Unlocked iPhones Available In The US

Americans are going gaga over the fact that iPhones are now available unlocked (meaning that they’re not tied to AT&T) as of today. Of course, Canadians have had unlocked iPhones for some time now. But this is a huge deal for Americans. Why. Simple, if you travel you can buy a local SIM card and avoid roaming charges. Or you can have your choice of domestic carrier, meaning if you know think that AT&T sucks isn’t your best choice, you can go to T-Mobile (even though AT&T wants to buy them).

The price to enter the unlocked universe is steep, but it might be worth it.

Nokia And Apple Settle Their Patent Differences… But It Is Only The Begining For Nokia

It seems that the hatchet has been buried because Reuters is reporting that Nokia has entered into a patent license agreement with Apple that will end their patent warfare. Here’s something else, Apple seems to have lost:

Analysts said it was clear the sums involved would be significant, with some experts estimating Apple’s one-off payment at $650 million.

Nokia’s shares rose as much as 3 percent before closing up 1.58 percent. Analysts welcomed the news and said it would help Nokia concentrate on its core business at a time when it faces huge challenges.

That’s not chump change. The fact that a deal was reached so quickly given that these battles tend to go on forever implies that Apple’s iLawyers seem to have come to the conclusion that victory wasn’t achievable. Needless to say, all litigation between the two have been dropped.

But this is only the beginning for Nokia. Apple has basically set the floor for the value of these patents because Apple wouldn’t have to pay if they weren’t forced to. Meaning that if Nokia goes after anyone else, you can expect that this is the minimum that they will pay. If you’re anyone else in the handset market, you can expect Nokia to be knocking on your door shortly looking for some cash. If I’m Google or Microsoft, I’d get my cheque book out.

It seems that Nokia has found a new revenue stream. That’s a good thing for them seeing as they need the money.

Bill Propsed To Force US Companies To Report Hacks…. About Freaking Time!

Here’s something that is long overdue. A bill is in front of the US House Of Representatives to force companies to disclose when they’ve been hacked:

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., is circulating draft legislation that would require companies to provide a basic level of protection for consumers’ personal information and notify the government when data is stolen.

After Mack held hearings last month on enormous data breaches at companies like Sony and Epsilon, she promised to introduce a bill to protect consumer information. The International Monetary Fund and Citigroup have also reported recent cyberattacks.

Mack’s discussion draft promises to “protect consumers by requiring reasonable security policies and procedures to protect data containing personal information, and to provide for nationwide notice in the event of a security breach.” According to a background staff memo, the Secure and Fortify Electronic Data [SAFE Data] Act, is based on a bill that passed the House in the last Congress.

The bill has these key features:

The bill would require companies to dispose of old or unnecessary data, as well as notify the government within 48 hours of discovering a breach, unless the breach is an accident.

Excellent. My US readers should call their local Member of Congress and tell them that they need to support this bill. For too long companies have had a free ride when it comes to this issue. It’s time that they’re held to a much higher standard. In fact it’s beyond time.

So Canadian readers are likely wondering the following: When does Canada get something like this? Granted, Canada’s privacy laws do require companies to get rid of personal info they no longer need, but there’s nothing to require companies to report when they’ve been hacked. That’s where things are lacking. It’s time that Canada does something about that just like our friends to the south seem to be doing.

RSA Suffers Fallout Over Hack

In all this talk about hacking, I completely forgot to mention one of the more serious hacks out there. Remember when RSA who are supposedly the kings of security got hacked? Well, there’s been a lot of fallout over that hack. First, defense contractor Lockheed Martin got hacked using technology stolen from RSA:

On Saturday, Lockheed Martin released a statement confirming the attack, which it described as “significant and tenacious.” But it said its information security team “detected the attack almost immediately and took aggressive actions to protect all systems and data.”

As a result, the company said, “our systems remain secure; no customer, program, or employee personal data has been compromised.”

Hackers reportedly exploited Lockheed’s VPN access system, which allows employees to log in remotely by using their RSA SecurID hardware tokens. Attackers apparently possessed the seeds–factory-encoded random keys–used by at least some of Lockheed’s SecurID hardware fobs, as well as serial numbers and the underlying algorithm used to secure the devices.

That suggests that whoever attacked Lockheed Martin may also have been behind the successful breach in March of EMC’s RSA division, which manufactures SecurID. “Since then, there have been malware and phishing campaigns in the wild seeking specific data linking RSA tokens to the end user, leading us to believe that this attack was carried out by the original RSA attackers,” Rick Moy, president and CEO of NSS Labs, said in a blog post.

That hurts RSA in a number of ways. Not only does their image suffer, their competition has seized on this as a means to grab marketshare:

A recent cyber breach at EMC Corp’s RSA security division and a related attack at defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp have damaged RSA’s once-stellar reputation, according to industry experts.

