If you are an international Google Voice user then beware of clicking the little “upgrade your account” button from within Google Voice. Doing so may render your ability to access the Google Voice web site obsolete.

If you’re not in the US and you want to add credit to your account, make sure that you DON’T CLICK the “Upgrade your account” button from Google Voice. This feature is only useful if you are in the US, since it lets you get a Google Voice number. Unfortunately, if you click on that button and you’re not in the US, you’ll no longer be able to buy credit.

There does not appear to be an easy way to downgrade your account once you have opted for the upgrade. The Google Operating System article does mention the upgrade may be cancelled by using a U.S. based web proxy server but that is a little cumbersome for the average non-techie internet user.

All is not totally lost however. Although the Google Voice web site itself becomes inaccessible, phone calls initiated from within Gmail still appear to function. Hopefully Google will fix this and simply hide the “upgrade your account” button from international users. Doing so will create less confusion and not cause users to inadvertently prohibit access to their own accounts.

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An academic research paper by University of Pennsylvania researchers claims touch screen phones may be vulnerable to smudge attacks, a new form of security vulnerability based on the oily residue left on the screen. The researchers claim malicious attackers may be able to ascertain a certain amount of information, such as inferring a password used by the devices owner, left by the smudges left on a touch screen.

The researchers took photos of screens and used a program to analyze the photos closely. They found they could figure out the password over 90 percent of the time. The study used Android phones, which use a graphical pattern to allow users to unlock the phone. Phones included the Nexus 1.

The study also found that “pattern smudges,” which build up from writing the same password numerous times, are particularly recognizable.

While it sounds somewhat plausible, I find it hard to believe that practical use of this vulnerability, assuming it is even an issue, will result in widespread exploits. The attackers would have to gain physical access to the device in order to make use of the exploit, and most bad guys prefer to do their dirty deeds from afar. This is not to necessarily downplay the issue but to speak towards the reality of the situation.

It should be worth watching to see if any true security issues ever come from this research. I applaud the University of Pennsylvania team for conducting some very exhaustive investigative work, and some very informative and interesting research, but the reality is this “vulnerability” is a non-issue right now.

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I ran across an interesting article on TechDirt this morning about a couple of bloggers who were playing around with a microscope and the US Visa and Border Crossing Card. What they found was quite interesting. On the back of the card is a strip of tiny etchings of every U.S. president and all the state flags. Nothing overly exciting, right?

The label for the 6th president of the United States is actually printed as “John Quincy Adames” – yes, you read that correctly. There apparently is a typo on official U.S. government documents. An “e” was either accidentally or purposely added to our sixth presidents last name.

That seems like a pretty big mistake. However, some are suggesting that it was done on purpose. In the comments to the Notcot post, two specific theories are presented: the first is that JQA changed his last name to distinguish himself from his father. Doing some quick searches around various bios of Adams, however, shows absolutely no support for this one. Even the White House’s own page on JQA spells it Adams and makes no mention of such a change.

The explanation TechDirt proposes is that the misspelling is a form of fraud and/or counterfeit detection. This makes sense and is the most plausible reason for the “error” assuming this is not an error. On such a seemingly innocuous document there has to be a variety of counterfeit detection options, similar to how U.S. currency has a number of security features.

No matter what the explanation, it is interesting this has never been found until now. It is also intriguing to see the lengths our government will go to protect its very own products, even something as relatively unimportant as the US Visa and Border Crossing card.

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In what appears to be a complete reversal from previous rulings across the nation, a federal judge for the 5th Circuit Appeals Court in New Orleans has ruled that breaking digital rights management (DRM) is not considered a violation of the ban imposed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) if it was not done in the pursuit of copyright infringing.

General Electric did not infringe on a power supplier’s digital copyrights when it used protected software unlocked through a hacked security key, the 5th Circuit ruled. “Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the (Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s) anti-circumvention provision,” Judge Garza wrote for the New Orleans-based court. “The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners.”

The ruling by Judge Garza is a step in the right direction for opponents of DRM and the anti-circumvention ban written in to the DMCA. While the ruling will surely be appealed, since there has now been a split decision between the 5th circuit and the others around the nation there is a strong chance a Supreme Court challenge will be heard in the future. Equally as important, now that there is a precedent set in the 5th circuit, it will be interesting to see the impact this ruling has on upcoming cases in the same and other circuits. Will other courts adhere to the same line of reasoning offered by Judge Garza?

