Lit Apple Mac, iPhone, iPad User Group

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Apple Watch Series 5 (September)

Apple didn't change a lot in the Apple Watch Series 5, and it continues to use the same chip that was in the Series 4. It does have an always-on display, though, which is the biggest difference between Series 4 and Series 5 models.

The always-on display allows the time and certain complications and apps to be visible at all times without the need to raise your wrist. Series 5 models also feature a new built-in compass feature and Compass app, along with new Ceramic options. Pricing on the Apple Watch Series 5 starts at $399.



Seventh-Generation iPad (September)

Apple overhauled the entry-level iPad in September, adding a new 10.2-inch display while keeping the $329 price tag intact. The new display offers more viewing area, and it continues to support the Apple Pencil.

For the first time, the seventh-generation iPad works with the Smart Keyboard through a new Smart Connector. Other than the new display size and the addition of a Smart Connector, the seventh-generation iPad is identical to the sixth-generation model, using the same camera technology and A10 Fusion chip.



Apple Arcade (September)

Apple Arcade is another one of Apple's new services, offering access to hundreds of games for a $4.99 per month fee. Since Apple Arcade launched in September, Apple has been steadily adding new games, and there's a ton of content for that $4.99 fee.

Family Sharing is supported, so the monthly fee allows up to six family members to access Apple Arcade games. All Apple Arcade games are exclusive to Apple when it comes to mobile availability, and are from some big name partners like Cartoon Network, LEGO, and Konami.

Apple Arcade games can be played offline and have no ads or in-app purchases. All content is included in the monthly fee.



AirPods Pro (October)

Apple in October surprised us with the AirPods Pro, a new higher-end version of the AirPods with an overhauled design and active noise cancellation functionality.

The AirPods Pro have a design reminiscent of the original AirPods, but with silicone tips that fit into the ear canal to seal out noise for the noise cancellation technology.

Available only in white and priced at $249, the AirPods Pro also offer superior sound quality and a Transparency mode that lets you hear what's going on around you so you don't miss important announcements at airports and train stations.

AirPods Pro use the same H1 chip that's in the AirPods, and there's a vent system that's meant to minimize the discomfort common with other in-ear designs. AirPods Pro are water resistant with an IPX4 rating and also come with a wireless charging case that's bigger than the AirPods case because of its need to accommodate the larger tips.



Apple TV+ (November)

Apple TV+ is Apple's streaming television service, priced at $4.99 per month. There's a one-month free trial, and Apple is offering a free year of Apple TV+ to anyone who has bought a new iPhone, Mac, Apple TV, or iPod after September 10, 2019.

Apple is offering a free one-year subscription to new device owners because there's just not a lot of content on Apple TV+ at this time comparative to other streaming services.

Apple TV+ launched with a handful of TV shows like "For All Mankind," "The Morning Show," "See," and "Dickinson," but it will take some time for the company to build up a solid content catalog. Apple is adding new shows to Apple TV+ regularly, and all content can be watched by up to six family members using Family Sharing.



16-inch MacBook Pro (November)

Apple in November refreshed the MacBook Pro for the third time in 2019, introducing a new 16-inch model that replaces the 15-inch model that was just updated in May 2019.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro has a larger 16-inch display size with slimmer bezels, plus it has a new keyboard that eliminates the much-hated butterfly mechanism in favor of a new scissor mechanism that shouldn't be as prone to catastrophic failure.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro uses Intel's 9th-generation chips, along with AMD Radeon Pro 5000M series graphics. It supports up to 64GB of RAM and up to 8TB of storage space. It continues to have a Touch Bar and Touch ID, but Apple did make one useful change - the ESC key is no longer part of the Touch Bar and is now a standalone key.
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[sultrysandy]

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Seventh-Generation iPod Touch (May)

Apple updated the iPod touch for the first time in several years in May, introducing a faster A10 Fusion chip. It's not as fast as more modern chips in current iPhones, but it's an improvement over what was in the sixth-generation iPod touch.

Apple made no other design changes to the iPod touch, and it continues to offer a 4-inch display and a body with a Home button but no Touch ID fingerprint sensor.



MacBook Air (July)

Apple updated the MacBook Air in July, lowering the starting price to $999 and introducing an updated display with True Tone support plus an updated butterfly keyboard that's supposed to be more durable.

There were no other design changes, and the 2019 MacBook Air uses the same redesign with Retina display that was first introduced in October 2018. Pricing on the MacBook Air now starts at $1,099 instead of $1,199.



Apple Card (August)

Apple in August introduced the Apple Card, its first ever credit card created in partnership with Goldman Sachs. The Apple Card is linked to Apple Pay and built right into the Wallet app, plus there's a physical titanium card to use for purchases.

Apple Card is meant to be easy to sign up for and easy to use, with everything handled in the Wallet app. You can see detailed reports on spending to keep track of what you've purchased, and make payments right on the iPhone.

Apple offers a Daily Cash rewards feature for Apple Card, which gives a percentage of each purchase back to you. You can get 1% for general purchases, 2% for all Apple Pay purchases, and 3% for Apple Pay purchases made from Apple or from select retailers like T-Mobile, Walgreens, Nike, and Duane Reade.



New Software (September/October)

In the fall, Apple released new software for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch, debuting iOS 13, iPadOS 13, macOS Catalina, tvOS 13, and watchOS 6.

iOS 13 for the first time splits iOS into two separate operating systems -- iOS for iPhones and iPadOS for the iPad. The updates are ultimately close to identical, but iPadOS has some additional features designed for the larger screen of the iPad such as multitasking and Sidecar support.


The update brings an overhauled Photos app, new video editing capabilities, major privacy improvements, updated Maps, new HomeKit capabilities, and lots more.

macOS Catalina is a major change because it does away with the iTunes app in favor of separate Music, Movies, and Podcasts apps. It also has a new Sidecar feature for using the iPad as a secondary display for the Mac, there's a new Find My app, support for Screen Time, plus tons of additional features.

watchOS 6 introduced a dedicated App Store for the first time, making it possible to download apps right on the wrist. There's also a new Noise app for making sure the ambient noise around you isn't loud enough to damage hearing, and a new menstrual cycle tracking app for women.

Audiobooks, Calculator, and Voice Memos were brought to the Apple Watch, and there are new complications and watch faces.

tvOS 13 brought a new Home screen for the Apple TV, making it easier than ever to discover content, plus it includes the TV app, a new Control Center, multi-user support, and picture-in-picture mode.

Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR (December)

After introducing the Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR earlier in the year, Apple launched the new hardware in December. The Mac Pro is a machine designed for professionals, and it features a new modular, upgradeable design with high-end hardware.

It supports Xeon chips with up to 28 cores, up to 1.5TB of memory, eight PCIe expansion slots, 4TB of SSD storage, and Radeon Pro Vega II Duo GPUs, plus there's an Apple-designed Apple Afterburner accelerator card that boosts ProRes performance. Pricing on the Mac Pro starts at $6,000 and goes up from there with each upgrade.

Apple is selling the Mac Pro alongside the Pro Display XDR, a 32-inch 6K Retina display that offers more than 20 million pixels. Its design matches the design of the Mac Pro, and it's priced starting at $5000. That price tag doesn't include the price of the stand, which is an additional $999.
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[sultrysandy]

Swallowed AirPod sends 7-year-old to emergency room

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A second-grader has landed himself in the emergency room after accidentally swallowing a Christmas gift —an AirPod.

A Georgia mother reports that her son had accidentally swallowed one of his AirPods, prompting her to rush him to the emergency room. The seven-year-old had received the AirPods as a Christmas gift along with a new iPhone.

"He said he was holding it in his mouth by the long end," Kiara Stroud, the boy's mother, told Atlanta's WSB-TV Channel 2 News.

The X-ray shows that the AirPod is clearly still in his stomach, sitting just below his rib cage. Stroud couldn't believe that her son had swallowed the wireless earbud.

"First of all, he was very nervous. He thought he was going to be in trouble," Stroud told reporters. "We just kinda assured him that it's okay."

The doctor at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egelston didn't know what an AirPod was, and was said it was a unique case. Despite the lack of knowledge about the product, doctors went on to assure both Stroud and her son that the AirPod would pass on its own and that he would be fine.

The son raised concerns about the AirPod connecting to his iPhone if he were to get too close.

"He was like, Mom. I don't want my phone,' because he got a phone for Christmas as well, and he's like, I don't want to be near my phone. I don't want it to connect to my phone and start playing music,'" Stroud said.

