A 17-year-old hacker has broken the lock that ties Apple’s iPhone to AT&T’s wireless network, freeing the most hyped cellphone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones.
George Hotz of Glen Rock, N.J., confirmed Friday that he had unlocked an iPhone and was using it on T-Mobile’s network, the only major U.S. carrier apart from AT&T that is compatible with the iPhone’s cellular technology. In a video posted to his blog, he holds an iPhone that displays “T-Mobile” as the carrier.
While the possibility of switching from AT&T to T-Mobile may not be a major development for U.S. consumers, it opens up the iPhone for use on the networks of overseas carriers.
“That’s the big thing,” Hotz said in a phone interview from his home.
The phone, which combines an innovative touch-screen interface with the media-playing abilities of the iPod, is sold only in the U.S.
AT&T Inc. spokesman Mark Siegel said the company had no comment and referred questions to Apple. A call to Apple was not immediately returned. Hotz said the companies had not been in touch with him.
The hack, which Hotz posted Thursday to his blog, is complicated and requires skill with both soldering and software. It takes him about two hours to perform. Since the details are public, it seems likely that a small industry may spring up to buy U.S. iPhones, unlock them and send them overseas.
“That’s exactly, like, what I don’t want,” Hotz said. “I don’t want people making money off this.”
He said he wished he could make the instructions simpler so users could modify the phones themselves.
“But that’s the simplest I could make them,” Hotz said. The next step, he said, would be for someone to develop a way to unlock the phone using only software.
The iPhone has already been made to work on overseas networks using another method, which involves copying information from the Subscriber Identity Module, a small card with a chip that identifies a subscriber to the cell-phone network.
The SIM-chip method does not require any soldering, but does requires special equipment, and it doesn’t unlock the phone each new SIM chip has to be reprogrammed for use on a particular iPhone.
Both hacks leave intact the iPhone’s many functions, including a built-in camera and the ability to access Wi-Fi networks. The only thing that won’t work is the “visual voicemail” feature, which shows voice messages as if they were incoming e-mail.
Since the details of both hacks are public, Apple may be able to modify the iPhone production line to make new phones invulnerable. The company has said it plans to introduce the phone in Europe this year, but it hasn’t set a date or identified carriers.
There is apparently no U.S. law against unlocking cell phones. Last year, the Library of Congress specifically excluded cell-phone unlocking from coverage under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Among other things, the law has been used to prosecute people who modify game consoles to play a wider variety of games.
Hotz collaborated online with four other people, two of them in Russia, to develop the unlocking process.
“Then there are two guys who I think are somewhere U.S.-side,” Hotz said. He knows them only by their online handles.
Hotz himself spent about 500 hours on the project since the iPhone went on sale on June 29. On Thursday, he put the unlocked iPhone up for sale on eBay, where the high bid was above $2,000 midday Friday. The model, with 4 gigabytes of memory, sells for $499 new.
“Some of my friends think I wasted my summer, but I think it was worth it,” he told The Record of Bergen County, which reported Hotz’s hack Friday.
Hotz heads for college on Saturday. He plans to major in neuroscience or “hacking the brain!” as he put it to the newspaper at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
iPhone’s Network Lock Hacked By Teen
Asia’s Race To The Moon
With Asia’s biggest powers set to launch their first moon missions, possibly as early as next month, the countdown is on in the hottest space race since the Cold War.
Japan claims its project is the biggest since the Apollo missions put the first humans on the moon. China, hoping to pave the way for its own manned missions, says its probes will study the lunar surface to help plan a landing.
But the big question right now is not about science it’s who will get there first.
Japan’s space agency said last week its SELENE lunar satellite is on track for a Sept. 13 launch, following years of delay as engineers struggled to fix a slew of mechanical problems. China, meanwhile, was rumored to be planning a September launch for its Chang’e 1 probe, but is being coy as to the exact date.
Both sides say all systems are “go.”
The Chinese satellite and its Changzheng 3 rocket carrier have passed all tests and construction of the launch site is finished, according to the National Space Administration’s Web site. Last month, China’s minister of defense technology told CCTV that all was ready for a launch “by the end of the year.”