Just as Sony Corp. of America vs. Universal City Studios – the Betamax Case – opened the doors for the very fair use we pride ourselves on today, we can only hope for similar good things from whatever case does end up weaving its way through the court system up to the Supremes. It is inevitable that one case will end up deciding the future of DRM just as the Betamax Case did in the past. It will happen, it is just a matter of time.

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Ever considered the thought that the U.S. government, such as the NSA, has the capability to break in to an SSL-encrypted session between you and your bank, and eavesdrop on that conversation? That idea alone should cause you to pause the next time you see the padlock icon in your browser light-up when you think you are browsing securely.

In a purely hypothetical example, the U.S. government can force a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to give them a publicly trusted certification for www.amazon.com. They then poison your DNS and route your traffic for www.amazon.com to a site they own that has the fake certification installed. Your browser then gives you that pretty green bar or little lock and you think everything is cool, safe and secure. Or… they can put a device between you and your target and then perform SSL interception.

Never put anything past the U.S. government and its intelligence gathering capabilities. I think that is a safe theory to operate under. Even though suspension of disbelief is required in movies like Enemy of the State and Deja-Vu, where the government employed nifty intel collecting techniques, something as simple as eavesdropping on SSL-encrypted communications should not be underestimated.

In fact, performing an SSL man-in-the-middle “attack” using a web proxy server and SSL decryption is not difficult at all. It is exponentially more believable in a corporate setting, where the IT guys control the operating system and web browser, however that does not mean it is unheard of elsewhere.

What is the point? Be careful who you trust when you are supposedly surfing securely. Educate yourself on the security techniques used by SSL and how they function. While in most cases there is nothing to be concerned with, it is important to understand that SSL is not the end-all be-all of network security. It has its own shortcomings as eloquently articulated in this article.

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Thomas Ryan of Provide Security setup a fake identity using a photo of a hot looking female as a means of portraying the potential security threats posed by social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Ultimately the experiment worked as the profiles were used to successfully socially engineering the U.S. government, military and intelligence communities.

And so it apparently was. She was an avid user of LinkedIn – a social-networking site for professionals sometimes described as “Facebook for grown-ups.” Her connections on it included men working for the nation’s most senior military officer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and for one of the most secret government agencies of all, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds, launches and runs U.S. spy satellites. Others included a senior intelligence official in the U.S. Marine Corps, the chief of staff for a U.S. congressman, and several senior executives at defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. Almost all were seasoned security professionals.

It is great to see the U.S. government finally start to embrace social networking, but is the cost of being socially engineered worthwhile? How so many “smart” people fell victim to this ruse may appear to be surprising, but it really should not be. A picture of a hot chick is worth a lot of capital, especially in geek circles. Couple that with a wicked resume and connections to people in important organizations and you have a formula for socially engineering anyone, much less the government.

Hopefully the vulnerabilities exposed by social networking usage in this exercise will be used to help better educate the government, military and intelligence communities. This is one thing lacking in the government – quality education about the dangers of online social networking and the threats these tools pose to our government.

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AppleInsider has taken the aforementioned Secunia vulnerability report to task, dismantling the claim that Apple has the highest number of security holes.

Secunia’s vulnerability counts reset when Microsoft changes the name of its product, but continue to accumulate for Apple because the company hasn’t rebranded Mac OS X since 2003, when Secunia began keeping track. Browsing Secunia’s database, it appears Mac OS X has suffered from hundreds of vulnerabilities while Microsoft’s Windows has racked up far fewer, but that’s only because Microsoft’s regular rebranding efforts reset Secunia’s clocks.

At the same time, Secunia does not break up Apple’s vulnerability counts by each reference release of Mac OS X, so its current vulnerability listings date back through Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, and Leopard, as well as the currently installed base of Snow Leopard.

How Secunia arrives at its totals are also puzzling, as according to its own statistics Apple’s Mac OS X was affected by 6 “advisories” in 2010, only one of which has not yet been patched. That issue is rated as “not critical” and can only be exploited by local users.

