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Apple Fires Employee on Same Day He Was Targeted For His Pro-Family Stand

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Tech giant Apple, Inc. has fired an Alabama lobbyist and former state legislator after a local political blog criticized him for his views in support of true marriage.

Quoting complaints by openly homosexual Apple CEO Tim Cook that his home state of Alabama has been “too slow” in embracing a redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, Inside Alabama Politics questioned why the company would hire former Republican representative Jay Love to represent them in Montgomery.

“Love was the first Republican in the country to advertise against California’s gay rights decision to strike down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage,” the author noted. “In a campaign commercial Love calls gay marriage a part of the liberal Democratic agenda in Washington that he will fight against.”

“While it isn’t unusual rhetoric from Republicans and even many Democrats running for office, especially in conservative states’ like Alabama, it does seem slightly unusual he was hired as a lobbyist by Apple, unless of course Apple didn’t know of his past stance on the subject of same-sex marriage,” the blog post read.

The blog author also criticized Love for a resolution he sponsored praising 2009 Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean, who sparked outrage from homosexual activists by expressing her belief that marriage is between a man and a woman during the pageant’s Q&A section. (Read more about the attack on the man for his pro-family stand HERE)

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U.S. Law Enforcement Seeks to Halt Apple-Google Encryption of Mobile Data

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Photo Credit: Politico U.S. law enforcement officials are urging Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) to give authorities access to smartphone data that the companies have decided to block, and are weighing whether to appeal to executives or seek congressional legislation.

The new privacy features, announced two weeks ago by the California-based companies, will stymie investigations into crimes ranging from drug dealing to terrorism, law enforcement officials said.

“This is a very bad idea,” said Cathy Lanier, chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, in an interview. Smartphone communication is “going to be the preferred method of the pedophile and the criminal. We are going to lose a lot of investigative opportunities.”

The dispute is the latest flare-up that pits the federal government against the nation’s leading technology companies since National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed last year the extent of U.S. snooping on phone and Internet communications — and how companies cooperated.

U.S. Justice Department and FBI officials are trying to understand how the new Apple and Google Android systems work and how the companies could change the encryption to make it accessible when court ordered. Their requests to the companies may include letters, personal appeals or congressional legislation, said a federal law official who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

Read more from this story HERE.

FBI Director Whines That Feds Can't Snoop on New Apple and Android Operating Systems

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Photo Credit: ReutersFBI Director James B. Comey sharply criticized Apple and Google on Thursday for developing forms of smartphone encryption so secure that law enforcement officials cannot easily gain access to information stored on the devices — even when they have valid search warrants.

His comments were the most forceful yet from a top government official but echo a chorus of denunciation from law enforcement officials nationwide. Police have said that the ability to search photos, messages and Web histories on smartphones is essential to solving a range of serious crimes, including murder, child pornography and attempted terrorist attacks.

“There will come a day when it will matter a great deal to the lives of people . . . that we will be able to gain access” to such devices, Comey told reporters in a briefing. “I want to have that conversation [with companies responsible] before that day comes.”

Comey added that FBI officials already have made initial contact with the two companies, which announced their new smartphone encryption initiatives last week. He said he could not understand why companies would “market something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law.”

Comey’s remarks followed news last week that Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 8, is so thoroughly encrypted that the company is unable to unlock iPhones or iPads for police. Google, meanwhile, is moving to an automatic form of encryption for its newest version of Android operating system that the company also will not be able to unlock, though it will take longer for that new feature to reach most consumers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hundreds, More than a Thousand, Sleep Outside NYC’s Main Apple Store for iPhone 6

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Photo Credit: Showbiz 411If you’d told me this story I wouldn’t have believed it. But on Thursday night, walking from a screening of “Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain” to dinner at Todd English’s Food Hall in the Plaza Hotel, we were gobsmacked. More than a thousand people are lined up, with sleeping bags, for the 8am release of the NEW IPHONE 6. The line goes from Madison Avenue and 59th St. to Fifth Avenue in front of the tony Cipriani restaurant, then jumps onto the plaza in front of FAO Schwarz, next to Apple.

Along the 59th St. queue, it is mostly Asians. There are some Europeans, and no Americans from what we could tell. In some cases there were whole families. No one could adequately explain what the heck they were doing sleeping outside on a Manhattan street. The IPHONE 6 is not very different than the iPhone 6. It’s certainly not different enough to do this.

We surmised that most of the people were buying more than one iPhone, with the expectation of selling a few for big bucks. Especially overseas. One young man from Belgium could not say why he wanted the 6, since he already had the 5. “I just want it,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

iPhones Frozen by Hackers Demanding Ransom

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Photo Credit: AlamyOwners of iPhones and iPads have been targeted by a hacker who is freezing iOS devices and demanding a ransom of up to £55 to unlock them.

The majority of the attacks have taken place in Australia although there are also reports of Britons being affected.

It appears that the hacker, who goes by the name Oleg Pliss, has managed to exploit the Find My iPhone feature which can track and remotely lock stolen devices.

Users have been told to send ransoms of between $50 and $100 Australian dollars (up to £55) to a PayPal account in order to have their devices unlocked.

Those affected have taken to Apple’s support forums to seek help. One user, veritylikestea from Melbourne, said: “I was using my iPad a short while ago when suddenly it locked itself.

Read more from this story HERE.

Apple, Facebook, Others Defy Authorities, Notify Users of Secret Data Demands

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Major U.S. technology companies have largely ended the practice of quietly complying with investigators’ demands for e-mail records and other online data, saying that users have a right to know in advance when their information is targeted for government seizure.

