Identity Theft Vulnerability Affects All iPhones, Not Just Jailbroken Ones

A report surfaced recently about a vulnerability in Facebook that allowed people to access someone else's account. The report initially stated that this vulnerability only affected people on a jailbroken iPhone, however, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore as two new reports are stating that it isn't only jailbroken phones that are at risk.

Gareth Wright, an app developer from the U.K., along with The Next Web have each confirmed, separately, that this new vulnerability affects any and all iPhones, not just jailbroken ones. In addition to that, it has been discovered that the vulnerability originated in Facebook's iPhone app.

Wright released his report earlier in the week and claimed that the iPhone Facebook app includes a vulnerability that fails to encrypt log-on credentials whenever you get on Facebook on your iPhone via the app. Wright also said that he also discovered a Facebook access token in the Draw Something game. Wright copied the token, used the Facebook Query Language and extracted the information.

According to Wright's report, "Sure enough, I could pull back pretty much any information from my Facebook account." Wright also mentioned that the property list of the app contained any and all information needed to allow someone other than you to access your Facebook account, send private messages and do anything else imaginable.

However, Facebook is sticking by their claim that the vulnerability only affects jailbroken phones. In a statement from the social media giant, the company said, "Facebook's iOS and Android applications are only intended for use with the manufacture provided operating system, and access tokens are only vulnerable if they have modified their mobile OS (i.e. jailbroken iOS or modded Android) or have granted a malicious actor access to the physical device."

That may have been believable had The Next Web not released their very own report separate from Wright's. The Next Web confirmed themselves that the vulnerability also affects non-jailbroken phones. However, The Next Web also found that Dropbox also suffers from the same vulnerability, leaving the application open to a property list hack.

According to The Next Web, "We copied the .plist from one device, with the app installed and logged in, over to another which had a fresh installation of Dropbox on it. The profile copied and it worked seamlessly, as if we had logged on ourselves, which we had not." The Next Web also added that the Dropbox vulnerability works on phones that are passcode protected.

Facebook keeps saying that the vulnerability is only on jailbroken phones, though with the reports from Wright and The Next Web, I don't know how much longer the social media company can keep that story going.

Source: CNET - facebook ID theft impacts all iPhones, Dropbox

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Google+ Making Some Big Developments

Just a few weeks out of the gate and Google+ is already becoming highly popular among its early adopters. It is estimated that as many as 5 million users are already a part of the service's user base with many websites opting to adopt the +1 button. However, despite all that, it is still unclear as to whether or not Google+ is here to stay or if it will fail just like Google's other attempts at social networking.

In the meantime, things are looking positive for Google+. If you have not signed up yet, or have been unable to, then you might want a little peek at what is going on inside the pages of the service. Here are five notable developments pertaining to Google+ since it launched.

Increase in Google+ Share Buttons
While Google+ may be nowhere near Facebook, it is giving Twitter a run for its money. According to different sources, there are already more Google+ Share buttons, or +1 buttons, on the internet than Twitter share plugins. In a search of the 10,000 most viewed websites, nearly 4.5% have +1 buttons while only 2.1% have Twitter buttons.

MySpace and Digg Heavy on Google+
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, recently reported that he would be moving his domain, KevinRose.com, to his Google+ page, which will move his online activity to that network as well. In addition to Kevin Rose, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson also has an extensive Google+ presence. Anderson's presence is so prevalent that he even used the service to write a blog post praising Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg for the site's recent integration of Skype.

Invites Stabilizing
Google+ was being so inundated with invites and such that Google started a habit of randomly turning the invites feature on and off, and it was getting rather annoying. Users also griped about how they would invite friends and when those individuals finally got around to checking out the network, the invite feature would be turned off. However, all that seems to have stabilized, for now at least. The invite link has remained unchanged and working since Saturday.