This is the article I should have written, but unfortunately I did not have the time to conduct the necessary in-depth research to write such an eloquent response to the obviously bogus report. AppleInsider should be praised for clearly articulating their dissection of the claims made in the report, especially since Secunia carries a lot of weight in the security industry.

It is obvious Secunia need to tweak their methods to better express an accurate depiction of the operating system vulnerability landscape. The first thing Secunia needs to do is retract the graph, which is what most people are paying close attention to. A visual representation of the number of vulnerabilities, with Apple sitting atop the chart, clearly does the security industry an injustice by not accurately reporting the current vendor vulnerability situation.

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Although Mac OS X has remained virtually free of any large-scale virus or malware outbreaks, according to a report released by security firm Secunia the operating system ranks at the top of the most vulnerabilities chart in terms of the sheer number of exploits available.

Mac OS has remained relatively untouched by major viruses and hacking efforts in the past, as most ne’er-do-wells may have considered the operating system’s market share and thus potential for private information less enticing than those of Microsoft’s Windows. With the rise of Mac market share and the popularity of the iPhone, however, there is little doubt that Apple platforms will become major malware targets in the near future.

Surely this is rather unbelievable to most people, who expected to escape from Microsoft security vulnerability hell by switching to Mac OS X. Apparently the numbers do not lie, however I cannot help but feel the numbers are somewhat off.

I own a Mac at home but administer Windows XP at work, insofar as I am a network security professional whose job is to protect the network from bad guys and evil corporations incapable of adequately programming their software. Thinking back over the last couple years, I cannot fathom how Secunia came to the conclusion that Apple has a higher number of vulnerabilities than Microsoft. It is unbelievable, especially considering the large number of Windows patches I am required to push out on a monthly basis. Contrast that to the number of Apple patches I’ve installed on my home laptop and it just feels like the scales are tipped towards Microsoft by a large margin.

Check out the report for the full details.

Update: I failed to seize the opportunity to dissect the crappy Secunia report, but AppleInsider has taken charge, clearly dismantling the claims that Apple has the highest number of vulnerabilities. It is a wonderful read and is essentially the article I should have written.

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Security researches have discovered a fatal flaw in a widely used authentication routine and plan to discuss their findings at the Black Hat conference later this month in Las Vegas. The researches have not yet publicly disclosed the affected application, although it initially appears as if OpenID and oAuth are vulnerable to this newfound attack.

They found that some versions of these login systems are vulnerable to what’s known as a timing attack. Cryptographers have known about timing attacks for 25 years, but they are generally thought to be very hard to pull off over a network. The researchers aim to show that’s not the case.

The attack is thought to be so difficult because it requires very precise measurements. It cracks authentication tokens by measuring the time it takes for a computer to verify a digital signature. On some systems, the server will check a cryptographic signature on a token sent by the user to prove that he has logged into the system. It will kick back an error message as soon as it spots a bad character. This means a computer returns an error for a completely bad token a tiny bit faster than one where the first character is correct.

Since OpenID and oAuth are affected, sites such as Twitter and digg are vulnerable as they make use of these routines to provide additional functionality not seen in average web sites. Ultimately, what this attack facilitates is allowing an attacker to masquerade as a legitimately authenticated user without having to login to the site. While timing attacks such as this are difficult to pull off, they are not inconceivable.

What does this mean for the average user? Probably nothing much at this point since the keys to this particular kingdom lay in the hands of the web site operators. It will be up to the service providers making use of the affected libraries to either switch to an unaffected library or modify the existing one.

If you are a developer, and are using OpenID and/or oAuth then you should definitely be concerned. Pay strict attention to the paper these researchers plan to present at Black Hat to see if the libraries you are using are affected and in need of modification.

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Apparently the idea of being able to sit on ones fat ass and ostensibly get paid to “surf porn” for YouTube is not the dream job that it’s all cracked up to be:

“You have 20-year-old kids who get hired to do content review, and who get excited because they think they are going to see adult porn,” said Hemanshu Nigam, the former chief security officer at MySpace. “They have no idea that some of the despicable and illegal images they will see can haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

What is it that is so despicable about the imagery submitted to YouTube? Our always-connected culture has turned to uploading photographs of graphic gang killings, animal abuse, twisted forms of pornography (although “twisted” is quite subjective) and intense bullying. Videos containing this content are flagged, which is where the reviewers come in to play. They attempt to determine whether the material is safe for public consumption on Google’s flagship video sharing site.