Stroud hopes that other parents will be cautious when giving AirPods to their kids, as she never anticipated her son would swallow the AirPod.
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[sultrysandy]

How to turn off Apple notifications on iPhone

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How to turn off promotional notifications from Apple on your iPhone


Apple sometimes sends notifications to iPhones with promotional offers and updates about its own services. The settings to turn these off is in a different menu than other notifications.



Apple sends push notifications advertising its services and other Apple-related announcements to your phone. You might have seen them: they advertise new iPhones, Apple Arcade and more. They’re easy to turn off if you don’t want them, but you need to know where to look.

Apple uses these alerts to send you announcements, recommendations, updates and special offers for the company’s services. As Apple develops its growing services business, garnering new subscribers to these services, and keeping people using iPhones, will become more important for the company.

For example, last year Apple sent notifications about new iPhones and payment plans. Earlier this year, it sent notifications to iPhones advertising a three-month free Apple Music trial for lapsed subscribers. Most recently, In December, some Apple Arcade subscribers received a push notification about “Ultimate Rivals,” a new game that had been added to the Apple Arcade subscription.

It can be a little much for users who don’t want these notifications.


Here’s what you do to turn them off:

• Open Settings.
  
  
• Tap your name at the top of the screen.
  
  
• Choose “Name, Phone Numbers, Email”
  
  
• Scroll down and turn off the toggles for “Apps,” “Announcements” and “Apple News Updates.”

That’s it. Now you shouldn’t receive notifications for new Apple products and services if you don’t want them.
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[sultrysandy]

How to stop iPhone apps from asking for reviews

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How to stop iPhone apps from constantly showing pop-ups that ask for reviews


You’ve probably seen this yourself: You open an app and, every once in a while, it asks you to give it a review. It’s one way developers can get feedback on apps and boost their ranking in the App Store. But, as a user, it can get awfully annoying.

Some apps make it hard to close out if you don’t feel like rating right now, for example. Or they seem to barrage you with a request for a review every time you open it.

You can easily turn this option off so that developers won’t ask for product feedback when you’re using the app. You can always just go to the App Store and search for the app again if you want to leave a review.


Here’s what to do:

• Open Settings on your iPhone.
  
  
• Tap your name at the top of the list.
  
  
• Choose “iTunes & App Store.”
  
  
• Scroll down and turn off the toggle button next to “In-App Ratings & Reviews.”

That’s it!
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[sultrysandy]

First iPod went from conception to shipping product in ten months

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Apple's development of the world-changing iPod was extremely rapid, details from former Apple SVP Tony Fadell reveal, with the claim Apple took less than ten months from first being contacted by Apple and the company shipping its first units to customers.

The first generation of the iPod was, at the time, an engineering and design marvel, but few details have been offered about its inception. According to information from Fadell, "father of the iPod" and former SVP for Apple's iPod division, the timeline for its creation was exceptionally short by modern standards.

In a tweet from Stripe CEO Patrick Collison researching about the iPod, Fadell gave an overview of events that took place in 2001, the year the iPod was made. Fadell himself was initially contacted in the first week of January, with a first meeting in the third week, but only started related work on the product by the fourth week as a consultant.



Tony Fadell about the iPod timeline for my fast project page. Summary: . pic.twitter.com/mf0CfbAEtB
— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) January 12, 2020

Given the codename "P68 Dulcimer," the project had Fadell investigating "what is possible?" for the company. At the time, Fadell insists "there was no team, prototype, designs, nothing," with a pitch to Steve Jobs in the third week of March resulting in a green-lighting of the project.

Fadell became a full-time employee by the second week of April, then quickly found a contract manufacturer in Asia the following week. The first employee for the team was hired in the second week of May.

Apple launched the iPod in the fourth week of October before shipping its first iPods to consumers in the first week of November.

The rapid development and production of the iPod in less than a year is a far cry from Apple's current position. While it has far more resources now than it had two decades ago, the scale of its product launches and the sums involved force Apple into lengthening its schedules for a variety of reasons, including producing at scale and ensuring product safety and reliability.

The new timeline mostly matches up with an early recount of the iPod's development from 2004, told to Wired by Ben Knauss. Knauss worked for PortalPlayer at the time, a company Apple was in discussions with over creating an MP3 player. In his account, Tony "had the business idea" of making an MP3 player and creating a "Napster music sale service to complement it."

For the iPod's creation, Knauss agrees with the "early 2001" hiring for Fadell, but he was assigned "a typical industrial design team" of about 30 people, including designers, programmers, and hardware engineers.

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[sultrysandy]

Apple CEO Tim Cook has had a stellar run without a product like iPhone

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Tim Cook has had a stellar run at Apple — even without another mega-smash like the iPhone

Apple CEO Tim Cook greets customers as they prepare to purchase a new iPhone X at an Apple Store on November 3, 2017 in Palo Alto, California.



Apple was in a sour spot shortly after Tim Cook took over as Apple’s CEO.

After the death of Steve Jobs in 2011, critics began questioning if the company could continue to produce breakthrough products like iPod, iPhone and iPad. That pessimism continued into 2012 and 2013 as rivals like Samsung pushed forward with iPhone alternatives that had bigger screens and wild features.

Apple was doomed, according to the naysayers. The company lost its spiritual leader, and an “operations” guy like Cook didn’t have the instincts to create another disruptive product. The company continued to beat earnings expectations, but the longer term outlook didn’t look great.

The naysayers were wrong.

Apple under Cook hasn’t invented a new, game-changing product like the iPhone. Instead, he’s leveraged the iPhone’s success into new areas of growth.

Under Cook, the iPhone has become the linchpin for the entire Apple ecosystem. Even though unit sales have fallen over the last couple years, the company has built a compelling system of accessories and services around it.

Cook has convinced investors that its story reaches far beyond how many iPhones it can sell each quarter.

Apple’s stock is up about 480% since Cook took over in August 2011. It became the first publicly traded company to reach a $1 trillion market cap in 2018. And even after a rough start to 2019 when Apple shocked investors by revising its holiday quarter guidance down, the stock completely recovered by the end of the year, blowing past a $1 trillion market cap once again. It’s up about 45% since the unveiling of the iPhone 11 last September, adding about $400 billion in market value. To put that in perspective, Apple added the value of more than four Teslas in just four months.

(On the other hand, Apple’s stock is historically expensive. It’s price-to-earnings, or P/E, ratio climbed throughout 2019, ending the year at 24.7, the highest level since 2010, according to FactSet.)

So what attributed to Cook’s amazing run? And what continues to drive the stock higher in the new year?

Let’s break it down:


Growing the iPhone

Early in Cook’s tenure, Apple’s main goal was expanding the iPhone’s presence around the world. At the time, the iPhone was only available on Verizon and AT&T in the U.S., and it wasn’t until 2013 that the last major carrier, T-Mobile, finally started selling it. From there, the iPhone expanded around the globe, eventually landing its biggest prize in 2014 with China Mobile, the largest carrier in China, which had about 760 million subscribers at the time.

Later that year, Apple kicked off a major “super cycle” of iPhone sales by breaking with its tradition and releasing two iPhone 6 models with larger screens that matched its rivals. The company sold 74.5 million iPhones in the fourth quarter alone.

But that was just about the peak of iPhone sales, and doubts began to swirl about its ability to grow at such a massive scale.

That’s where the next chapter in Cook’s story began. The iPhone was a once-in-a-generation product, and it would’ve been technically impossible to recreate that magic. The writing was on the wall, and Cook formed a new path for growth outside the iPhone.


Services

Today, Apple talks about its growing suite of services more than anything else.

The segment includes products like iCloud storage, App Store sales, Apple Card, Apple Music subscriptions and the billions Google pays to be the default search engine on Apple products. We’ll get the final results for Apple’s services performance for 2019 when the company reports earnings on January 28.

Apple made an even bigger push into services last year with the launch of several new subscription products, like Apple News+, the Apple Arcade gaming service and the streaming TV service Apple TV+. It’s still too early to judge the success of those subscription services, especially Apple TV+, since it comes free for one year with the purchase of a new Apple gadget. (Even Apple has said Apple TV+ won’t be material to its financials.) But the foundation is in place for Apple to get more out of its subscription services in the coming years as it builds out its content offerings.

Finally, Cook gave us a hint during Apple’s last earnings call that the company is noodling around with the idea of an “Apple Prime” subscription bundle that would include everything from yearly iPhone upgrades to streaming services for one monthly fee.


Wearables

Apple may talk about services more than anything else, but the growth in its wearable accessories business has become a much more interesting story. Apple’s wearables business includes devices like the AirPods, AirPods Pro, Apple Watch and Beats headphones.