Tips and Tricks from Users
Some of the more dedicated users of Google+ have already joined forces and created a tips and tricks guide for Google+ known as Google+: A Collaborative Document, which can be found on Google Docs. The document is over 40 pages long and covers everything like creative ways to use circles, tips on privacy, how to send private messages and an extensive guide for Chrome and Safari. In addition to that, the guide, which is in English, is being translated into Chinese, German and Russian.

Business Pages Coming Soon
A lot of enterprises are supposedly very anxious to get into Google+ and Google is planning on opening up its social experiment to business pages in the "near future". A lot of people are wondering if when Google+ offers business pages, if Google Offers, Google's form of Groupon and Facebook Deals, will expand into Google+ as well.

So there you have it, five of the top things that have been happening on Google+ since it launched. If you haven't gotten an invite yet, you might want to start making more friends or find some way to get on the network. Even though Google+ is in a somewhat of a trial stage, it is already gaining immense popularity.

Source: PC World - Google+: 5 Big Developments

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Facebook Creating an App for the iPad

Facebook is planning on releasing an app for the iPad in the next couple of weeks that is said to feature a "slick design" as well as new Facebook Chat and Groups functionality. In addition to that, the app is also said to feature an "amazing" photo and video experience.

This news comes right after another report that Facebook was preparing an HTML 5 web app for iOS devices. In addition to that, Facebook is supposedly working on a new website optimized for the iPad. However, Facebook's refreshed site is only meant to be a "supplement" to the iOS apps from Facebook, not a replacement.

With the high popularity of the iPhone's Facebook app, it is surprising that Facebook hasn't created one for the iPad. To make up for the lack of an app, iPad users have been forced to turn to third party apps like Friendly, MyPad and Facely HD or just go with Facebook's actual website.

However, that could all change if the latest round of rumors turns out to be true. It has been said that the proposed iPad app has been in development for over a year. It has been said that CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is heavily involved in the design of the app as well as its features. Photos and videos will be displayed full size at full resolution and the app is also expected to be free, just like all of Facebook's mobile apps.

Source: PC Mag - Facebook Crafts an iPad App

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PayPal's Peter Thiel Pays Students to Skip College

Senior year is stressful for a lot of students. Most are concentrated on getting good grades and academic honors so they can get into a good college and have a better life some day. A lot of students do a lot of hard work in order to earn money to go to college. However, two dozen students from around the country will, instead of going to college, be paid to not go to school.

That's right, 24 gifted technical students from around the country will each be given a $100,000 scholarship by San Francisco tech tycoon Peter Thiel with a little catch, that they do not go to college this coming fall. Instead of going to school, these students are receiving the $100,000 so they can chase their dreams for the next two years.

"It seems like the perfect point in our lives to pursue this kind of project," stated Nick Cammarata, a gifted computer programmer who recently got accepted into the esteemed computer science program at Carnegie Mellon's University. He, along with 17-year-old David Merfield, will be working on software designed to upend the standard approach to high school teaching. Merfield is turning down an opportunity to attend Princeton University in order to participate in the scholarship.

Each applicant for the scholarship was asked to design a project to change the world. Thiel personally hand-picked the winners based on these projects. While all the ideas span different disciplines, they all have a high technology angle to them. According to Thiel, "One winner wants to create a mobile banking system for the developing world. Another is working to create cheaper biofuels. One wants to build robots that can help around the house."

This scholarship could not have come at a more interesting, and quite possibly crucial time as the debate over higher education's value is becoming quite heated. There are thousands of new graduates who are swimming in student loan debts and are encountering one of the hardest job markets in decades. Many people are pondering whether or not a college education is worth it given the rising tuitions and diminishing prospects.

"Turning people into debt slaves when they're in college students is really not how we end up building a better society," Thiel added. Thiel made his fortune as co-founder of PayPal shortly after graduating from Stanford Law School. After that he became the first major investor in Facebook. Thiel is adamant in his belief that innovation has become stagnant in the United States and that radical solutions are needed to push civilization forward.