Being constantly bombarded with such horrific imagery is taking its toll on the content screening team members, who are increasingly turning to professional psychological assistance to help them deal with problems associated with the evil content they are subjected to daily.

One major outsourcing firm with staff in the Philippines was aware of the risks of this type of work and hired a local psychologist to assess how it was affecting its 500 content moderators. The psychologist, Patricia M. Laperal of Behavioral Dynamics, said she had developed a screening test so the company could evaluate potential employees, and helped its supervisors identify signals that the work was taking a toll on employees.

Ms. Laperal also reached some unsettling conclusions in her interviews with content moderators. She said they were likely to become depressed or angry, have trouble forming relationships and suffer from decreased sexual appetites. Small percentages said they had reacted to unpleasant images by vomiting or crying.

It sure sounds like working as a content reviewer is not the glamorous job you might think it to be. While some folks are sure to be more sensitive to the imagery, as a whole it appears to be pretty tough to be constantly subjected to malicious content.

With video sharing being so pervasive young folks have this idea that all they need to do to become famous on the internets is create the next greatest viral video. A small percentage of folks appear to be taking that to the extreme, using the opportunity to take advantage of people.

If you believe that your ticket to stardom is hurting someone on a video submitted to YouTube then you are sadly mistaken – do something more constructive with your time and – here’s a novel idea – work for the fame.

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Jeremiah Grossman has uncovered a fatal privacy flaw in Apple’s Safari Web Browser v4 and v5 which allows a malicious web site to surreptitiously extract data automatically filled Jeremiah Grossman by way of the “AutoFill” functionality.

All a malicious website would have to do to surreptitiously extract Address Book card data from Safari is dynamically create form text fields with the aforementioned names, probably invisibly, and then simulate A-Z keystroke events using JavaScript. When data is populated, that is AutoFill’ed, it can be accessed and sent to the attacker.

There is currently no fix available for this vulnerability. Until Apple does release a security update addressing this exploit, immediately turn off the AutoFill feature in Safari. Either that or modify your Address Book Card to something with innocuous data.

On a side note, according to Grossman he informed Apple over a month ago about the exploit but has yet to receive a response. No surprise there – Apple is renown for not responding to such submissions. This is not to say they will not provide a response, but rather to keep the issue on the down-low, which is really how Apple rolls when it comes to flaws with their products.

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A recently discovered flaw with Windows shortcut LNK files is being exploited by installing malicious software which is then used to gain administrator level access by esoterically installing a rootkit.

Microsoft has already warned users, in the Microsoft Security Advisory (2286198), that hackers are exploiting an unpatched Windows vulnerability within the Windows Shell component where Windows incorrectly parses shortcuts. Since the warning, Microsoft has reconfirmed what researchers discovered this exploitation to be an issue with shortcut (.LNK) files. The vulnerability is apt to allow malicious code to be executed most likely through removable drives. When executed, the malware includes a Trojan horse which can implement attack code that downloads a rootkit and then remain undetected while running.

Several version of Windows are affected by the Shortcut flaw including Windows 7 and the now-unsupported Windows XP SP2 (Service Pack 2 – As of July 13, 2010 Microsoft no longer provides security updates or support for Windows XP SP2). Researchers have noticed that the related Shortcut flaw malware is mostly from an infected USB drive.

There is a strong chance anti-virus software would not have caught this malware, mainly because it is a 0day but also because it is becoming exceedingly difficult to adequately detect rootkit installations. There is strong evidence suggesting the attackers will take advantage of this vulnerability to spread malware through Windows XP SP2 installations since Microsoft is opting not to offer a patch for that version of the operating system. A lot of SP2 installs are floating around the internets, for some reason completing ignoring the fact that Microsoft released XP SP3 well over 18 months ago.

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The Washington Post has a fascinating expose of the post-911 government after concluding an interesting two-year investigative journalism project.

