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Frustrated with iCloud, Apple’s developer community speaks up en masse

Aurich Lawson Apple’s iCloud is marketed to us end users as a convenient and centralized way to manage data on all of our Macs and iOS devices: sync contacts and bookmarks, re-download music and apps, back up iOS devices, and sync documents and data for third-party apps as MobileMe did. The last item, syncing of documents and data, is one of the least glossy features of iCloud, but it is one of the most important, and it should be among the most straightforward. Right? Perhaps not. Almost a year after Apple shut down MobileMe for good in favor of iCloud , third-party developers have begun to speak out about the difficulty involved in working with Apple’s cloud service. A piece published at The Verge this week highlights many of those complaints, with quotes coming from well-known developers and anonymous sources alike about the challenges faced by the developer community. From data loss and corruption to unexpected Apple ID use cases, developers have seen it all—but are stymied by the persistence of problems that prevent them from shipping products with working iCloud support. What’s the big problem, exactly? According to Bare Bones Software’s Rich Siegel, there are a number of moving parts to iCloud that all affect how things come out on the other end. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Frustrated with iCloud, Apple’s developer community speaks up en masse

Jeff Bezos’ new patent envisions tablets without processors, batteries

Bezos’ “remote display” patent envisions tablets and e-readers that are just screens—power and processing is provided wirelessly by a central system. US Patent & Trademark Office It seems like everyone is trying to jump on the cloud computing bandwagon, but Amazon Chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos wants to take it to a whole new level. GeekWire reports  that he and Gregory Hart have filed a patent for “remote displays” that would get data and power from a centrally located “primary station.” The tablets or e-readers would simply be screens, and the need for a large internal battery or significant local processing power would theoretically be obviated by the primary station. The patent sees processors and large internal batteries as the next major roadblocks in the pursuit of thinner and lighter devices. “The ability to continue to reduce the form factor of many of today’s devices is somewhat limited, however, as the devices typically include components such as processors and batteries that limit the minimum size and weight of the device. While the size of a battery is continuously getting smaller, the operational or functional time of these smaller batteries is often insufficient for many users.” The full patent is an interesting read, since it presents other potential use cases for these “remote displays” that wouldn’t necessarily need to wait on this theoretical fully wireless future-tablet to come to pass. For example: a camera or sensor could detect when a hand is passed over an e-reader display and respond by turning the page. A touch-sensitive casing could detect when a child is handling a display by measuring things like the length and width of their fingers and then disable purchasing of new content or the ability to access “inappropriate” content. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Jeff Bezos’ new patent envisions tablets without processors, batteries

Guerilla researcher created epic botnet to scan billions of IP addresses

Aurich Lawson (after Aliens) In one of the more audacious and ethically questionable research projects in recent memory, an anonymous hacker built a botnet of more than 420,000 Internet-connected devices and used it to perform one of the most comprehensive surveys ever to measure the insecurity of the global network. In all, the nine-month scanning project found 420 million IPv4 addresses that responded to probes and 36 million more addresses that had one or more ports open. A large percentage of the unsecured devices bore the hallmarks of broadband modems, network routers, and other devices with embedded operating systems that typically aren’t intended to be exposed to the outside world. The researcher found a total of 1.3 billion addresses in use, including 141 million that were behind a firewall and 729 million that returned reverse domain name system records. There were no signs of life from the remaining 2.3 billion IPv4 addresses. Continually scanning almost 4 billion addresses for nine months is a big job. In true guerilla research fashion, the unknown hacker developed a small scanning program that scoured the Internet for devices that could be logged into using no account credentials at all or the usernames and passwords of either “root” or “admin.” When the program encountered unsecured devices, it installed itself on them and used them to conduct additional scans. The viral growth of the botnet allowed it to infect about 100,000 devices within a day of the program’s release. The critical mass allowed the hacker to scan the Internet quickly and cheaply. With about 4,000 clients, it could scan one port on all 3.6 billion addresses in a single day. Because the project ran 1,000 unique probes on 742 separate ports, and possibly because the binary was uninstalled each time an infected device was restarted, the hacker commandeered a total of 420,000 devices to perform the survey. Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Guerilla researcher created epic botnet to scan billions of IP addresses