Last year, Apple upgraded the “regular” AirPods with improved battery life and an optional wireless case. In the fall, it launched the AirPods Pro, which sport a new design and high-end features like noise cancellation. And the Apple Watch’s entry price dropped to $199, making it an attractive option as competitors like Fitbit faltered in the smartwatch space. Between AirPods and Apple Watch, Apple has the wearables market locked up.

Wearables have turned into the sleeper hit for Apple, with Citi analysts estimating last month that the segment could show $10 billion in sales for the holiday quarter. That would make Apple’s wearables business alone about seven times larger than all of Twitter.

And again, it’s all tied to the iPhone, giving Apple the leverage it needs to keep its customers locked in when they’re ready to upgrade again.


5G optimism

Now back to the iPhone.

Apple is widely expected to launch its first 5G iPhones this fall, and some analysts have predicted a new super cycle of sales tied to the new wireless technology.

The reality might be a bit more nuanced. 5G networks are still in their infancy, especially in the U.S. All four wireless carriers have big plans to expand their 5G networks throughout 2020, but there’s not much of a chance that it’ll be as widely available and reliable as 4G is today. If you buy a 5G iPhone this fall, there’s a strong chance you’ll still be connected to a 4G network much of the time. (That said, a new 5G iPhone will be ready as networks continue to light up in the coming years.)

But even if Apple fails to spur another iPhone super cycle, so far the company hasn’t needed one. Adding new products to the already massive installed base of iPhones has been more than enough.
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[sultrysandy]

Apple FBI backdoor battle is about more than two iPhones

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The first four are headlines of the Trump Administration demanding Apple unlock Pensacola shoot iPhones, and Apple stance protecting people's privacy.

Then Apple's response to AG Barr on phone unlocking: read the full statement

Finally article: Apple FBI backdoor battle is about more than two iPhones



Mon Jan 13. 2020

Attorney General Barr demands Apple unlock iPhones in Pensacola shooting
US Attorney General William Barr has publicly asked Apple to unlock a pair of iPhones used by the gunman who killed three people in Pensacola, Florida in December, complaining Apple has so far provided no "substantive assistance" to the investigation.



Mon Jan 13. 2020

Apple denies Barr's request to unlock Pensacola shooter's iPhones
Apple on Monday denied a public request from U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr to unlock iPhones owned by a Saudi Air Force cadet accused of killing three people at a naval base in Pensacola, Fla., refuting the AG's claim that it has not provided "substantive assistance" in the investigation.



Tue Jan 14, 2020

Trump tells Apple to 'step up to the plate' and unlock Pensacola shooter's iPhones
President Donald Trump waded into the encryption battle on Tuesday with a tweet calling on Apple to "unlock" iPhones at the request of law enforcement agencies, suggesting the company should do so because of help it receives on trade and "other issues."



Tue Jan 14, 2020

Apple braces for legal fight with DOJ over Pensacola shooter's iPhones
Apple CEO Tim Cook is reportedly building a small team of specialists to defend the company's encryption policies as a legal showdown with the Department of Justice looms.






Apple rebutted Barr's characterization of the situation, saying it has responded to all law enforcement requests for help in the extraction data from two iPhones
Apple responds to AG Barr on phone unlocking: read the full statement here"
Mon Jan 13. 2020

Apple responds to AG Barr over unlocking Pensacola shooter's phone: "No."
In no uncertain terms, Apple stands by its policy that backdoor access to its devices threatens every user.






Apple’s fight with Trump and the Justice Department is about more than two iPhones

U.S. Attorney General William Barr discusses Pensacola Naval Air Station Shooting in Washington, DC.



President Donald Trump and the nation’s top law enforcement official are facing off against Apple, the most valuable American company.

The fight started because the FBI says it cannot extract data from two iPhones used by Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who is suspected of killing three people last month in a shooting at a Navy base in Pensacola, Florida. Attorney General William Barr and Trump want Apple to help by unlocking the phones it manufactured.

Although the current fight is over these two password-protected phones, it’s only the latest skirmish in a long-running battle over whether technology companies should give law enforcement special access to customers’ data.

Barr and other law enforcement officials call it the “going dark” problem and argue that all data should be accessible with a warrant. Apple and techies tend to call the concept a “backdoor” and argue that it would hurt security for everyone who uses that device.

During Barr’s press conference Monday, he explicitly framed the issue as bigger than just the two Pensacola iPhones: “We call on Apple and other technology companies to help us find a solution so that we can better protect the lives of Americans and prevent future attacks.”

Barr also discussed his goal last summer, months before the Pensacola shooting: “The Department has made clear what we are seeking. We believe that when technology providers deploy encryption in their products, services, and platforms they need to maintain an appropriate mechanism for lawful access.”

Apple is not against helping law enforcement. But it objects to building a general method that could be used to break encryption, arguing that it will have unintended consequences.

“Backdoors can also be exploited by those who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers. Today, law enforcement has access to more data than ever before in history, so Americans do not have to choose between weakening encryption and solving investigations,” an Apple representative said in a statement earlier this week.

Apple’s not the only company in this pickle. Pretty much every single major piece of digital technology uses encryption to protect information from prying eyes. Barr took aim at Facebook last year, for example, for the encryption it uses in WhatsApp.


We’ve seen this fight before

FBI Director James Comey Jr. and Apple CEO Tim Cook


The battle between pro-privacy techies and law enforcement officials who want access to encrypted data to investigate crimes has been raging since at least 1993. The Clinton White House promoted the Clipper Chip, which would allow law enforcement access to encryption, saying encryption “can be used by terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals.” The chip never took off, and encryption thrived.

Apple clashed with the Justice Department and then-FBI Director James Comey over encryption in a very similar case in 2016, with one major difference.

In that case, the FBI wanted to break into an iPhone used by a mass shooter in San Bernardino, California. The case spilled out into a court battle with specific legal arguments before the FBI said it found a third party that could unlock the device and gave up the court battle, leaving the issue of whether Apple would be compelled to unlock the phones unsettled.

So far in the Pensacola case, the Justice Department hasn’t filed for a court order to compel Apple to give it access, and Barr declined to comment in a press conference on Monday whether he would seek a court order.

Instead, this conflict is playing out in the press and in tweets.

As Ron Gula, a former National Security Agency employee and current security technology investor, said about Barr’s request to unlock the iPhone: “They are making a public appeal of it. They are trying to do it to get political points and change policy, which is their job.”
Could it be done?

Because it’s not a court battle yet, Apple hasn’t been compelled to say if it’s possible to unlock a customer’s iPhone.

But in a filing in the San Bernardino conflict in 2016, an Apple privacy engineer outlined how Apple would start to build software to unlock the iPhone, including assigning a team of six to 10 Apple engineers and other employees to work on the project for up to a month. It also warned that the software it built for the government could become dangerous, and Apple wouldn’t want it to leave its facilities.

Apple continues to argue that building a backdoor would create a vulnerability for all of its products — if the FBI had a tool to extract information for legitimate reasons, criminals could use that same tool to extract health or financial data from a lost or stolen iPhone, foreign governments could use that tool to spy on Americans, and so on.

Historically, the pro-security technologists have been right: the Clipper Chip was later found to have significant security holes. If the chip had been widely adopted, it would have given hackers several different methods to break into Clipper-equipped devices.

That’s why Apple CEO Tim Cook called the government’s 2016 request “the software equivalent of cancer.” He even threatened to resign in 2016 if Apple didn’t fight the request, The New York Times reported, citing Apple’s former general counsel.

Could the FBI unlock the phone on its own? Barr said it’s “virtually impossible” to unlock the phones without the password, even with the help of the FBI crime lab. But it found a third-party vendor in 2016 to unlock the San Bernardino phone, and several companies currently claim they can help law enforcement unlock iPhones, especially older ones.

“The terrorist in this case had an Apple 7 iPhone; that’s an old phone that has many remote issues with them. Law enforcement should make use of these things,” Gula said. “Today we can decrypt that phone.”


What’s next

A general view of the atmosphere at the Pensacola Naval Air Station following a shooting on December 06, 2019 in Pensacola, Florida. The second shooting on a U.S. Naval Base in a week has left three dead plus the suspect and seven people wounded.



In 2016, Cook wrote an open letter to Apple users posted on the company’s website. He hasn’t commented yet in the 2020 case.

But ever since San Bernardino, Apple has made privacy — including no backdoors — one of its key corporate values as well as a selling point to distinguish its phones from Android phones.

“Apple believes privacy is a fundamental human right,” according to a document sent to shareholders early this month. “Every Apple product is designed from the ground up to protect privacy and security.”