This increasingly defiant industry stand is giving some of the tens of thousands of Americans whose Internet data gets swept into criminal investigations each year the opportunity to fight in court to prevent disclosures. Prosecutors, however, warn that tech companies may undermine cases by tipping off criminals, giving them time to destroy vital electronic evidence before it can be gathered.

Fueling the shift is the industry’s eagerness to distance itself from the government after last year’s disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance of online services. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google all are updating their policies to expand routine notification of users about government data seizures, unless specifically gagged by a judge or other legal authority, officials at all four companies said. Yahoo announced similar changes in July.

As this position becomes uniform across the industry, U.S. tech companies will ignore the instructions stamped on the fronts of subpoenas urging them not to alert subjects about data requests, industry lawyers say. Companies that already routinely notify users have found that investigators often drop data demands to avoid having suspects learn of inquiries.

“It serves to chill the unbridled, cost-free collection of data,” said Albert Gidari Jr., a partner at Perkins Coie who represents several technology companies. “And I think that’s a good thing.”

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Dear Climate-Change Deniers, Please Don’t Buy Shares in APPLE’…

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He leads a company that some would consider the epitome of ruthless global capitalism. But Apple chief executive Tim Cook has shocked some in the US with an impassioned attack on the single-minded pursuit of profit – and a direct appeal to climate-change deniers not to buy shares in his firm.

Eyewitnesses said Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs as boss of the technology giant in 2011, was visibly angry as he took on a group of right-wing investors during a question-and-answer session at a shareholders’ meeting.

Responding to calls from the National Centre for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), a conservative think tank and investor, for Apple to refrain from putting money in green energy projects that were not profitable, he shot back that Apple did “a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive”. The chief executive added: “We want to leave the world better than we found it.”

Addressing he NCPPR representative directly, he said: “If you want me to do things only for ROI [return on investment] reasons, you should get out of this stock.”

Cook, who is generally known for his level-headed demeanour, also insisted that he places more importance on helping people and the environment than on pure profit, saying: “When we work on making our devices accessible to the blind, I don’t consider bloody ROI.”

Read more this story HERE.

Apple’s Security Breach Should Scare You More Than Target’s Did

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Photo Credit: ShutterstockApple’s security protocol breach is nearly as bad as handing your credit card straight to a hacker rather than making them steal the information through the magnetic stripe readers.

The flaw in Apple’s iOs and OS X platforms essentially allows a hacker to get in between the initial verification “handshake” connection between the user and the destination server, enabling the adversary to masquerade as a trusted endpoint. This means the connection which is supposed to be encrypted between you and your bank, email server, healthcare provider and more is open to attack.

Security experts across the web recommend updating iPhones and iPads with the available iOS patches now, and using browsers other than Safari for OS X systems without an available Apple fix.

Usually to achieve encrypted web traffic, a handshake is accomplished through a Secure Sockets Layer — SSL for short — or more recently, Transport Layer Security, or TLS; both are Internet protocols that provide a secure channel between two machines operating over the Internet or an internal network.

Read more this story HERE.

Security Flaw Makes iPhones, iPads, Macs Vulnerable to Hackers

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Photo Credit: ReutersA major flaw in Apple Inc. software for mobile devices could allow hackers to intercept email and other communications that are meant to be encrypted, the company said on Friday, and experts said Mac computers were even more exposed.

If attackers have access to a mobile user’s network, such as by sharing the same unsecured wireless service offered by a restaurant, they could see or alter exchanges between the user and protected sites such as Gmail and Facebook. Governments with access to telecom carrier data could do the same.

“It’s as bad as you could imagine, that’s all I can say,” said Johns Hopkins University cryptography professor Matthew Green.

Apple did not say when or how it learned about the flaw in the way iOS handles sessions in what are known as secure sockets layer or transport layer security, nor did it say whether the flaw was being exploited.

But a statement on its support website was blunt: The software “failed to validate the authenticity of the connection.”

Read more this story HERE.

Apple’s iPhone, the New International Currency

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Photo Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty ImagesI’ve been paying my bills with iPhones. Not with apps or on bank sites—I’ve been using the Apple (AAPL) hardware as currency.

It started by accident in December, during a business trip to New York. I live in Rome, where domestic work comes cheap and technology is expensive. An unlocked, gold, 32-gigabyte iPhone 5s that costs about $815 with tax in the U.S. goes for €839 (about $1,130) in Italy, roughly a month’s wages for workers who do laundry, pick up kids from school, or provide care for the elderly. When one worker heard I was visiting the States, she asked me to pick her up an iPhone in lieu of the equivalent cash for work she’d done. Lining up inside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, I was surrounded by shoppers speaking languages from around the world. The salesman looked stunned when I said I wanted an unlocked iPhone. Just one?

A new shipment of unlocked 5s phones had just come in, he said, adding that the gold model I asked for was the most popular in Europe and the easiest to resell. To my right, a man with a credit card from a Saudi bank was trying to buy his third and fourth phones of the day. “Make it two,” I said. There was one more step: The salesman grabbed a landline from behind the counter to connect me with my bank’s antifraud department. Purchases from this store, he said, are red flags.

Do the math, and that’s no surprise. Exiting the store with my plastic Apple shopping bag secured by a rope drawstring, I no longer thought of the phones inside as appliances. They were more like gold bars.

Read more from this story HERE.