iPhone Vulnerable to Hacker Attack

From YahooNews.com


LAS VEGAS (Reuters) -
Security experts have uncovered flaws in Apple Inc's iPhone that they said hackers can exploit to take control of the popular device, using the tactic for identity theft and other crimes.
Users need to be warned that their iPhones are not entirely secure and Apple should try to repair the vulnerability as soon as possible, they said at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, one of the world's top forums for exchanging information on computer security threats.
"It's scary. I don't want people taking over my iPhone," Charlie Miller, a security analyst with consulting firm Independent Security Evaluators, said in an interview.

Miller and Collin Mulliner, a Ph.D. student at the Technical University of Berlin, also discovered a method that allow hackers to easily knock a victim's iPhone off a carrier's network.
It prevents users from making calls, accessing the Internet and exchanging text messages, they added.

They said the information they presented at Black Hat will give criminals enough information to develop software to break into iPhones within about two weeks.
They said they warned Apple of the flaw in the middle of July, but that the company has yet to fix it.

"Apple's credibility and reputation could get hurt if they don't respond. Positive buzz is good; negative buzz is much more harmful," said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research.

About 4,000 security professionals were in attendance, including some who are really hackers. While experts ferret out software flaws to fix them and protect users, hackers use the same information to devise pranks or commit crimes.

The researchers showed the audience how to break into iPhones by sending computer code via the phone's SMS system. Mobile phones use SMS to send and receive text messages along with software upgrades. They said that the phone's users cannot detect that it is receiving the malicious code.

It is not illegal to disclose ways to hack into computer systems, though it is against the law to use it to break into them.

When asked why they would hand over such information to criminals, security experts said they felt it was necessary to alert the public that iPhones were just as vulnerable to attack as personal computers.

"If we don't talk about it, somebody is going to do it silently. The bad guys are going to do it no matter what," Mulliner said.

They have successfully tested the hacks on iPhones running on networks of four carriers in Germany along with AT&T Inc in the United States. They said they believed the methods will work with iPhone carriers around the world.

The two said they used a similar method to break into phones running on Google Inc's Android operating system. Google patched the flaw after they notified the company of the vulnerability.
Apple officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Additional reporting by Gabriel Madway; Editing by Richard Chang and Tim Dobbyn)

Will Apple kill off the iPod Classic?

This was on cnet.

Will Apple kill off the iPod Classic?
by David Carnoy

The iPod Classic may be an endangered species.(Credit: Apple)

If you've read the stories on Apple's latest earnings, you may have noticed that Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer took the time to break out the sales of each model in the iPod franchise, which is seeing year-over-year declines for the first time in its history. In her piece, our own Erica Ogg wrote:

"During the third quarter, Apple sold 10.2 million iPods, compared with 11 million a year ago. It turns out that the shifting appeal of the Shuffle, Nano, and Classic model iPods are to blame. But Apple apparently saw this coming." She then goes on to quote Oppenheimer, who says those declining sales are "the reason we developed the iPod Touch. We expect our traditional MP3 players to decline over time as we cannibalize ourselves with iPod Touch and iPhone."

As rumors continue to circulate that Apple will introduce new iPod models this fall (as it traditionally has), the big question is whether the iPod Classic becomes the odd iPod out. In a recent MP3 Insider podcast, CNET editor Donald Bell points out that orders for new Samsung hard drives that would go into an updated Classic appear to be nonexistent, according to Ars Technica and Apple Insider. And shortly after the earnings were posted, TechCrunch writer MG Seigler asked whether the iPod as we know it is dying.

The prevailing bet among iPod followers is that the Classic may stick around for a little while, but it probably won't be upgraded and will be quietly put out to pasture. The fact is that the iPod Touch offers a lot more functionality and, most importantly, it can run iPhone apps, which people find appealing, and they generate revenue for Apple.

Of course, there's a lot of folks out there who need a high-capacity iPod to store all their tunes and videos. The Classic remains a pretty decent value from the standpoint of a storage player, and we're seeing great deals on refurbished fifth-generation video iPods. If indeed Apple comes out with a 64GB iPod Touch this fall--as we expect it to--it will still cost quite a bit more than a 120GB iPod Classic. And that will keep Classic owners clinging to their antique iPods.

Personally, I hope Apple keeps the Classic around until the prices for flash memory drop enough to make a high-capacity Touch affordable. But I have a feeling the Classic will be gone by then.
Comments? Will Apple save the Classic or let it die?