But this stance appears to apply only to the hardware Apple sells. Apple — like other tech companies — provides data from its servers to law enforcement on a regular basis. Apple said it turned over gigabytes of iCloud data related to the Pensacola shooting, and Apple has responded to 127,000 requests made by law enforcement agencies in the United States since 2013, according to statistics on its website.

Trump, when he entered the encryption discussion, explicitly linked Apple’s willingness to unlock the phone with trade and the “help” he’s given Apple, likely referring to his warm relationship with Cook. He also framed Apple as protecting criminals. That puts Apple in a tough spot.

Apple is likely to stand its ground going forward, but it doesn’t necessarily want to be known as the encryption company. Even if the Justice Department doesn’t advance this case in the courts, the issue will come up again.





And don't forget this post:
12-12-2019, 06:35 PM #188
U.S. Senators Threaten Apple and Facebook With Encryption Regulation and backdoors if tech companies won’t do it themselves






Reminiscent of 36 years ago:

Yet here we are now

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[sultrysandy]

Apple dropped plan for encrypting iPhone backups after FBI complained, sources say

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Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained - sources

• Apple dropped plans to let iPhone users fully encrypt backups of their devices in the company’s iCloud service after the FBI complained that the move would harm investigations, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
  
  
• The tech giant’s reversal shows how much Apple has been willing to help U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Apple Inc dropped plans to let iPhone users fully encrypt backups of their devices in the company’s iCloud service after the FBI complained that the move would harm investigations, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The tech giant’s reversal, about two years ago, has not previously been reported. It shows how much Apple has been willing to help U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, despite taking a harder line in high-profile legal disputes with the government and casting itself as a defender of its customers’ information.

The long-running tug of war between investigators’ concerns about security and tech companies’ desire for user privacy moved back into the public spotlight last week, as U.S. Attorney General William Barr took the rare step of publicly calling on Apple to unlock two iPhones used by a Saudi Air Force officer who shot dead three Americans at a Pensacola, Florida naval base last month.

U.S. President Donald Trump piled on, accusing Apple on Twitter of refusing to unlock phones used by “killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements.” Republican and Democratic senators sounded a similar theme in a December hearing, threatening legislation against end-to-end encryption, citing unrecoverable evidence of crimes against children.

Apple did in fact did turn over the shooter’s iCloud backups in the Pensacola case, and said it rejected the characterization that it “has not provided substantive assistance.”

Behind the scenes, Apple has provided the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation with more sweeping help, not related to any specific probe.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the company’s handling of the encryption issue or any discussions it has had with the FBI. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on any discussions with Apple.

More than two years ago, Apple told the FBI that it planned to offer users end-to-end encryption when storing their phone data on iCloud, according to one current and three former FBI officials and one current and one former Apple employee.

Under that plan, primarily designed to thwart hackers, Apple would no longer have a key to unlock the encrypted data, meaning it would not be able to turn material over to authorities in a readable form even under court order.

In private talks with Apple soon after, representatives of the FBI’s cyber crime agents and its operational technology division objected to the plan, arguing it would deny them the most effective means for gaining evidence against iPhone-using suspects, the government sources said.

A woman uses her Apple iPhone and laptop in a cafe in lower Manhattan in New York


When Apple spoke privately to the FBI about its work on phone security the following year, the end-to-end encryption plan had been dropped, according to the six sources. Reuters could not determine why exactly Apple dropped the plan.

“Legal killed it, for reasons you can imagine,” another former Apple employee said he was told, without any specific mention of why the plan was dropped or if the FBI was a factor in the decision.

That person told Reuters the company did not want to risk being attacked by public officials for protecting criminals, sued for moving previously accessible data out of reach of government agencies or used as an excuse for new legislation against encryption.

“They decided they weren’t going to poke the bear anymore,” the person said, referring to Apple’s court battle with the FBI in 2016 over access to an iPhone used by one of the suspects in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

Apple appealed a court order to break into that phone for the FBI. The government dropped the proceedings when it found a contractor that could break into the phone, a common occurrence in FBI investigations.

Two of the former FBI officials, who were not present in talks with Apple, told Reuters it appeared that the FBI’s arguments that the backups provided vital evidence in thousands of cases had prevailed.

“It’s because Apple was convinced,” said one. “Outside of that public spat over San Bernardino, Apple gets along with the federal government.”

However, a former Apple employee said it was possible the encryption project was dropped for other reasons, such as concern that more customers would find themselves locked out of their data more often.

Once the decision was made, the 10 or so experts on the Apple encryption project - variously code-named Plesio and KeyDrop - were told to stop working on the effort, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.


APPLE SHIFTS FOCUS

Apple’s decision not to proceed with end-to-end encryption of iCloud backups made the FBI’s job easier.

The agency relies on hacking software that exploits security flaws to break into a phone. But that method requires direct access to the phone which would ordinarily tip off the user, who is often the subject of the investigation.

Apple’s iCloud, on the other hand, can be searched in secret. In the first half of last year, the period covered by Apple’s most recent semiannual transparency report on requests for data it receives from government agencies, U.S. authorities armed with regular court papers asked for and obtained full device backups or other iCloud content in 1,568 cases, covering about 6,000 accounts.

The company said it turned over at least some data for 90% of the requests it received. It turns over data more often in response to secret U.S. intelligence court directives, which sought content from more than 18,000 accounts in the first half of 2019, the most recently reported six-month period.

The Apple logo is shown atop an Apple store at a shopping mall in La Jolla, California, U.S.



Had it proceeded with its plan, Apple would not have been able to turn over any readable data belonging to users who opted for end-to-end encryption.

Instead of protecting all of iCloud with end-to-end encryption, Apple has shifted to focus on protecting some of the most sensitive user information, such as saved passwords and health data.

But backed-up contact information and texts from iMessage, WhatsApp and other encrypted services remain available to Apple employees and authorities.

Apple is not the only tech company to have removed its own access to customers’ information.

Guests arrive for at the Steve Jobs Theater for an Apple event at their headquarters in Cupertino, California, U.S.



In October 2018, Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google announced a similar system to Apple’s dropped plan for secure backups. The maker of Android software, which runs on about three-quarters of the world’s mobile devices, said users could back up their data to its own cloud without trusting the company with the key.

Two people familiar with the project said Google gave no advance notice to governments, and picked a time to announce it when encryption was not in the news.

The company continues to offer the service but declined to comment on how many users have taken up the option. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment on Google’s service or the agency’s approach to it.

 

[sultrysandy]

What Apple surrenders to law enforcement when issued a subpoena

.
Apple won't unlock iPhones or other devices for law enforcement, but it can and will provide substantial data about a user when it gets a subpoena. Here's what Apple has access to you from your device —and what it doesn't.



Apple is not going to casually surrender information about any of its users to anyone. However, if law enforcement has a legal warrant or if the company is asked to help following an incident like the San Bernardino shootings, Apple has provided data. It's just that in this case, the data isn't seemingly enough for the authorities —yet it is genuinely the absolute most that Apple is capable of providing.

Short of introducing backdoors into iOS and macOS, as governments around the world regularly request, Apple has less data stored about you than it could because of technical limitations. They are limitations that Apple itself has created, but it's done so in order to protect the privacy of citizens.

Destroying that privacy by forging a backdoor in order to allow access to the data of criminals would destroy it for everyone. Defenders say that this backdoor could be kept secure —but if the NSA can't keep its own penetration tools safe, this seems like a specious claim. At least for the moment, then, and despite Apple's common sense argument, US Attorney General William Barr appears likely to continue pressing Apple for what he knows it cannot give him.

If your Mac or iPhone is taken by police or federal authorities, this is what they can get from that device or from Apple.


What Apple can provide


Apple can give the authorities the details of your iCloud account and access to any of the data that's on there —but that data is likely to be encrypted. Apple publishes a list of what data gets stored on iCloud and which of it is encrypted.

So much of what Apple has is encrypted. Your calendar and contact details are encrypted, for instance, as are your Safari bookmarks, your Notes, Photos, Reminders and so on. It's easier to say what isn't encrypted.

Cellebrite's Universal Forensic Extraction Device, a tool used to acquire data from connected smartphones



Out of everything from your health data to your photos and contacts, the only data not encrypted is Mail and text messages. That's not the same thing as iMessages: Apple does encrypt iMessages both as they are in transit - transmitted or received - and then when they are on Apple's servers.

Mail is encrypted in transit, but not at rest. "Consistent with standard industry practice," says Apple, "iCloud does not encrypt data stored on IMAP mail servers." There is an option to use encrypted mail, however.

Apple is physically able to give legitimate authorities your data on iCloud as it has the decryption key to much of it, but giving them iMessages means giving them the encrypted iMessages. It's not as if Apple can decrypt them for the government.