Finally, Feds say cops’ access to your e-mail shouldn’t be time-dependent

“When ECPA was enacted, e-mail was primarily a means of communicating information, not storing it,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on Tuesday in a statement. Ed Yourdon On Tuesday, the Department of Justice acknowledged for the first time that the notion that e-mail more than 180 days old should require a different legal standard is outdated. This marked shift in legal theory, combined with new House subcommittee hearings and new Senate legislation, might just actually yield real, meaningful reform on the  much-maligned Electronic Communications Privacy Act . It’s an act, by the way, that dates back to 1986. As Ars’ Tim Lee wrote  in November 2012, “ECPA requires a warrant to obtain freshly sent e-mail before it’s been opened by the recipient. But once an e-mail has been opened, or once it has been sitting in the recipient’s e-mail box for 180 days, a lower standard applies. These rules simply don’t line up with the way modern e-mail systems work.” Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Finally, Feds say cops’ access to your e-mail shouldn’t be time-dependent

US regulator: Bitcoin exchanges must comply with money-laundering laws

Zach Copley The federal agency charged with enforcing the nation’s laws against money laundering has issued new guidelines suggesting that several parties in the Bitcoin economy qualify as Money Services Businesses under US law. Money Services Businesses (MSBs) must register with the federal government, collect information about their customers, and take steps to combat money laundering by their customers. The new guidelines do not mention Bitcoin by name, but there’s little doubt which “de-centralized virtual currency” the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) had in mind when it drafted the new guidelines. A FinCEN spokesman told Bank Technology News last year that “we are aware of Bitcoin and other similar operations, and we are studying the mechanism behind Bitcoin.” America’s anti-money-laundering laws require financial institutions to collect information on potentially suspicious transactions by their customers and report these to the federal government. Among the institutions subject to these regulatory requirements are “money services businesses,” including “money transmitters.” Until now, it wasn’t clear who in the Bitcoin network qualified as a money transmitter under the law. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US regulator: Bitcoin exchanges must comply with money-laundering laws

The 49ers’ plan to build the greatest stadium Wi-Fi network of all time

49ers CTO Kunal Malik (left) and Senior IT director Dan Williams (right) stand in front of Santa Clara Stadium. Jon Brodkin When the San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium opens for the 2014 NFL season, it is quite likely to have the best publicly accessible Wi-Fi network a sports facility in this country has ever known. The 49ers are defending NFC champions, so 68,500 fans will inevitably walk into the stadium for each game. And every single one of them will be able to connect to the wireless network, simultaneously , without any limits on uploads or downloads. Smartphones and tablets will run into the limits of their own hardware long before they hit the limits of the 49ers’ wireless network. A model of Santa Clara Stadium, with a wall painting visible in the background. Jon Brodkin Jon Brodkin Until now, stadium executives have said it’s pretty much impossible to build a network that lets every single fan connect at once. They’ve blamed this on limits in the amount of spectrum available to Wi-Fi, despite their big budgets and the extremely sophisticated networking equipment that largesse allows them to purchase. Even if you build the network perfectly, it would choke if every fan tried to get on at once—at least according to conventional wisdom. Read 69 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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The 49ers’ plan to build the greatest stadium Wi-Fi network of all time

911 tech pinpoints people in buildings—but could disrupt wireless ISPs

NextNav’s enhanced 911 technology locates people within buildings—but may interfere with millions of existing devices. NextNav Cell phones replacing landlines are making it difficult to accurately locate people who call 911 from inside buildings. If a person having a heart attack on the 30th floor of a giant building can call for help but is unable to speak their location, actually finding that person from cell phone and GPS location data is a challenge for emergency responders. Thus, new technologies are being built to accurately locate people inside buildings. But a system that is perhaps the leading candidate for enhanced 911 geolocation is also controversial because it uses the same wireless frequencies as wireless Internet Service Providers, smart meters, toll readers like EZ-Pass, baby monitors, and various other devices. NextNav , the company that makes the technology, is seeking permission from the Federal Communications Commission to start commercial operations. More than a dozen businesses and industry groups oppose NextNav (which holds FCC licenses through a subsidiary called Progeny), saying the 911 technology will wipe out devices and services used by millions of Americans. Read 37 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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911 tech pinpoints people in buildings—but could disrupt wireless ISPs