To ensure that the country’s most sensitive duties are carried out only by people loyal above all to the nation’s interest, federal rules say contractors may not perform what are called “inherently government functions.” But they do, all the time and in every intelligence and counterterrorism agency, according to a two-year investigation by The Washington Post.

What started as a temporary fix in response to the terrorist attacks has turned into a dependency that calls into question whether the federal workforce includes too many people obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest — and whether the government is still in control of its most sensitive activities. In interviews last week, both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta said they agreed with such concerns.

The Post investigation uncovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

I have not read through even a small percentage of the content available online so formulating an opinion on the subject matter is going to take some time. However, I have direct experience where contractors regularly act on behalf of the US government even though doing so is against the law. In most cases this is not malicious, but because the job has to get done and sometimes “acting on behalf of the US government” is so subjective that the answer could be debated for years.

Nonetheless, the Washington Post should be commended for the exceptional amount of time it took to amass all the data they have compiled and placed online for public consumption. This is the type of journalism we need, whereby the press performs those much needed checks against what our government is doing on a daily basis. These expose’s are an important part of democracy and will only serve to make America stronger in the longrun.

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In what has got to be one of the wackiest technology related stories I have read in quite some time, Wired’s Threat Level is reporting that kids across the United States are getting high on the internet thanks to so-called ecstasy-inducing MP3 files:

Kids around the country are getting high on the internet, thanks to MP3s that induce a state of ecstasy. And it could be a gateway drug leading teens to real-world narcotics.

At least, that’s what Oklahoma News 9 is reporting about a phenomenon called “i-dosing,” which involves finding an online dealer who can hook you up with “digital drugs” that get you high through your headphones.

Oddly enough, an Oklahoma school is taking this whack-ass threat seriously. They ended up sending out letters to parents to warn of this supposed new “drug” making its rounds on the internets. A side effect of this is the school has now banned iPods on school grounds to hopefully prevent students from becoming “cyber-drug” fiends. Seriously.

For the life of me I can not believe this is serious. No matter how much these digital drug dealers try, I can not fathom how this would even work to create some crack-like state of ecstasy. This whole idea is ridiculous.

Now I’ve listened to some MP3 music which made me want throw my laptop out of a fourth story window because the music was absolutely horrifyingly bad. I’ve listened to other highly intense music which made me feel all tingly inside.

But never have I listened to an MP3 which made me high, as if I had just gotten baked off some of the good stuff. Never. Ever.

The article is worth a read, if for no other reason than the amusement factor. Maybe it was meant to be taken in stride, maybe it is completely serious. Whatever the case, it sounds like there are some morons out there “educating” our students about things that do not yet exist.

The lesson in all this: keep your kids away from the Oklahoma Mustang Public School district because they will surely not be receiving a quality education from idiotic teachers like those who believe one can get high off an MP3 file.

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According to Jim Dalrymple Apple will be holding a press conference this coming Friday to discuss the iPhone 4, presumably to chat about the recent antenna and reception issues:

Apple on Wednesday invited select press to a special press conference to be held this Friday in California.

Apple would only say that the press conference would be regarding the iPhone 4. No other information was available when I spoke with them tonight.

Could this possibly be the first time that Apple has held a press conference for something other than to announce a new product? One such theory by Dan Rubin is that Apple will finally announce the availability of the iPhone on Verizon. This would ultimately change the conversation to something positive – misdirection if you will – because Verizon has the most robust mobile network in the states. But what about the international people complaining about the iPhone 4 and its antenna reception issues?

Whatever happens on Friday, it should be very interesting. I imagine a lot of folks would welcome the iPhone on Verizon but I’m not buying it. However, and this is a big if – maybe this is why the white iPhone is taking so long to manufacture – because its the fabled CDMA version for Verizon?

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Microsoft has caved in to the loud demands of their customers and announced Windows XP will be sticking around on the operating system scene for another ten years. Yes – ten more years with XP. Its default Playskool-like blue interface will continue to irritate more people than those who admit to enjoying the godawful GUI through 2020.

Prior to shipping Windows 7, we communicated that end-user downgrade rights provided in the software license terms of Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate editions preinstalled on a new PC would allow a customer to downgrade to either Windows XP Professional or similar Windows Vista versions for 18 months, or until the availability of SP1, whichever came sooner. Generally, PC manufacturers are in the process of ramping down Windows XP downgrade facilitation options that some offer today. As background, an OEM’s ability to generally offer downgrade facilitation options (e.g., preinstalling Windows XP Professional on a new PC that includes end-user rights for Windows 7 Professional) ends on October 22, 2010.