Or that's what Apple says, at least. According to data forensics company ElcomSoft, iCloud backups are "inherently much less secure" than users would hope.

"If you have iCloud backups enabled, the encryption key for iMessages will be stored in the backup," the company says in a blog.



"If the "Messages in iCloud" option is enabled, the messages themselves are NOT included in iCloud backups," it continues. "The encryption key, however, will be included and accessible by Apple (like the rest of the iCloud backup) and so available to the law enforcement."

Apple appears to confirm this in its support documentation about Apple Platform Security.

"If the user has enabled iCloud Backup, the CloudKit Service Key used for the Messages in iCloud container is backed up to iCloud to allow the user to recover their messages even if they have lost access to iCloud Keychain and their trusted devices," it says.

If you turn off this iCloud Backup feature, then a new encryption key is generated on your device "to protect future messages." This isn't stored by Apple.


From the iPhone itself


If the device is a modern iPhone, then in theory nothing can be accessed from it. Unless they have the passcode or a suspect unlocks the device for them, there is nothing at all that either law enforcement or Apple can retrieve from the device.

There have been clear exceptions, however, especially with the use of Cellebrite's software and techniques to crack various iPhones. The most recent example of this, however, was the extraction of WhatsApp data from the phone of Lev Parnas —and that was done with his permission and, seemingly, assistance.

US authorities also use a forensic tool called GrayKey, which reportedly can crack any iPhone. However, it does so by guessing the user's six-digit passcode.

Beyond that, you need the numeric passcode or a biometric one like Touch ID or Face ID to unlock the device.


Apple has been through this before


The current requests from law enforcement are not new. In response to previous ones, Apple has taken steps including a fast-track method for authorities to request what data it can provide. And Apple has also published details of what that data can be, at least within the US.

As well as iCloud data, it is possible for authorities with the correct legal backing to obtain details of a user's interactions with Apple services, such as registration information like name and address.

"Apple does not verify this information," says Apple's law enforcement guidelines, "and it may not be accurate."

On provision of the correct information regarding Apple ID and/or device details, Apple may provide iTunes subscription information. Apple can also provide details of transactions at retail or the online Apple Store, and so on.

Apple will also provide mail logs that include date/time stamps and sending/receiving email addresses, again if served with a court order. In this case, the data is only kept by Apple up to 30 days.


Devices are key


Apple says US Attorney William Barr is wrong to claim it has offered no "substantive assistance" to law enforcement. Since it did hand over iCloud data, Apple's position appears to be true.

It's still the case, though, that not even Apple can unlock a user's device. So, data that is stored there and not backed up to iCloud Drive is out of Apple's reach.

.

 

[sultrysandy]

36 Years Ago Today, Steve Jobs Unveiled the First Macintosh

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On January 24, 1984, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the first Macintosh at Apple's annual shareholder's meeting in Cupertino, California, debuting the new computer equipped with a 9-inch black and white display, an 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor, 128KB of RAM, a 3.5-inch floppy drive, and a price tag of $2,495.

The now iconic machine weighed in at a whopping 17 pounds and was advertised as offering a word processing program, a graphics package, and a mouse.



Jobs pulled the Macintosh out of a bag at the event, powered it on, and the Mac had a little message for everyone in attendance.

The Original 1984 Macintosh Introduction: the magic moment, when Steve Jobs unveils the Macintosh and releases it from its bag.



The now iconic "1984" Super Bowl ad that Apple invested in and debuted days before the Macintosh was unveiled may have helped bolster sales.

Apple 1984 Super Bowl Commercial Introducing Macintosh Computer (HD)

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[sultrysandy]

Mac users are getting bombarded by laughably unsophisticated malware

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This is a bit geeky but you'll understand it.



For malware so trite and crude, Shlayer is surprisingly prolific.

Almost two years have passed since the appearance of Shlayer, a piece of Mac malware that gets installed by tricking targets into installing fake Adobe Flash updates. It usually does so after promising pirated videos, which are also fake. The lure may be trite and easy to spot, but Shlayer continues to be common—so much so that it’s the number one threat encountered by users of Kaspersky Labs’ antivirus programs for macOS.

Since Shlayer first came to light in February 2018, Kaspersky Lab researchers have collected almost 32,000 different variants and identified 143 separate domains operators have used to control infected machines. The malware accounts for 30 percent of all malicious detections generated by the Kaspersky Lab’s Mac AV products. Attacks are most common against US users, who account for 31 percent of attacks Kaspersky Lab sees. Germany, with 14 percent, and France and the UK (both with 10 percent) followed. For malware using such a crude and outdated infection method, Shlayer remains surprisingly prolific.

An analysis Kaspersky Lab published on Thursday says that Shlayer is “a rather ordinary piece of malware” that, except for a recent variant based on a Python script, was built on Bash commands. Under the hood, the workflow for all versions is similar: they collect IDs and system versions and, based on that information, download and execute a file. The download is then deleted to remote traces of an infection. Shlayer also uses curl with the combination of options -f0L, which Thursday’s post said “is basically the calling card of the entire family.”

Another banal detail about Shlayer is its previously mentioned infected method. It’s seeded in links that promise pirated versions of commercial software, episodes of TV shows, or live feeds of sports matches. Once users click, they receive a notice that they should install a Flash update. Never mind that Flash has been effectively deprecated for years and that platforms offering warez and pirated content are a known breeding ground for malware.


Second verse, same as the first

The file downloaded by the Python variant Kaspersky Lab analyzed installs adware known as Cimpli. It ostensibly offers to install applications such as Any Search, which as indicated by search results is clearly a program no one should want. Behind the scenes, it installs a malicious Safari extension and a tool that includes a self-signed TLS certificate that allows the extension to view encrypted HTTPS traffic.

To work around any user suspicions, Cimpli superimposes its own windows over dialog boxes that macOS provides. The left windows in the image below are what targeted users see when Cimpli is installing the Safari extension. The window to the right is what’s covered up. By clicking on the button, the user unwittingly agrees to install the extension. The HTTPS decryption tool also superimposes a fake window over the installation confirmation box. Once installed, all user traffic is redirected to an attacker-controlled proxy server.

Shlayer traditionally has relied on paid affiliates to seed advertising landing pages that display the fake Flash updates. Kaspersky Lab said Shlayer offers some of the highest rates. A newer ploy is the embedding of malicious links in pages on Wikipedia and YouTube. Kaspersky Lab said a single affiliate did so by registering more than 700 expired domains.

It’s hard to believe that malware this artless would be among the most common threats facing Mac users. One explanation may be that Shlayer operators must bombard Mac users over and over in a brute-force fashion to compensate for extremely low success rates. A more somber, and probably less likely, possibility: the success rate is high enough that operators keep coming back for more. In either case, it’s likely that the help of affiliates contributes to Shlayer’s ranking.

In any event, Shlayer’s ranking is a good reason for people to remember that Flash is an antiquated browser add-on that presents more risk than benefit for the vast majority of the world. For those who must use it, they should download updates solely from https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/.

People should never receive updates from windows that are displayed when trying to view videos or install software. The distinction can be hard for less experienced users, because Flash itself presents—or at least used to present—notifications when updates were available. People also would do well to steer clear of sites offering pirated material.
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[sultrysandy]

Avast antivirus harvested user data, then sold to Google, Microsoft

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Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data

The Mac and Windows version of Avast antivirus subsidiary has been used to harvest user data, and sells 'Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site.' Its clients have included Intuit, Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey.

Avast offers a selection of free and paid-for antivirus and security tools, in both free and in paid-for formats. The tools are popular, with more than 435 million active users per month using it on Macs, PCs, and mobile devices, to keep their data safe from harm.

As part of its offerings, Avast's software provides the option to opt-in to allowing the firm to collect some types of user data, which it then sells on via subsidiary Jumpshot. An investigation by Vice and PC Mag using leaked user data, contracts, and other documents has revealed both the extent of these sales, as well as the breadth of the data being sold by the firm.

Data acquired for the investigation revealed the information collected by Avast is wide-ranging, including Google searches, location look-ups and GPS coordinates from Google Maps, LinkedIn pages, and YouTube video listings. More disturbingly, records porn site visits that are anonymized offer the date and time the user visited the sites, as well as search terms and viewed videos in some instances.

Despite the efforts to anonymize the data, some experts claimed the highly specific browsing data could be used to find out identities.


A wide net


The amount of data being collected may not be well advised to consumers of Avast, with the investigation advised by multiple users they were not aware of the sale of said browsing data.