That has given companies that sell alternatives to RSA’s SecurIDs, such as Symantec Corp and Vasco Data Security International, more room to try to win customers from EMC.

SecurIDs are widely used electronic keys to computer systems, designed to thwart hackers by requiring two passcodes: one that is fixed and another that is automatically generated every few seconds by the security system.

Symantec is paying new customers $5 for every SecurID they trade in for similar technology from Symantec.

From what I hear, there’s a lot of companies taking advantage of that and similar offers from other companies. Another option for companies who are too married to RSA technology to switch is to get their SecurID tokens swapped out for new ones that are not as vulnerable to this sort of attack. But that might not be the cure all that companies are looking for:

Rick Moy, CEO of security consulting firm NSS Labs, said that it is possible that hackers could have already used that information to break into other companies over the past few months without being detected.

“Resetting those tokens may be too late,” he said. “It’s hard to know. RSA hasn’t provided enough detail for folks to figure out on their own what their risk profile is.”

I would agree with that. I would say that the only way to truly be secure is to dump RSA and go with some other technology. Google Authenticator for example. Since I mentioned Symantec earlier on, you may want to look at their User Authentication solutions as well. Sticking with RSA is likely not a good long term plan. Or a short or medium term one for that matter.

In any case, I think we can officially say that RSA is done like dinner. Nobody is going to trust them after this.

Another Day, Another Hack At A Major Organization…. Will The Madness Ever Stop?

Today’s winner of the new game called “who’s admitting to having their corporate systems hacked” is the IMF. They disclosed today that they had been the victims of a very serious hack:

The fund, which manages financial crises around the world and is the repository of highly confidential information about the fiscal condition of many nations, told its staff and its board of directors about the attack on Wednesday. But it did not make a public announcement.

Several senior officials with knowledge of the attack said it was both sophisticated and serious.

Lovely. At least it stops the world from talking about Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his problems stemming from the rape of a maid in a NYC hotel.

Oh, sorry. I was digressing. The stuff that the hackers could have gotten their hands on makes this hack one that will have money markets and governments freaking out. Why? Here’s why:

Because the fund has been at the center of economic bailout programs for Portugal, Greece and Ireland — and possesses sensitive data on other countries that may be on the brink of crisis — its database contains potentially market-moving information. It also includes communications with national leaders as they negotiate, often behind the scenes, on the terms of international bailouts. Those agreements are, in the words of one fund official, “political dynamite in many countries.” It was unclear what information the attackers were able to access.

But there’s more:

The concern about the attack was so significant that the World Bank, an international agency focused on economic development, whose headquarters is across the street from the I.M.F. in downtown Washington, cut the computer link that allows the two institutions to share information.

Well, that has to suck.

One thing to consider, the article suggests that this happened before Strauss-Kahn got arrested. So putting that into perspective, this hack happened before May 14th which is when his “problems” started. That means that the IMF has sat on this info for at least a month.

I’ll say it one more time. When is this going to get taken seriously? It’s completely unacceptable that hacks like these happen and no public disclosure takes place. Where’s are the laws that make this behavior illegal?

Another question. Who’s next?

 

Review: Blackberry Bold 9780 – Part 5

So here’s the 411 on the video and still camera on the Blackberry 9780. I went to my usual place to test cameras which is the Zoo in Toronto’s High Park and got one still picture and one video. First the still picture:

It’s a 5 megapixel camera, and I found the image quality to be pretty good. I don’t think you would have any complaints with anything you took. Next is the video. It shoots video in 640X480 resolution. That’s a #fail. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we live in an age of 720p video. Thus if a camera doesn’t do 720p video, it sticks out like a politician who posts pictures of his junk on Twitter. So 640×480 video is really lame. In any case, here’s the video:

I know this is aimed as corporate device, but RIM has to do a better job with video. The above video shows that they’re really behind the times.

So, let me wrap up this review. By Blackberry standards, this is a great smartphone. I’m impressed by it. However it isn’t going to scare the iPhone 4 in any way shape or form. But that doesn’t make it a bad phone. It’s a solid piece of kit and worth your consideration if you’re looking for a smartphone with a keyboard. The other thing I was reviewing was the Bell HSPA network. In my unscientific comparison to the Rogers network, it seems speedy and I didn’t have any problems with coverage. I was impressed by that. The only thing is that it took a Bell reseller to introduce me to the Bell HSPA network and not Bell themselves. Given my previous history with Bell, I shouldn’t be shocked by that. But they could have easily stepped up and done this themselves. Much like the video abilities of the Blackberry 9780, that’s a #fail.

