Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 9th Feb 2013 01:01 UTC
"Over the last half a week, Apple has been hit with the largest mass-hacking incident in its history. And the perpetrators were the company's own users. Nearly seven million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners have cracked Apple's restrictions on their devices using the jailbreaking tool Evasi0n since the tool was released Monday morning, according to the latest count from Jay Freeman, the administrator of the app store for jailbroken devices known as Cydia. That makes the iOS-hacking app the fastest-adopted jailbreak software of all time, Freeman says." Because, of course, only nerds and geeks jailbreak. There's also a technical analysis of the jailbreak.
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RE: I ssee both sides of this
by _txf_ on Sat 9th Feb 2013 02:16
in reply to "I ssee both sides of this"
Member since:2008-03-17
The problem at the moment is that jailbreaking has become simple enough for anyone to do it, and so you do get a lot of people who are jailbreaking and really have no idea how to maintain their systems.
Part of the problem is that apple opted for the easy way of doing security, effectively shunting those that desire choice to having no security and no education about security. Say what you will about laissez-faire on Android but at least the permissions view builds awareness of potential security issues that could arise.
MS learned to do security the "proper way" with windows (not metro/8 which is essentially a devolution).
RE[2]: I ssee both sides of this
by darknexus on Sat 9th Feb 2013 02:34
in reply to "RE: I ssee both sides of this"
Member since:2008-07-15
Part of the problem is that apple opted for the easy way of doing security, effectively shunting those that desire choice to having no security and no education about security. Say what you will about laissez-faire on Android but at least the permissions view builds awareness of potential security issues that could arise.
Only if one reads them and only, in the case of side-loaded apk files, if the permissions in the package metadata are correct. Most pirated apks, from what I've seen, conveniently leave out a lot of the more suspicious permissions or omit them entirely. That's usually when someone asks me to help with their phone and it's like tech supporting an older Windows pc. Neither Android nor iOS have real security as part of the os.
RE[2]: I ssee both sides of this
by WereCatf on Sat 9th Feb 2013 06:29
in reply to "RE: I ssee both sides of this"
Member since:2006-02-15
Say what you will about laissez-faire on Android but at least the permissions view builds awareness of potential security issues that could arise.
As if. I know quite a lot of people with Android - phones and only the nerds understand permissions, not a single non-nerd. The availability of the permissions tab under Android has done fuck all about this. And why? Well, because you need to consciously seek them, you're not at any point asked about the permissions during normal operation, you're not allowed to change the permissions and they're way, WAY too vague to actually tell anything meaningful. You need to already have understanding about the topic to have even the vaguest idea about what each particular item on the permissions tab entails, and even then you're just not given enough details about any of them to really know if it's a good or a bad thing to allow it through.
RE: I ssee both sides of this
by Soulbender on Sat 9th Feb 2013 02:33
in reply to "I ssee both sides of this"
Member since:2005-08-18
Allow side-loading in iOS, but only after turning on a "big red switch."
Sounds good...
This switch would, once turned on, send your serial number to Apple
Until this part. WTF? It's NONE of Apple's business who jailbreak their phones.
and void your warranty (unless, of course, you've paid for extra Applecare coverage).
I would have thought that's already the case.
RE[2]: I ssee both sides of this
by darknexus on Sat 9th Feb 2013 04:25
in reply to "RE: I ssee both sides of this"
Member since:2008-07-15
Until this part. WTF? It's NONE of Apple's business who jailbreak their phones.
No, it's not, but unfortunately I can't think of a better way to make this work. There has to be able to be some record of the device being jailbroken, otherwise Apple will end up obligated to fix something they don't support. I'm trying to think of a more balanced way to handle it, but I just can't. Besides, I notice you don't raise any objection to HTC having known who unlocked their boot loaders. I don't particularly like any company having a record like that but, if such a system were to work, it's necessary.
"and void your warranty (unless, of course, you've paid for extra Applecare coverage).
I would have thought that's already the case. "
Officially, it is. However, unless the phone is blatantly jailbroken (e.g. you've got a cydia icon glaring out from your springboard) then odds are they'll not even check for it. For example, I saw an iPhone where a bad bit of malware pulled in managed to forceably overheat the device, which ended up frying the battery. It was completely, 100%, the fault of the user in this particular case. They downloaded this app, ran it, noticed their phone was getting hot but rather than remove it, they continued to use it. The result? Apple couldn't prove it was jailbroken, so they had to fix it. This would not have been covered by the warranty in any other circumstance. The only way I see to be fair to both the businesses and the power users is to have some form of record that the device has been jailbroken. I've tried to see another way to be fair to all sides, and I just don't.
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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2008-07-15
It's interesting that just today I was dealing with a jailbroken iOS device that had a lot of Malware on it. It's not the fault of jailbreaking itself, but a fault of the repositories this idiot added to Cydia. Nevertheless, I got a small taste today of why Apple wouldn't want to deal with it and, given how many random emails this phone was sending out, it would really have been a problem for those who didn't have a high data cap. The problem at the moment is that jailbreaking has become simple enough for anyone to do it, and so you do get a lot of people who are jailbreaking and really have no idea how to maintain their systems. I've seen this with Android as well. In both cases, it's usually a result of a user being too cheap to pay for a $0.99 app and pirating it instead, with some malware riding along.
I'm for an alternative approach. Allow side-loading in iOS, but only after turning on a "big red switch." This switch would, once turned on, send your serial number to Apple and void your warranty (unless, of course, you've paid for extra Applecare coverage). You could install any apps you want, but hopefully we could scare the people who shouldn't be side-loading away before they start causing problems. This has already been done with some HTC Android phones with their official boot loader unlocking tool. I think tha similar approach would be perfect here.