The subsidiary claims it has data from 100 million devices, with the investigation claiming Jumpshot repackages data collected from Avast into a number of different packages. This also includes a so-called "All Clicks Feed" option, where clients paid millions of dollars to be able to track a user's behavior and movement across websites.

The list of clients include many major firms, such as Google, Yelp, Microsoft, and Pepsi.

Collecting the data was, until recently, conducted via Avast's browser plugin, one that provides warnings to the user about suspicious and malicious websites. A report by security researcher and AdBlock Plus creator Wladimir Palant in October revealed the plugin was used to harvest data in October, prompting Mozilla, Opera, and Google to remove access to Avast's extensions.

Avast told the investigation in a statement it has stopped providing browsing data collected by the extensions to Jumpshot.

The investigation further found from a source and leaked documents that Avast is still performing harvesting, but via the anti-virus software itself, rather than the browser plugins. In the last week, an internal document reveals Avast has started asking users of the free antivirus tool to opt-in to data collection once again.

"If they opt-in, that device becomes part of the Jumpshot Panel and all browser-based internet activity will be reported to Jumpshot," a line of text from an internal handbook advised. The data collected, according to the document, would answer questions about what URLs a user visited, as well as when and in what order.


Lucrative data


The data is a lucrative income for Avast. In copies of contracts with Jumpshot clients, one marketing firm paid over $2 million for data access in 2019, which provided an "Insight Feed" for 20 domains from 14 countries around the world.

That data included the inferred gender of users based on browsing behavior, their age, the "entire URL string" with personally identifiable information removed, and other details. Device IDs are "hashed" to prevent identification of individuals by clients, but as the device IDs do not change for a user unless they completely reinstalled Avast tools, this could allow for a large swathe of data on one user to be built up over time, leading to possible identification down the line.

Avast informed the investigation "because of our approach, we ensure that Jumpshot does not acquire personal identification information, including name, email address, or contact details, from people using our popular free antivirus software." The company went on in a statement to reiterate users had the ability to opt out of sharing data, and that it had started "implementing an explicit opt-in choice for all new downloads of our AV" as of July 2019, with all existing free users prompted to make a choice by February 2020.

It was also insisted Avast complies with the California Consumer Privacy Act and Europe's GDPR across its entire global user base. "We have a long track record of protecting users' devices and data against malware, and we understand and take seriously the responsibility to balance user privacy with the necessary use of data," the statement pressed.






Sandy note - if it's not Operating Systems (Windows and Android), or PC (Lenovo, HP Inc. and Dell) and Smartphone (Samsung, and Huawei) vendors: spying on then selling their user's data, it's also the software used to supposedly protect users.

 

[Stillrandy]

Very Cool Post Sandy!

Jobs pulled the Macintosh out of a bag at the event, powered it on, and the Mac had a little message for everyone in attendance.

The Original 1984 Macintosh Introduction: the magic moment, when Steve Jobs unveils the Macintosh and releases it from its bag.

That was so cool Sandy, I had not seen this. Extra cool was the Mac's use of the Vangelis theme from "Chariots of Fire".

As an aside, have you ever listened to or read Jobs' 2005 commencement address
at Stanford University. It's probably the best (and shortest) such address I have ever heard. Worth a 15 minute listen if you ever have time:

https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

Thanks & Cheers,

John

 

[sultrysandy]

When the iPhone Presentation Crashed and he Saved the Day!

That was so cool Sandy, I had not seen this. Extra cool was the Mac's use of the Vangelis theme from "Chariots of Fire".

As an aside, have you ever listened to or read Jobs' 2005 commencement address
at Stanford University. It's probably the best (and shortest) such address I have ever heard. Worth a 15 minute listen if you ever have time:

https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

Thanks & Cheers,

John

Yep, remember first time I read it the day after he gave that.


I also enjoy this minute while there was a technical problem during the iPhone introduction, since it's not rehearsed or the tyrant commonly read about.


Launch of the first iPhone. January’s 9, 2007. MacWorld.
It was the day on which Jobs released the first iPhone, heralding a new phase in technology – the smartphone revolution, the app revolution and so much more. Everyone remembers Jobs iconic words at the launch: “An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone … are you getting it?” What not too many remember (or in some cases even know) is that something went terribly wrong on stage shortly after those famous words were spoken. And that Jobs rescued matters so brilliantly that well…no one even remembers it.

This is a massively important presentation. A key moment in it. When he was about to describe the size of the market and the share the iPhone would go for. And the presentation slides were not moving. What did Jobs do? As per his legend of being a perfectionist with a bad temper, he should have blown his top. Sat down and waited grumpily for the slides to start moving again. He did nothing of the sort.

When the clicker broke down in Macworld Keynote 2007, Steve Jobs shared a memory from high school with his audience.

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[Stillrandy]

Yep, remember first time I read it the day after he gave that.


I also enjoy this minute while there was a technical problem during the iPhone introduction, since it's not rehearsed or the tyrant commonly read about.


Launch of the first iPhone. January’s 9, 2007. MacWorld.
It was the day on which Jobs released the first iPhone, heralding a new phase in technology – the smartphone revolution, the app revolution and so much more. Everyone remembers Jobs iconic words at the launch: “An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone … are you getting it?” What not too many remember (or in some cases even know) is that something went terribly wrong on stage shortly after those famous words were spoken. And that Jobs rescued matters so brilliantly that well…no one even remembers it.

This is a massively important presentation. A key moment in it. When he was about to describe the size of the market and the share the iPhone would go for. And the presentation slides were not moving. What did Jobs do? As per his legend of being a perfectionist with a bad temper, he should have blown his top. Sat down and waited grumpily for the slides to start moving again. He did nothing of the sort.

Yeah, we lost someone important when he passed away....Tim Cook manages really well, but Jobs was so much more than that. I keep a small list in my head of people we lost 'too soon' whose contributions to our society were more than the sum of their parts, Jobs is one of them. Jim Henson was another example for me. Robin Williams, Amelia Earhart, JFK, even Eva Peron (for me)....everyone will have their list, will stop there lest I get too maudlin.

Thanks for sharing that clip of Steve Jobs!

 

[sultrysandy]

Yeah, we lost someone important when he passed away....Tim Cook manages really well, but Jobs was so much more than that. I keep a small list in my head of people we lost 'too soon' whose contributions to our society were more than the sum of their parts, Jobs is one of them. Jim Henson was another example for me. Robin Williams, Amelia Earhart, JFK, even Eva Peron (for me)....everyone will have their list, will stop there lest I get too maudlin.

Thanks for sharing that clip of Steve Jobs!

Apple's Think Different advertising campaign. 1997-2002 Full version. - 1:00



Apple's Cupertino Campus, A celebration of Steve's life, October 19, 2011

The Crazy Ones - Steve Jobs narrated ver. - Think Different - 1:47

.

 

[Stillrandy]

Ponderings

https://i.imgur.com/XuRxAa3.jpg

Apple's Think Different advertising campaign. 1997-2002 Full version. - 1:00

Apple's Cupertino Campus, A celebration of Steve's life, October 19, 2011

The Crazy Ones - Steve Jobs narrated ver. - Think Different - 1:47

.

That was lovely Sandy, had not seen it before; a bit of emotion for me. And then, it reminded me of the monologue of Colonel Nicholson on the Bridge (Over The River Kwai), mulling whether his life meant anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSTkEHpkMf8

Not to put his movie character up as a good example, necessarily, but the gist of what he says may be true for a lot of people. But thankfully not for those included in your quotes!

 

[sultrysandy]

Apple’s*rolls out improved maps that cost ‘billions’ are now out*to users*across U.S.

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Apple announced that all users in the United States have access to a redesigned Maps with faster and more accurate navigation, plus comprehensive views of landmarks.

After years of work, Apple has completed the rollout of this new Apple Maps experience in the United States. It will begin rolling the new experience out across Europe in the coming months, as it builds the dataset.

"We set out to create the best and most private maps app on the planet that is reflective of how people explore the world today," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "It is an effort we are deeply invested in and required that we rebuild the map from the ground up to reimagine how Maps enhances people's lives — from navigating to work or school or planning an important vacation — all with privacy at its core."

Apple's new Maps experience offers interactive street-level imagery with high-resolution, 3D photography and smooth and seamless transitions through major cities with Look Around. Customers from anywhere in the world can navigate through New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston, Oahu, and more.

Apple's Look Around, on the iPad



Users can easily build and share lists of their favorite restaurants, places they want to visit or top sites for their next big vacation using Collections. Favorites allow for quick and easy navigation to frequent stops.

