost our microchips, hear us out. Apple sells pre-jailbroken iPhones with about a bazillion more restrictions than a regular iPhone. Namely, one would pay full pop and there is no warranty. None. No AppleCare, no subsidy - no nothing. You want to be a big boy? Well... time to start working without a net, Sparky!
And one other big proviso : if anything you do - anything - impacts even one other iPhone then network access for that phone is shut down permanently. That’s right - do something stupid intentionally or unintentionally and you just earned a $700 iPod Touch that can’t even do Wi-Fi.
Under those conditions, Apple makes a boatload of money off the “jailbreaking” people and everyone is happy.
What Did Microsoft Know
... and when did it know it? Evidently, since February of this year :
Microsoft has known since at least February that dozens of Windows applications, including many of its own, harbor bugs that hackers can exploit to seize control of computers, an academic researcher said Sunday.
At least 19 of the bugs can be exploited remotely, Taeho Kwon, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California Davis, said in a paper he published in February and presented last month at an international conference.
Remind us again how secure Windows is. We keep forgetting.
Had this been Apple it would have been big news; however, since it’s Microsoft this news has made barely a ripple. But we fully expect the rabidly anti-Apple press will be all over Apple if Safari and Quicktime aren’t patched tomorrow.
We remind the reader : Microsoft knew for six months and did nothing.
Hand...Cookie Jar...
TAIPEI—The parent of Kaedar Electronics Co., one of the six companies named in an indictment of an Apple Inc. employee as having paid kickbacks to land Apple orders, acknowledged Monday that Kaedar did pay brokerage commission to an intermediate trading company for its business with Apple between 2005 and 2008. But it said it is not sure if the arrested Apple employee is behind the intermediate trading company.
Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager at Apple, was arrested Friday on charges that he received some $1 million in kickbacks from six Asian suppliers. In a federal grand-jury indictment in the U.S. outlining offenses that include unlawful monetary transactions, Kaedar, along with five other companies, were said to have paid kickbacks to Mr. Devine for receiving confidential information that would let the companies negotiate favorable contracts with Apple.
Well, we suppose that is one way to fund one’s retirement account albeit an illegal one.
Money, Money Everywhere
... but not a dram of it for Android developers :
Google is talking about fighting piracy, but perhaps the first thing they should focus on is actually making it possible for users to buy apps. All users. Sounds rather logical, doesn’t it? So what are we talking about? The problem lies with Android Market.
You can only pay for apps in 13 out of the 46 or so countries where Android phones are available. For those of you who like stats, 13 in 46 works out to less than 30%. Contrast this with Apple’s App Store, which supports paid apps in 90 countries. This is a huge advantage iPhone developers currently have over Android developers.
This is, in our opinion, one of the main reasons why piracy is running rampant on the Android platform. If a large portion of the world’s Android users can’t even pay for apps, is it so strange that some of them turn to piracy?
Ruh roh, Rorge!
Google putting their interests ahead of their developers? Say it isn’t so! After all, isn’t the motto of Google to ‘do no evil’? Well, we can only speculate that money changes people and Google isn’t immune to that change.
Meanwhile, Google has a problem. It would appear the ‘wild west’ Android market has spawned some not-so-nice content :
The Android Market has things it’s not supposed to have. There are sex apps, work that violates the intellectual property of dozens of right holders, and apps that are technically illegal. Sadly, it also includes material that’s offensive.
That became clear last Friday when analyst Michael Gartenerg commented that there are pro-Nazi themes in the Android Market. The offending items were soon removed, sparking debates about free speech and the validity of having a pre-screening process like Apple.
We seem to recall a lot of the same people oh-so-hyped about Android were pooh-poohing Apple’s screening process. Android was going to just kill Apple and the iPhone because of its openness. Now those same people are discovering that adults being in charge is, well, a good thing. Well, except for Andrew Kameka at Androinica, whom we quote above.
Just when we believe he gets the point about adults being in charge, he leaves the reservation again :
While the Android Market system is certainly flawed, draconian pre-screening found in other platforms is not the answer.
Sigh. No, make that a heavy sigh. What he calls ‘draconian’ we call ‘responsible’. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but even the true ‘wild west’ was eventually settled by responsible adults and lawlessness done away with. Google may be able to postpone this reckoning, but thanks to our litigious society Google will not be able to stave it off perpetually.
And not to belabor the obvious but consider that maybe - just maybe, mind you - Apple hit upon the business model that actually works, draconian though it may be to some.
Larry's Really, Really Mad
Oracle declined to comment on Gosling's account of the Sun acquisition, but had this to say about its complaint: "In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property," said Oracle spokesperson Karen Tillman. "This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement."