Officials have tried to play down the importance of beating each other off the pad, but their regional rivalry is never far below the surface.
“I don’t want to make this an issue of win or lose. But I believe whoever launches first, Japan’s mission is technologically superior,” said Yasunori Motogawa, an executive at JAXA, Japan’s space agency. “We’ll see which mission leads to the scientific breakthroughs.”
China’s military-run space program has taken a great leap forward in recent years, and Beijing sent shock waves through the region in 2003 when it became the first Asian country to put its own astronauts into space.
China also raised eyebrows when it blasted an old satellite into oblivion with a land-based anti-satellite missile, the first such test ever conducted by any nation, including the United States and Russia.
But Japan has stayed close on China’s heels.
After a decade of work, Tokyo in February completed a network of four spy satellites that can monitor any spot on the globe, every day a program spurred by the 1998 North Korean test of a Taepodong ballistic missile that flew over Japan’s main island and into the Pacific.
One of the spy satellites has since failed, however, throwing the network’s effectiveness into doubt. Still, Tokyo spends about $500 million a year on its spy satellites.
Regional powers India, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan all have satellites in orbit. North Korea claims to have sent one up with its 1998 ballistic missile launch and to have used it to broadcast hymns about its leader, Kim Jong Il. The claim has never been substantiated.
But the planned lunar missions by China and Japan are among the most ambitious space programs yet.
Japanese space officials have said their 32 billion yen ($276 million) SELENE project is the largest lunar mission since the U.S. Apollo program in terms of overall scope and ambition, outpacing the former Soviet Union’s Luna program and NASA’s Clementine and Lunar Prospector projects.
SELENE involves placing a main satellite in orbit around the moon and deploying the two smaller satellites in polar orbits to study the moon’s origin and evolution. Japan launched a lunar probe in 1990, but that was a flyby mission unlike SELENE, which is intended to orbit the moon.
China’s Chang’e 1 orbiter will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to map three-dimensional images of the lunar surface and to study its dust. The country has already spent 1.4 billion yuan ($185 million) on the undertaking, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Beijing hopes to retrieve samples from the moon in later missions, according to the project’s Web page, and Xinhua has reported that a manned probe could come within 15 years. Japan is also considering a manned mission by 2025.
“It’s the race for the South Pole, all over again,” said Hideo Nagasu, former research head of JAXA’s predecessor organization, the National Aerospace Laboratory.
“In the interest of furthering Asia’s space technology, cooperating would be the best option. But I don’t think either side wants to do that just yet.”
Google Maps Heavens And Earth
The heavens are only a few mouse clicks away with Google Inc.’s latest free tool.
A new feature in Google Earth, the company’s satellite imagery-based mapping software, allows users to view the sky from their computers.
The tool provides information about various celestial bodies, from stars to planets, and includes imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope and other sources. It also allows users to take virtual tours through galaxies, including the Milky Way, from any point on Earth they choose.
“By working with some of the industry’s leading experts, we’ve been able to transform Google Earth into a virtual telescope,” Lior Ron, a Google product manager, said in a statement.
The new software also promises users the ability to see planets in motion and witness a supernova.
There are other programs and tools that provide information and pictures of the universe, but Google Sky blends it seamlessly, said Andrew Connolly, a University of Washington associate professor of astronomy and part of Google’s visiting faculty program.
“What’s unique about this is you have all of the imaging data over the whole of the sky actually streaming. So I can look at something that covers most of the sky, say our Milky Way Galaxy, and I can zoom right into a tiny galaxy that’s in the formation cycle,” he said.
Google engineers stitched together “terabytes and terabytes” of images and other data about the heavens, similar to how one might use a digital camera’s panoramic feature to create a seamless image, Connolly said. A terabyte can hold the text of roughly 1 million books.
“Sky in Google Earth will foster and initiate new understanding of the universe by bringing it to everyone’s home computer,” said Dr. Carol Christian of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Google Sky was developed at the company’s Pittsburgh engineering office.
The feature, which is free, demonstrates Google’s culture of allowing employees to think creatively aside from their core duties, said Andrew Moore, director of the Pittsburgh office.
The tool also demonstrates Google’s core mission of making information easily available, said Stuart Feldman, a vice president of engineering at Google.
