Related News: Update: What Jennifer Lawrence can teach you about cloud security

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Update: What Jennifer Lawrence can teach you about cloud security.

This breach appears different from other recent celebrity “hacks” in that it used a near-zero-day vulnerability in an Apple cloud interface. Instead of using social engineering or some low-tech research to gain control of the victims’ cloud accounts, the attacker basically bashed in the front door—and Apple didn’t find out until the attack was over. While an unusual, long, convoluted password may have prevented the attack from being successful, the only real defense against this assault was never to put photos in Apple’s cloud in the first place. Even Apple’s two-factor authentication would not have helped, if the attack was the one now being investigated.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Selfie linked to stolen iPhone a case of whodunit

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Selfie linked to stolen iPhone a case of whodunit.

The tale of an iPhone stolen from a burglarized Southern California home sits at the intersection of Web culture and the swap meet.

A woman in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita reported to authorities that her home had been ransacked July 30, and among the missing items were cash and an iPhone. But in what appeared to be another episode of Thieves Gone Stupid, the victim’s iCloud account was hit with pictures, including a selfie of a cute couple posing on a pillow.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Woman files $123M suit against Facebook over photoshopped nude photos

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Woman files $123M suit against Facebook over photoshopped nude photos.

Houston woman Meryem Ali has filed a $123-million lawsuit against both Facebook and a former friend who posted a picture of her on an “imposter” Facebook profile under her name, according to Texas Lawyer.

Photographs “that depict the true face of plaintiff” were altered with Photoshop and “attached to false, phony, naked body shots, and at least one pose where there is plaintiff in a graphic pornographic-like photo,” states the complaint, which was filed on July 25 in Harris County.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Why one New Jersey school district killed its student laptop program

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Why one New Jersey school district killed its student laptop program.

“We bought laptops that had reinforced hard-shell cases so that we could try to offset some of the damage these kids were going to do,” said Crocamo. “I was pretty impressed with some of the damage they did anyway. Some of the laptops would come back to us completely destroyed.”

In addition to tough physical hardware, the district tried to plan in advance of software pitfalls. District officials attempted to block which websites students could access—in particular, pornographic sites—but the students figured out how to defeat that too. “There is no more determined hacker, so to speak, than a 12-year-old who has a computer,” said Crocamo.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Woman arrested after posting selfie of shoplifted dress

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Woman arrested after posting selfie of shoplifted dress.

A 27-year-old Illinois woman was arrested Monday after posting a selfie to Facebook showing off a dress that she allegedly stole from a local boutique.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Undocumented iOS functions allow monitoring of personal data, expert says

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Undocumented iOS functions allow monitoring of personal data, expert says.

Apple has endowed iPhones with undocumented functions that allow unauthorized people in privileged positions to wirelessly connect and harvest pictures, text messages, and other sensitive data without entering a password or PIN, a forensic scientist warned over the weekend.

Jonathan Zdziarski, an iOS jailbreaker and forensic expert, told attendees of the Hope X conference that he can’t be sure Apple engineers enabled the mechanisms with the intention of accommodating surveillance by the National Security Agency and law enforcement groups. Still, he said some of the services serve little or no purpose other than to make huge amounts of data available to anyone who has access to a computer, alarm clock, or other device that has ever been paired with a targeted device.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Snowden: NSA employees routinely pass around intercepted nude photos

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Snowden: NSA employees routinely pass around intercepted nude photos.

If Snowden’s allegations of sexual photo distribution are true, they would be consistent with what the NSA has already reported. In September 2013, in a letter from the NSA’s Inspector General Dr. George Ellard to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the agency outlined a handful of instances during which NSA agents admitted that they had spied on their former love interests. This even spawned a nickname within the agency, LOVEINT—a riff on HUMINT (human intelligence) or SIGINT (signals intelligence).

“You’ve got young enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old,” Snowden said. “They’ve suddenly been thrust into a position of extraordinary responsibility where they now have access to all of your private records. In the course of their daily work they stumble across something that is completely unrelated to their work in any sort of necessary sense. For example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising position. But they’re extremely attractive.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Google+ kills off “real names” policy

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Google+ kills off “real names” policy.

Google has decided to reverse its long-standing policy requiring users to use their real names to make profiles on the service as of Tuesday, according to a post shared on the official account. The move comes after Google+ head Vic Gundotra suddenly departed in April, marking the beginning of a shift for the service.

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Delaware subpoenaed reddit in order to reveal details of public sex act

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled Delaware subpoenaed reddit in order to reveal details of public sex act.

The Delaware Attorney General’s office acknowledged Tuesday that in late March it subpoenaed reddit, seeking “all records and information including registered name, e-mail, and IP address” concerning user “un1cornbl00d” for a certain two day period at the end of that month. State authorities wanted this information in an attempt to locate a man and woman who appeared (NSFW) to have sex in public in the town of Newark, Delaware on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2014.

Source: Ars Technica