Apple is also noting more improved features in Maps, including:

• Real-time transit info, now in Miami
  
  
• Share ETA to family, friends, or co-workers
  
  
• Flight status
  
  
• Indoor maps for malls and airports
  
  
• Siri Natural Language Guidance in the US
  
  
• Flyover

In regards to Privacy, Apple is committed to keeping personal information safe.

"Any data collected by Maps while using the app, like search terms, navigation routing and traffic information, is associated with random identifiers that continually reset to ensure the best possible experience and to improve Maps," Apple says. "Maps goes even further to obscure a user's location on Apple servers when searching for a location through a process called "fuzzing." Maps converts the precise location where the search originated to a less-exact one after 24 hours and does not retain a history of what has been searched or where a user has been."

To create the new Apple Maps, which debuted alongside iOS 12, Apple collected mountains of mapping, navigation, routing and image data from dedicated platforms like Apple Maps vans. New features continue to be added to Maps, like the Look Around view in iOS 13. Similar to Google's Street View, Look Around provides street-level imagery for real-world navigation.

Apple developed the comprehensive mapping solution after the embarrassing launch of Maps in 2012, the company's first foray into the world of mapping after ditching most integrated Google services in iOS 6. The original deployment of Maps in iOS 6 was unreliable and incorporated incorrect data, while its signature feature — Flyover — suffered from graphical issues.

Criticism was so widespread that CEO Tim Cook issued an apology to customers frustrated by the dodgy software, and promised improvements.

"We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps," Tim Cook said at the time. "In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up."

The new Apple Maps in CarPlay on iOS 13.

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[sultrysandy]

.
Continuing with home security privacy-invasion and lack of security.



Nov 20, 2019
It’s the user’s fault if a Ring camera violates your privacy, Amazon says. The company’s answers to congressional questioning only earned it more questions

Amazon subsidiary Ring has "partnerships" with more than 600 law enforcement agencies nationwide, allowing those police access to users' footage. And Ring says anything the police do with it afterward is entirely out of its hands, the company says.

The partnerships between Ring and police, and the terms of the agreements, have not been transparent to the general public. Instead, they've come out in bits and pieces in media reports throughout the year. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in September demanded clearer answers from Amazon about Ring and published the company's responses. Ring repeatedly deflects responsibility for the contents of captured footage to the consumers who capture it and the police departments that acquire it.


Jan 9, 2020
Amazon’s Ring fired at least four employees for snooping on user videos. Police, hackers, rogue employees... who can't access Ring?



And if that’s not enough

Ring's app caught spying on users, sharing data with third-parties



Amazon's Ring for Android app is loaded with third-party trackers harvesting a "plethora" of customer data, a new investigation claims —and an Amazon engineer for the product wants it completely shut down.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has discovered that third-party tracking software within the Ring doorbell app is sending customer data to four analytics and marketing companies, including Facebook, Google, MixPanel and AppsFlyer. That data includes personally identifiable information such as names and private IP addresses.

Facebook, for example, is alerted when users open the Ring app, as well as when they perform certain device actions. Mobile analytics company AppsFlyer is sent a similar mix of data, but also receives information collected from a device's sensors including its gyroscope and magnetometer. The information sent to MixPanel, another data analytics firm, includes a user's full name, email address, device data and app settings.

While Ring also sends data to Google's Crashalytics service, the EFF wasn't able to determine the extent of the sharing.

The EFF points out that even small bits of user data can be combined by tracking firms to create a larger picture of a user's digital habits. That "fingerprint" could allow third-party companies to surveil what users are doing across various apps and devices.

Importantly, the nonprofit group claims that this tracking is taking place without a user's knowledge, consent or ability to disable it.

The data collected is sent over encrypted HTTPS and is delivered in a way that eludes analysis, the EFF said. The investigation's methodology included observing that data flow via man-in-the-middle techniques, a tactic often used by hackers to intercept internet traffic.

Since the EFF investigation focused on Ring's Android app, it isn't clear whether the iOS version has similar privacy risks. Apple's App Store Review Guidelines do include provisions that protect users from many data collection practices, however.

In light of the potential for abuse and other privacy risks, at least one Amazon engineer is calling for the smart doorbell company to be shut down.

"The deployment of connected home security cameras that allow footage to be queried centrally are simply not compatible with a free society. The privacy issues are not fixable with regulation and there is no balance that can be struck," said Max Eliaser in a Medium post. "Ring should be shut down immediately and not brought back."


Repeat offender

This isn't the first time Ring has been in the spotlight for alleged privacy blunders.

In 2019, The Intercept reported that both engineers and executives at Ring had "highly privileged access" to live feeds from customer cameras. And earlier this month, Ring fired four employees who had allegedly abused that access to spy on customers.

Privacy advocates have also raised concerns about Ring's links to law enforcement, as well as the potential implementation of facial recognition in a platform already beset by surveillance and privacy controversies.


Ring's response

"Like many companies, Ring uses third-party service providers to evaluate the use of our mobile app, which helps us improve features, optimize the customer experience, and evaluate the effectiveness of our marketing," Ring said. "Ring ensures that service providers' use of the data provided is contractually limited to appropriate purposes such as performing these services on our behalf and not for other purposes."
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[astuffedshirt_perv]

I don't have a Ring, i have a Nest, but I am deeply and continually disturbed by the bogus commentary on these devices published in White mass media. So many wannabes out there hufflepuffing about privacy. Bro, the camera faces out into my yard. It never moves. Unlike my f-ing phone. It is perhaps unsurprising, since the wannabes live in white utopia with few concerns about crime or trespassing. Not surprisingly, less well to do areas desperately want these devices, if only they could afford them. Sadly, all too often their cries for help are ignored, sacrificed on the mystical altar of the privacy of your front yard. Shame.

 

[sultrysandy]

How to stop police from asking for videos from Ring doorbells

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How to stop police from asking for videos from your Amazon Ring doorbell

• Amazon’s Ring app now lets you stop receiving notifications from police departments requesting video.
  
  
• You can turn it off if you don’t like the idea that Ring doorbells can be used for surveillance.
  
  
• Even when the feature is turned on, you still need to confirm the request from a police department before they get the video.

You can now stop police departments from sending notifications asking for video from your Amazon Ring doorbell.

There’s been controversy over Ring’s decision to work closely with police departments to help investigate crimes. Some customers like that they’re able to share videos from their doorbells with police departments in an effort to help catch criminals. Others see it as the creation of a surveillance state.

In a recent update to the Ring app, Amazon now lets customers opt out of receiving notifications from police departments who might be seeking Ring doorbell video footage to help solve a crime that happened near your home.

You might want to turn this off if you’re among a group of people who don’t think police should have access to video camera feeds. But even if the feature is turned on, you still need to confirm that you’re willing to share video with a police department before they can review footage from your camera, unless you post it publicly in the Ring Neighbors app.

Here’s how to turn it off:

• Make sure you have the latest Ring app from either the iTunes App Store on an iPhone or Google Play for Android.
  
  
• Open the Ring app on your phone.
  
  
• Tap the settings menu on the top-left.
  
  
• Choose Control Center.
  
  
• Video requests are on by default. Turn this off.
  
  
• You’ll see a prompt that confirms you “will not receive notifications when local police seek information relevant to an investigation.”
  
  
• Tap “Yes, Disable Now.”

That’s it. Now you won’t receive notifications if a police department is seeking video from Ring doorbells in your area. But if you post videos publicly, police will still be able to see the videos.






Another option is to not use Facebook or Google services or products from invading your privacy, tracking you around he web, harvesting then selling your personal info and data.
Not that Microsoft or Twitter, and Amazon is getting as bad, are any better.
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[sultrysandy]

More than 200 browser extensions ejected from Firefox and Chrome stores

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Firefox ousts almost 200 add-ons while Google detects a significant increase in abuse.

Mozilla and Google are cracking down on malicious and abusive extensions available for the Firefox and Chrome browsers, respectively. The moves come in response to the recent detection of add-ons that turned out to violate the browser maker's policies, despite review processes designed to weed out wares that are malicious or have the potential to be malicious.

The most significant move was Mozilla's ouster over the past month of almost 200 extensions. The majority of them—129, to be exact—were developed by 2Ring, a maker of business software. There's no evidence the extensions were malicious, but Mozilla officials found they executed code hosted on a remote server, in violation of Mozilla policies. The representative added that current installations aren't affected and users who want to install an extension can still do so manually.

A 2Ring representative said that company officials have contacted Mozilla about the move and are awaiting a response. The representative added that the extensions, which businesses use to integrate select CRM systems with apps installed in customer contact centers, interact only with user white-listed applications specified in the extension's configuration.