Most PC security problems come from unpatched third-party Windows apps

If you’ve got 99 security problems, odds are Microsoft’s not one—or at least it’s just a minority of them. In its annual review of software vulnerabilities , security software firm Secunia found that 86 percent of vulnerabilities discovered on systems scanned by its software in the 50 most popular Windows software packages in 2012 were attributable to third-party developers and not to Microsoft’s Windows operating system or applications. And for most of these vulnerabilities, a patch was already available at the time they were discovered. Of the top 50 most used Windows packages—including the Windows 7 operating system itself, 18 were found to have end-point security vulnerabilities, a 98 percent increase over five years ago. Of those 18 packages, Google’s Chrome and the Mozilla Firefox browser were the biggest culprits, with 291 and 257 detected vulnerabilities respectively. Apple iTunes came in third, with 243 detected vulnerabilities. The remainder of the top ten offenders were: Adobe Flash Player: 67 Oracle Java JRE SE: 66 Adobe AIR: 56 Microsoft Windows 7: 50 Adobe Reader: 43 Microsoft Internet Explorer: 41 Apple Quicktime: 29 Of the vulnerabilities documented in Secunia’s database, 84 percent had already been patched by vendors when they were discovered on systems. “This means that it is possible to remediate the majority of vulnerabilities,” said Secunia Director of Product Management Morten R. Stengaard. “There is no excuse for not patching.” Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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Most PC security problems come from unpatched third-party Windows apps

Stabilizing the electric grid by keeping generators in sync

Library of Congress When the lights go out, it affects everyone. It’s not only the inconvenience of having the TV shut off unexpectedly—a lot of heavy equipment really dislikes having the power disappear suddenly. For the most part, the power grid is very stable. But sometimes random events and seemingly small operator errors can cascade to create massive power outages. Underlying the stability of a power grid is the need to keep multiple generators operating in a synchronized manner. New research shows (in an annoyingly abstract way) that good network design can take advantage of the tendency for generators to self-synchronize. Counting the beat Depending on where you happen to be in the world, your power outlet supplies alternating current at either 50 or 60 Hz. The precise value doesn’t really matter as long as it stays within a narrow limit. Essentially, this means that the generator supplying the power needs to rotate at a rate producing this frequency. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Stabilizing the electric grid by keeping generators in sync

Brazilian docs fool biometric scanners with bag full of fake fingers

Six silicone fingers, all in a row. BBC The BBC is one of several outlets carrying the bizarre story of a Brazilian doctor arrested for allegedly defrauding her employer, a hospital in the town of Ferraz de Vasconcelos, near São Paulo. At the time of her arrest, she was equipped with a total of sixteen fingers—ten of which God gave her, and six of which were crafted of silicone and given to her by coworkers. At least three of the extra fingers bore the prints of fellow doctors at the hospital. The doctor, Thaune Nunes Ferreira, 29, claims through her attorney that she was forced to use the silicone fingers to clock in to the hospital’s time card system in order to cover for absentee colleagues. “She says she was innocent because it is a condition they imposed on her to keep her job,” the attorney notes. According to the Bangkok Post and several other sources, Brazil’s Globo TV International network obtained and played footage of Ferreira clocking in to the hospital with her own permanently attached digits, then touching the same fingerprint scanner with two of the silicone fakes. The scanner produced paper time card receipts for her and the two employees to whom the silicone fingers’ prints belonged. In this way, notes the Post, “it looked like there were three doctors on duty when there was just one.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Brazilian docs fool biometric scanners with bag full of fake fingers