Current Google Earth users must download a new version from earth.google.com. The software works on computers running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows, Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X, and the Linux operating systems.
Google, the leading Internet search engine, already provides surface images of Mars and the Moon through its Web site, along with animated and satellite-based maps of Earth.
By Associated Press Writer Dan Nephin
Google's Blogger fixes bug, adds video uploading (InfoWorld)
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An undetermined number of Blogger publishers had trouble performing various editing and posting operations on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wednesday the problem had been solved.
One of the people affected was Lisa Kasanicky, owner and chief editor of Arizona Spa Girls, which publishes the , a directory of spas and beauty salons in the state.
Arizona Spa Girls organizes a series of summer events in the state and publishes another Web site called to offer information about these activities.
Although both of those sites are hosted internally, Kasanicky chose Blogger to launch for SummerSpaAZ in May.
With the summer events wrapping up this past weekend, there was much expectation among attendees and readers to see the latest reports and photos early this week on the blog.
But when Kasanicky tried to post to the blog Tuesday morning, she got an increasing number of server code errors. "It got worse and worse. At first I couldn't publish anything, and then I couldn't access the blog at all," she said on Thursday.
Although Kasanicky doesn't plan to use Blogger for additional work-related blogs any time soon, she hopes Google will continue to enhance it to the point where Blogger might provide professional-grade uptime.
"I'm not giving up on Blogger. It's a Google product, and I'm a big fan of what they do. I know they perfect things," she said. "I'd use it again for keeping in touch with family, something that's more recreational as opposed to something professional, until it gets to a point when it's a reliable product."
On Wednesday, Blogger and its Blogspot hosting platform also suffered an outage that lasted little over an hour and affected the entire system.
After marking the eighth of this free blogging service on Thursday, Google announced the video upload feature on Friday.
"This feature allows you to upload videos and create a video podcast with the same ease that we currently provide with photo uploading," reads the .
Publishers will see a new button in the Blogger editing console to upload videos stored in their computers. More information and a how-to video can be found on .
Update: Press watchdog blasts China's blogging policy (InfoWorld)
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The government, through the Internet Society of China, recently drafted a pact that was signed by at least 20 major blog service providers in the country, including Yahoo and Microsoft, the Paris-based watchdog group said Thursday.
"The pact stops short [of] the , but it can be used to force service providers to censor content and identify bloggers," the group said in a . The pact, unveiled Wednesday, signals an "imminent" new wave of censorship and repression, the group said.
Blogging services, which make it easy and simple for people to publish writings, photos, and videos on the Web, have become popular among individuals wanting to anonymously disseminate information that governments would rather keep confidential.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., didn't immediately reply to a request for comment. A Yahoo spokeswoman referred a request for comment to , which manages Yahoo's China operations, but that company hadn't replied at press time.
Microsoft, in an e-mail statement on Friday, acknowledged that on Aug. 21, MSN China, a joint venture with Shanghai Alliance Investment, signed the document, which it says is "in line" with similar agreements adopted by other countries and organizations.
"Such self-regulatory codes are an effective means of helping to protect our customers from cybercrimes and other threats to online security and privacy, and to promoting a safe, friendly environment in which to enjoy our services," the statement reads.
Although it signed the document, Microsoft doesn't agree with some of its recommendations, such as requiring people to register with their real names for the company's Windows Live Spaces blog hosting and publishing service.
"It should be emphasized that these are indeed recommendations only, and we retain discretion to determine how to best achieve the overarching goals of the agreement," Microsoft said.
The pact "encourages" blog service providers to require that people provide their real names and contact information in order to let them post blogs, and then store the individuals' information, the group said.
The pact also says blog service providers should "monitor and manage comments" as well as delete "illegal and bad information," according to Reporters Without Borders.
In its statement, the group quotes Internet Society of China Secretary General Huang Chengqing as saying: "Blog service providers who allow the use of pseudonyms may be more attractive to bloggers, but they will be punished by the government if they fail to screen illegal information."
China's Internet policies, such as the censorship of search engine results, have become a frequent target of criticism by organizations that advocate for human rights and press freedom.
These organizations, like including Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google for going along with Chinese government requirements that these groups charge violate human rights and press freedom.