One such effort is the "20 Under 20" fellowship. Thiel believes that the brightest young minds are able to contribute more to society by skipping college and bringing their ideas to the real world right away. However, not everyone can be as fortunate as Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

Director of Research at Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship Vivek Wadhwa doesn't agree with Thiel and sees his new program as sending a message that anybody can be Mark Zuckerberg. "Silicon Valley lives in its own bubble. It sees the world through its own prism. Its got a distorted view," Wadhwa stated.

Wadhwa also added, "All the people who are making a fuss are highly educated. They're rich themselves. They've achieved success because of their education. There's no way in hell we would have heard about Peter Thiel if he hadn't graduated from Stanford."

Thiel retorted that the "20 Under 20" should not be judged on the basis of his own education background or the merits of his critique on higher education. Thiel has urged critics to wait and see what these individuals achieve over the next two years.

Studies from the past few years have noted that individuals who received a college degree were laid off during the "Great Recession" at a much lower rate than individuals without college degrees. In addition to that, individuals with college degrees were also more likely to be rehired.

Could this be a new revolution in higher education? Or will the world push these students, as well as their ideas, away due to their lack of college education?

Source: Yahoo! News - Tech mogul pays bright minds not to go to college

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McAfee's Predicted Security Threats for 2010

McAfee recently released a report that predicts potential online security threats for 2010. To summarize, the anti-virus and computer security company, which is based out of Santa Clara, California, sees an increase in threats from social networking sites, banking security, and bot nets. In addition, they see increases in attacks targeting users, businesses, and applications. However, the findings weren't all negative. McAfee says they expect an increase in law enforcement and its effectiveness in fighting cybercrime.

As social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, become increasingly popular, they'll most likely become a breeding ground for cyber attacks. On top of the increased number, the attacks will be more sophisticated. Facebook users are particularly vulnerable due to the number of third party applications used. Games and other applications are popular and most people will trust an invitation from their friends without using caution. But that invitation could easily be malware or something else designed to harm your computer. There's really no way to protect yourself other than avoiding the third party apps such as quizzes and games.

URL shorteners such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com are also expected to become a target of cybercrime. These tie-in to social networking because most people use them to post links to their profiles. The websites shorten a normal URL into a smaller one that will fit in almost any space and is especially popular on Twitter, where you only have 140 characters to gets your message across. One major problem with these smaller URLs is that they can't be previewed, so clicking on one at random could lead you to somewhere you don't want to be. This makes it a very easy target for crooks.

Due to the popularity of Microsoft products, cyber criminals have been taking advantage of them for years. However, as programs such as Adobe Reader and Flash become more popular, McAfee expects they will become a bigger target, taking over the top "honor" from Microsoft. In 2009, Adobe Reader saw an increase of problems due to security holes, leading the company to take a more proactive approach to patching up problems.

Email attachments have always been a problem when it comes to spreading malware and that threat is expected to continue and even get bigger. The company expects an increase in specific targets when it comes to email, and those include journalists, corporations, and individual users who could easily be convinced to download an attachment that is hiding a Trojan or other bit of malware.

Other projected problems include banking Trojans. Normally used to get your financial information, McAfee expects them to become so advanced that they will start interrupting transactions and even withdrawing money from your accounts. 2009 already saw an increase in banking cybercrime, with many Trojans making their way past strong bank security. Botnets are also expected to be a threat. McAfee calls them a "leading infrastructure for cybercriminals" and says they are "used for actions from spamming to identity theft." While they are harder to track down due to their ability to move from computer to computer without a central base of operation, there has been some recent success in shutting them down.

Despite all the many threats, McAfee does project an increase in law enforcement's ability to track down cybercriminals. Even so, there are steps you should take to protect yourself. Purchasing security software and keeping it updated is very important and something everyone should do. Keeping your PC up-to-date with Microsoft patches that protect your operating system, office suite, and browser is also important. You should also be sure that you are aware of all the latest threats and realize what's at risk. Exercise caution when opening files or downloading applications.

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