Google dismissed the lawsuit as an unwarranted attack on the company and the open-source community.
This should shock absolutely nobody. The Android Marketplace is rife with copyright violations and violators. It was simply a matter of time before someone with deep pockets and a passel of ferret-faced shysters (thank you, Groucho!) dropped the hammer on Google.
But for Google to claim they are doing this for the ‘open-source community’ is just beyond the pale. They are doing it to protect the burgeoning cash-cow that is Android. Now if they were only as interested in protecting the rights of the copyright holders...
How Secure is Secure?
Color us shocked at this report of what it takes to penetrate corporate security :
A few companies in the Fortune 500 need to upgrade their Web browsers. And while they're at it, a little in-house training on social engineering wouldn't be a bad idea, either.
Social engineering hackers -- people who trick employees into doing and saying things that they shouldn't -- took their best shot at the Fortune 500 during a contest at Defcon Friday and showed how easy it is to get people to talk, if only you tell the right lie.
The Defcon and Black Hat security conferences are taking place in Las Vegas this week.
The last we knew, most people in a corporation would give you their passwords for a Snickers bar. So you know that corporate security you paid a bundle for, thinking it was the best thing this side of Fort Knox?
Yeah... well, not so much.
The Pain! It Burns!
Just in case you feel life is just missing... oh, extreme amounts of stress and challenges we present the (sorta) definitive guide on how to network a Win98se machine to a Mac running OS 10.X.
Yeah, we hear you.
WARNING : TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN INVOLVES EDITING THE REGISTRY ON THE WIN98 COMPUTER. THIS STEP IS NOT FOR MERE MORTALS AS YOU CAN REALLY MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER MUCKING ABOUT IN THE REGISTRY IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, AND DON’T COME CRYING TO US IF YOU FALL DOWN AND SKIN YOUR KNEES.
1) Head over to Microsoft and VERY CAREFULLY read this : How to Enable NTLM2 Authentication.
2) Read and USE this KB article : How to back up and restore the registry in Windows.
3) Go here to download the software to make the magic happen : How to install the Active Directory Client Extension.
4) Go here to get a pictorial instruction on how you are going to edit your registry : Enabling NTLMv2 on Windows 95, 98, and ME Computers.
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE EDITING THE REGISTRY, THEN DON’T. CALL A PROFESSIONAL AND LET THEM HANDLE IT. YOU WERE WARNED. TWICE. SO THERE.
5) Go back to the link in step 1, follow the instructions and edit your registry. Cross-match with the pictorial in step 4 if you get stuck.
6) Restart the Win98 machine.
7) Enjoy the sweet, sweet networking goodness.
You’re welcome.
UPDATE : If you should be copying files *from* the Win98 box *to* the Mac box, you may find the going easier if a folder is created on the Mac current user’s desktop. Remember to be giving everyone read-write access for permissions. This folder may be the only one to be ‘seen’ by the Win98 box, and save a lot of frustration.
Now if we could just go back in time, knowing what we know now.
Just Stop It
We are sad to say this is just sick :
If there's one word that frustrates content creators, it's "inappropriate," but then how would you describe user-crafted StarCraft II maps harboring anti-Semitic symbols?
Hold on though--what if the symbol were originally sacred to various eastern sects, including Hindus and Buddhists, and whose name (swastika) in its original Sansrkit form meant "lucky" or "auspicious"?
And if the symbol shows up in a StarCraft II map, who decides which one the creator intended?
Just stop it.
It is bad enough there are sick, sick people in the world who are creating the maps, but to have a “news” outlet like PC World trying to defend the practice is just beyond the pale.
Let us explain it to you guys at PC World : 6 million dead people mean using a swastika for any reason, at any time, is a bad thing and is *never* justifiable. We know the Nazis ripped it off, and we know it was a religious symbol, and in some parts of the world it still is. But to a great deal of this planet, Jew and Christian alike, it is one of the most hurtful and offensive things on this planet and so is sticking up for those who would use it.
K? thx bye.
Waving Goodbye
No, friends. We are going nowhere. Google Wave, however, is :
"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked," Senior Vice President Urs Holzle said in the blog post. "We don't plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site, at least through the end of the year, and extend the technology for use in other Google projects."
Google Wave always struck us as a solution in search of a problem. As always, one must applaud Google for giving its engineers the freedom to roam and try new things; perhaps in this instance they roamed just a little too far afield.
But on a more positive note, those rascally scamps did find a way for you to log into multiple GMail accounts in the same browser. So the week hasn’t been a total loss.