The companies' defense is that they must comply with the local laws of the countries in which they operate.
Yahoo in particular has been blasted often in recent years for cooperating with the Chinese government and providing information that has led to the arrest of dissidents and journalists.
In April, the in the U.S. for divulging information about her husband's Internet activity, which allegedly led to his arrest and torture. The suit was filed by the World Organization for Human Rights USA on behalf of Yu Ling, the wife of Wang Xiaoning, arrested in September 2002 on charges including "incitement to subvert state power."
This month, a whether or not a Yahoo representative lied during testimony over the company's role in a human rights case in China that sent journalist Shi Tao to jail for 10 years.
In its statement, Microsoft said that government actions taken to address security, safety, and other concerns and which impact free expression and privacy "should be taken with deliberation and restraint."
Ultimately, through international dialogue, Microsoft supports the establishment of consistent "national actions" and the development of a set of principles to guide Internet companies providing services worldwide.
"To this end, Microsoft has joined with a diverse group of companies, academics, investors, technology leaders, and human rights organizations to seek solutions to the free expression and privacy challenges faced by technology and communications companies doing business internationally," the statement reads.
This story was updated on August 24, 2007
Old Worm Slammer Threatens Again (PC World)
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Ollmann, the author of the white paper "Old threats never die", says that Slammer is still the threat most commonly encountered by IBM ISS.
But it isn't just high-profile vulnerabilities and malware that are a problem, Ollmann said. In effect, the security industry is now witnessing a snowball effect, where threats are accumulating at an "exponential" rate, and it isn't really possible to eradicate any of those threats.
"Organizations need to be aware that old threats never actually retire from the digital landscape," Ollmann wrote in the white paper. "Rather, they tend to become background noise on the Internet– ready to burst into life with each new software update, host recovery, device deployment or embedded system release."
The problem is that many of the protection mechanisms companies rely on, like signature-based security software, are no longer able to keep up with the rate at which new threats are appearing.
That's worsened by the fact that whenever security firms retire older signatures, they open a hole through which old attacks can instantly reappear, Ollmann said.
"Antivirus systems can handle tens of thousands of new signatures without blinking, but after a few hundred thousand they begin to struggle a bit," he wrote in a blog post this week. "Now, with several hundred thousand new virus strains each year (and increasing faster than Moore's Law), things are getting pretty creaky."
Security vendors are at a disadvantage, because it costs nothing for attackers to append the latest exploit to their attack systems, keeping all the old attack methods in place as well, Ollmann said.
"The consequences for all of us are that old exploits (and the threats they represent) will never disappear– and there continues to be a steady supply of hosts vulnerable to flaws for which patches have existed for half a decade," he wrote in the blog post.
IBM ISS advised companies to think twice about retiring their old, creaking protection systems, but instead to evaluate more efficient protection models such as heuristic engines.
"Instead of a one-for-one signature protection model, more advanced heuristic engines can be used to protect the entire threat class," Ollmann wrote in the white paper.
Skype Woos SMBs with new Deal (PC World)
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The Skype Small Business Pack gives SMBs ten 5-month subscriptions to the new Skype Pro software, plus programs to integrate this into a manageable whole, including Skype for Windows Business Edition, and the MSI Windows Installer used for multi-PC installation. The package also includes 50 Euros-worth of call credit.
The company said customers would pay 99 Euros (plus VAT) for a package that would normally cost 150 Euros (plus VAT) if bought separately. The particular benefit of Skype Pro is that is provides free local and national-rate calls within a customer's home country for all employees using it, a large potential saving when compared with the PSTN.
The package has its own online control panel to assign bought credit to different users, providing a consolidated view of total usage.
What's less clear is whether after Skype's recent serious service outage, small businesses will be in any mood to trust it. As a number of rivals have pointed out, one of the disadvantages of Skype's proprietary call protocol is that its calls can't be routed over other SIP-compliant networks in the event of a problem
Others have cast doubt on the program's underlying design, which is based on a sophisticated P2P scheme that turns some of its customer's PCs into 'supernodes'. The company's explanation that the service went down last week due to a problem Microsoft Windows patch has also been challenged.
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