Apple iPhone SDK Event – March 6
Apple has just sent out invitations to press and developers to an event hosting the introduction of the iPhone SDK. It’s about time!
Author Archive
CONFIRMED: Real iPhone SDK in February 2008
Whether you like Macs or not, whether you like Apple or not, you have to admit, the iPod and iTouch are simply cool! I used to admire HP engineering but with the iPod, the iPhone, the iTouch and the MacBooks (especially the MacBook Air), i have to say the award for best hardware design goes to Apple.
And now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for…well, the moment, i’ve been waiting for anyway…
Steve Jobs: “Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February.”
Bruce Schneier leaves his wireless network unprotected!
Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography and other books and articles on security and privacy, leaves his wireless network unprotected. My first reaction was probably the same as yours. What an idiot! He then goes on to make a few points that made me regret my first reaction. Bruce highlights the many other ways we take security for granted including leaving doors unlocked, drive in the rain while on a cellphone (whew!) and make other security sacrifices for the sake of convenience.
He explains that while it leaves your computers more vulnerable to leave your wifi open, you are exposed when you use your laptop in a public location anyway so you had better learn to secure your computer.
While I agree with nearly all of Bruce’s comments, I think i’ll keep my wifi secure. Oh yeah…i’m going to start locking the back door when I leave the house now as well! 
Sony BMG Officially Drops DRM, Selling MP3s Through Amazon
Less than a week after it came out Sony BMG was planning to sell music not loaded down with copyright, they’re officially selling DRM-free MP3s through Amazon’s MP3 store later this month, making it the first to carry DRM-free music from all four major labels.
It had to happen sooner or later.
Bluetooth not secure! Surprised?
I remember when the hoopla was about radio scanners eavesdropping on analog cordless phones. Every new technology seems to introduce a new way to violate our privacy. This little gem seems to allow capturing or recording audio while a bluetooth device is not actually in a call. This would mean that you can eavesdrop from room-to-room or with a laptop, from car-to-car at a stoplight even when someone is not using their bluetooth headset.
Here is a link to a useful collection of bluetooth hacking tools.
http://www.security-hacks.com/2007/05/25/essential-bluetooth-hacking-tools
Here is a link to a video demonstrating the bluetooth hack.
http://www.hackszine.com/blog/archive/2007/12/eavesdropping_on_bluetooth_hea.html
Official Firefox 3 Beta 2
Firefox 3 Beta 2 has been officially released over at Mozilla.
[Improved in Beta 2!] Firefox 3 Beta 2 includes approximately 900 improvements over the previous beta, including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements.
Internet Explorer 8 passes ACID2 test!
MSDN’s Channel9 and the IEBlog both confirm the new version of IE, IE8, will pass the ACID2 Test!
OS X Leopard 10.5.2 Update ‘Fixes Stacks!’
According to a source familiar with the latest Leopard build seeded to developers, in addition to all those meaningless “little” fixes, our source tells us that Apple has fixed Stacks by adding the missing “list view” option that should have been there all along.
AT&T Invents Programming Language for Mass Surveillance
From the company that brought you the C programming language comes Hancock, a C variant developed by AT&T researchers to mine gigabytes of the company’s telephone and internet records for surveillance purposes.
They’ll know we are in a “Community of Interest” before we do.
Patents from Microsoft and Apple reveal future plans for WiFi on Zune, iPod
The idea of squirting music is one of those ideas that seem obvious enough once you think about it and to tell you the truth, it sounds really cool. But…without having looked at the patent yet (I will and will post details here later…) it seems obvious that there has to be a DRM mechanism involved.
Microsoft, in case you missed it, DRM just isn’t working out all that well…maybe someone will get the hint and open source DRM.