Mozilla ejected six other extensions for the same reason. Another extension was also caught loading remote content onto a new tab page. The policies barring remote code and content are designed to increase transparency and lower the risk of extensions that behave in ways that might be harmful.

Mozilla expelled another 30 extensions for "violating Mozilla's add-on policies by showing malicious behavior on third-party websites." Still more extensions got the boot for collecting user data. Another batch was removed for collecting search terms or intercepting searches that went to a third-party search provider.

The search engine also banned extensions for using obfuscated code. Similar to the ban on the loading of remote code or content, the policy against obfuscated code is intended to lower the chances of extensions that covertly carry out harmful behavior.

Google, meanwhile, said last Friday that it had "detected a significant increase in the number of fraudulent transactions involving paid Chrome extensions that aim to exploit users." The "scale of the abuse," the post said, has prompted Google to temporarily bar the publishing fee-based extensions. The move is meant to curb the influx as engineers look for longer-term solutions that rein in the broader pattern of abuse.

A thread accompanying the announcement showed multiple developers reporting recent takedowns of their extensions.

"I have written multiple times replying to the rejection letter about two of my paid extensions that existed in the Store for more than a year," one developer wrote. "I have not received any reply, and the extensions are still in the Pending review status."

Paid extensions are those that collect fees up front, charge for subscriptions, or allow in app-purchases. The announcement didn't describe the specific details of the fraudulent transactions. While the increase in abuse is significant, paid apps represent a small portion of the extensions available in the Chrome Web store. According to a report last August from Extension Monitor, only about 9 percent of extensions were fee based.

The crackdowns highlight a problem that has existed for years with extensions available from both Mozilla and Google. While the vast majority are safe, a small but statistically significant sample engage in click fraud, steal user credentials and install currency miners, and spy on end users—in at least one case, millions of users, some of whom were inside large companies and other data-sensitive networks.

There's no sure-fire way to know if an extension is safe. One general rule is that there's safety in numbers. An app with millions of installs is likely to receive more scrutiny from researchers than one with only a few thousand. Another guideline: apps from known developers are less likely to engage in malicious or abusive behavior. The best rule is to install extensions only when they truly provide value. Installed extensions that are used rarely or not at all should always be removed.
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[sultrysandy]

Ashley Madison breach from 2015 being used in sextortion scams

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Ashley Madison cyber-breach: 5 years later, users are being targeted with ‘sextortion’ scams

Homepage of the Ashley Madison website on an iPad.



Scammers have found a new way to wring money out of unsuspecting victims of the 2015 breach of the Ashley Madison affair-dating website, by using their stolen credentials in an amped-up version of the common “sextortion” scam.

Researchers at email security company Vade Secure found the new scam earlier this year, when they saw a small number of targeted emails with apparent information from Ashley Madison breach victims. The scam emails seemed to be well researched, with not just the users’ email addresses but information like when the victim signed up, their username, and their interests they entered on the site, said Adrien Gendre, chief product officer for Vade Secure.

The threats are a worrying evolution of the sextortion scam because they appear to incorporate real information.

In the most typical version of sextortion, fraudsters make dubious, fictional claims about you via email. They say they’ve recorded you in a compromising position through your computer or that they have pictures of an alleged affair you are having. In those cases, the criminals blast out thousands of similar-sounding emails in hopes of persuading just one person to fall for the trick and make a requested extortion payment. The recordings and affairs are almost always nonexistent.

But in the new Ashley Madison cases, Gendre said the scammers are using carefully selected information that appear to be from real Ashley Madison subscribers, and piecing that information into more precisely targeted emails to those individuals. The ransomers then demand around $1,000 in bitcoin to keep the information silent. The grain of truth to their pitch sets the scam apart.

Gendre said he’s particularly concerned because the Ashley Madison breach affected individuals with corporate and government email addresses, which could make them particularly susceptible to paying the bribe. Vade is not able to observe how many people have paid the attackers, Gendre said.


An unusually consequential breach

In July 2015, scammers calling themselves the “Impact Team” stole around 60 gigabytes of personal information from the website, which bills itself as a matchmaking service for married or committed individuals who want to have an affair. The information was later released publicly on the internet.

The scammers claimed they were stealing and releasing the data as retribution against Ashley Madison site owner Avid Life Media, based in Canada, for deceptively using bots to pose as real women on the dating website. An analysis later revealed that only around 1% of the registered female accounts on Ashley Madison at the time of the breach belonged to active users.

The Ashley Madison breach was unusually psychologically harmful for a cyber-intrusion, given the nature of the site and the consequences to its users. At least three suicides were attributed to the leaked information, two in Canada and one in the United States.

In 2017, Ashley Madison’s new owners, Ruby Media, settled a class action lawsuit over the lost personal information for $11.2 million.


What you can do

If you were in any way affected by the Ashley Madison breach in 2015, first take a deep breath.

The vast majority of users, based on the gender disparity research, almost certainly never met someone with whom they had an affair. The site seems to have been used more as a lighthearted fantasy exercise. But if you are overly concerned about your use of it and how that information may still affect your life, seek the help of a professional. And if you ever have any thoughts of ending your life because of your participation in the site, please call the national suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255.

Indeed, the new Ashley Madison scammers capitalize on these fears: “FOR ALL YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS?” one message reads. “Of all the private massages [SIC] you sent to members, the reply you sent on Sunday July 31, 2011 was the best. Perv!”

“For those who get the email, what they should do is never give in to the trick,” Gendre said. “Never pay, whatever the rate. First, because you are not even sure if they will spend the time to release the information. And then, because you may just become a victim again. It’s never worth it.”

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[sultrysandy]

Health records firm Epic, some 60 client hospitals urge against data sharing rules

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Epic and about 60 hospital chains come out against rules that would make it easier to share medical info


A report revealed the contents of health records giant Epic Systems' letter opposing proposed government policy that would allow patients easy access to their medical data, an initiative supported by Apple and other tech industry players.


The letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar warns a pending initiative to push through rules on data interoperability would be "overly burdensome" on America's health system and "will endanger patient privacy."

Proposed by the HHS in 2019, the plan modifies rules governing access to health information, allowing patients to more easily obtain and share personal data.

In response, Epic CEO Judy Faulkner in January urged hospitals to speak out against the new rules as proponents of the measure voiced a counter opinion. Roughly 60 major hospitals have signed on in support of Epic's effort, the report said.

Apple, Google and Microsoft are among a cadre of companies, patient advocates and caregivers that came out in favor of the HHS rules. Late last month the three tech industry titans participated in a meeting held by the nonpartisan Carin Alliance, which seeks to modernize health records systems in the U.S. by breaking data out of first-party silos and fostering cooperative exchange between health care providers.

As it stands, patients often run into issues when attempting to obtain or share their information, as data is typically stored on physical media or protected by systems like those marketed by Epic. According to today's report, an Epic installation can cost up to $1 billion for major hospitals, a price that could increase should the HHS initiative be successful.

"While we support HHS' goal of empowering patients with their health data and reducing costs through the 21st Century Cures Act, we are concerned that ONC's Proposed Rule on interoperability will be overly burdensome on our health system and will endanger patient privacy," Epic's letter reads in part. "Specifically, the scope of regulated data, the timeline for compliance, and the significant costs and penalties will make it extraordinarily difficult for us to comply."

Epic's entreaty recommends tweaks to the proposal including additional information on the handling of health information related to family members, as well as a longer timeline for integration. The health records company wants at least 12 months to prepare and 36 months for "development of new technology required by the rule," the report said.

Along with the hospitals backing Epic's letter, a few organizations sent similar pleas to the HHS on their own accord. Not all Epic customers are in alignment on the matter, as some of the firm's largest clients failed to sign the January letter.

Apple has for years worked to break into the health industry, first with iOS apps and more recently through technologies built on wearable platforms like Apple Watch. As it pertains to health data transportability, the company in 2018 launched Health Records on iOS, enabling iPhone users to securely store and share medical data from participating healthcare providers.






Can you smell that? It's a mixture of Greed and Bullshit.

Epic is using it's dominant market position [1] to protect it's revenue. Tech companies have been under attack over harvesting peoples data since Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal Match 2018. And patients fight for their medical records and privacy.

Health care groups using Epic electronic health records serve 54 percent of patients in the U.S. and 2.5 percent of patients worldwide, CEO Judy Faulkner said at Epic’s users group meeting in September.
JEFF GLAZE , 608-252-6138 Jan 6, 2015
Epic Systems draws on literature greats for its next expansion | Politics and Elections | madison.com
https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/epic-systems-draws-on-literature-greats-for-its-next-expansion/article_4d1cf67c-2abf-5cfd-8ce1-2da60ed84194.htm

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