So would I recommend this phone? If you’re a Blackberry user or you want a solid smartphone and you’re not impressed by the bells and whistles of the iPhone, take a look at the 9780. You should also take a look at Bell’s HSPA network. Clearly they spent some cash on it and it shows. It’s an alternative for those of you who want a choice in terms of their cellular network.

Citigroup Hacked…. 200,000 Accounts Exposed… And There’s More…..

If you’re a Citigroup customer, you might have a reason to worry. You see Citigroup was the victim of a hack:

Citigroup said late on Wednesday that computer hackers breached the bank’s network and accessed the data of about 200,000 credit-card holders in North America. It would not discuss what new security measures Citi is taking.

If that’s not bad enough, this part will make you change banks:

The third-largest U.S. bank waited more than a month before making the full extent of the breach public, drawing criticism on Thursday from lawmakers and lawyers.

That’s just completely unacceptable.

Here’s what needs to happen. Laws need to be passed that force companies to publicly disclose when something like this happens. Those laws also have to have stiff penalties for not only failing to disclose events like this, but for not dealing with it in a rapid and effective manner. Companies cannot just pull stunts like this and think this is acceptable behavior.

So, what do you think are the odds of this happening?

Court Rules That Wind Mobile Is Canadian…. Public Mobile Appeals

Remember that case where Wind Mobile was ruled not to be Canadian enough and then the Canadian Government appealed the decision. Well, the decision has been announced and guess what? They’re Canadian enough:

The judges wrote that Globalive was a “a Canadian owned and controlled company” and upheld cabinet’s decision to allow it to operate.

Ever since a federal regulator blocked Globalive from launching cellular brand Wind Mobile in October of 2009, the company has been on a roller-coaster ride to prove its compliance with Canada’s strict foreign ownership restrictions. The process has involved endless court battles, thrown the sector into a period of prolonged uncertainty, and involved everyone from Canada’s biggest wireless companies to the federal cabinet. Wednesday’s court ruling appears to resolve that confusion.

It has also done much to resolve an awkward problem for the federal government, which was accused of trying to alter Canada’s foreign-ownership laws by decree, outside Parliament, when it intervened on Globalive’s behalf.

Of course, all is not well in the universe. Public Mobile is appealing the decision all the way to Supreme Court Of Canada:

But for Public Mobile, a wireless rival to Globalive’s Wind Mobile cellular brand, clarity will come only when the Supreme Court of Canada rules on the matter – or rejects Public Mobile’s attempt late Wednesday to seek leave to appeal to the highest court.

“I challenge anyone to crisply articulate for me what the current situation actually is,” said Bob Boron, chief regulatory officer for Public Mobile.

So the circus continues. One can only hope that the Supreme Court doesn’t hear this appeal. Or the Canadian Government does the right thing and let anyone who wants to compete into the market regardless of who owns them.

Review: Blackberry Bold 9780 – Part 4

This is the first Blackberry that I’ve used that runs Blackberry OS 6. It’s different than what I’m used to, but I think it’s long overdue. As I said before, it’s far more media friendly as it does a limited amount of Flash and it has a variety of media types. It also comes with a webkit based browser which means surfing will be closer to what you would find with the iPhone. Universal Search is a welcome addition as I can find whatever I am looking for with ease. BlackBerry OS 6 includes a Social Feeds application which allows you to follow updates on your contacts from social networks and IM clients including all in one place. Integrated applications by default include AIM, BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook, Google Talk, MySpace, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. If you’re a social butterfly, you’ll love this. The only things that I am not thrilled about are that some of my favorite apps won’t run on Blackberry OS 6. That’s minor. The other thing is that Blackberry OS 6 seems to me to be a touch screen operating system that has been force fit onto a non-touch screen device. Some of the functions to do certain tasks like scroll through applications seem more at home on a Storm 2 rather than on this Blackberry. But that too is minor. Overall, Blackberry OS 6 is what every Blackberry user should be running.

I’ll finish up my review with the camera functionality and a final wrap up.

i4i Wins Against Microsoft In Patent Suit

Staff at Toronto company i4i are likely having beers tonight as the U.S. Supreme court has shot down Microsoft’s appeal which clears the way for a $290 million pay day:

“It’s hard to expand and grow your business when people feel it’s all under a cloud,” i4i chairman Louden Owen said Thursday.

“Now we think the fields are open and we can plough ahead,” Owen said from Toronto. “So in terms of the validity of our patent, the case is closed.”

Now i4i will be able to promote and sell its technology saying that it has been validated by the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.

Clearly this is a major victory for i4i, and perhaps this will spur patent reform so that we don’t have to see battles like this over and over again. Also, said patent reform might stop the nonsense that we see between companies like Apple and Samsung. Wouldn’t that be something?