This is good news, especially if you have no compelling reason to upgrade from XP to Windows 7. A lot of folks, myself included, continue to run XP and actually prefer the operating system over Microsoft’s newer endeavors. Although many rave about Windows 7, there really is no reason to upgrade if all you do is use XP as vehicle for launching a web browser to reach the internets.

My main workstation is a MacBook Pro, however I continue to run an older HP desktop as a backup. It runs XP quite smoothly and is rarely used. Why would someone in a similar situation consider purchasing Windows 7 when Microsoft is committed to continually supporting XP through 2020?

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Why did Lebron James create a Twitter account the same week he decided to crush his hometown’s collective heart? Maybe he was unaware that the micro-blogging service had been available to the public for the past 4 years. It could be a coincidence that he decided to utilize that forum during the biggest spectacle of self-love that I have ever personally witnessed. Truth is that Twitter provided an environment where he could display his glaring character flaws. Compassion, humbleness, loyalty and respect are not prerequisites to creating a Twitter account.

This culture of instant media, instant gratification and instant fame usually is closely trailed by shame and doubt. After watching a one hour special dedicated to “King James”, the two words I would use to describe the look on his face are shame and doubt. The Cleveland Cavaliers billionaire owner should also feel the same way for his tribute to the “Chosen One” that was fitting of a bratty, spoiled 13 year old girl. Who is to blame for this latest display of selfishness and taking the path of least resistance? You…well, us I guess.

I too have been in awe of his talent just like every other sports fan. But I saw his flaws before most. Last year when the Orlando Magic exposed the Cleveland Cavaliers in 6 games to reach the NBA Finals, “Bron Bron” walked off the court without congratulating or at least acknowledging the winning team’s upset. Not even a post game interview. What was his explanation for this act of immaturity and disrespect?

“It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them. I’m a winner. It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a competitor. That’s what I do. It doesn’t make sense for me to go over and shake somebody’s hand.”

I’m not sure, but that could be the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. The dude was being sore loser and he knows it. After that I refused to buy his shoes for my son ever again. I wasn’t going to be apart of creating that monster. ESPN, NBA executives and more importantly this cyber culture created this gigantic jackass. He can be insulated from the world on Facebook and Twitter, so he doesn’t have to face the ramifications of his actions. The man singlehandedly crushed the hopes of an entire state and did so on an international stage.

His logic in doing so was flawed and just a smoke screen. He wanted to win right away…please, his previous team had the best record in the league the past 2 years. Plus the Chicago Bulls actually had a whole team waiting for him. He just didn’t want the pressure anymore, so he slithers off to Miami. Look, I know he is only 25 years old and that he will make mistakes. But he is a super rich megastar that has a TEAM of advisors. How many of us had a team advising us when we were coming up? Oh yeah, it was our families. They were there to tell us when we were going off the right path and help us get back on it. Now all you have to do is turn to social media to have a bunch of “friends” validate your every move.

I LOVE sports and the Internets, but not all of the creations that spew from their loins. We have to remember that words and actions hurt people. Hurting them on TV, web or radio doesn’t damage them any less. And after hurting people then turning to your new city to be instantly praised sends the wrong message. LeBron James will not learn from this, because we won’t make him. You will forgive and forget because he entertains and everyone loves a winner. Well, I love the Chicago Cubs and will continue loving them for the next 100 championship-less years for reasons that LeBron’s fans would probably never understand.

LeBron James has 405,000 followers (and counting) on Twitter, so he doesn’t need me to be apart of the lovefest. We are all “witnesses” to this phenomenon of our own making, and we should all feel ashamed. I just hopes he gets the values he’s lacking in Miami, but I doubt it.

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In a move that is surely upsetting the Recording Industry Association of America, Judge Nancy Gertner followed in the footsteps of a previous verdict, slashing a $675,000 verdict by a factor of 10, stating over half-million dollars in damages for merely file-sharing a few MP3 files is unconstitutionally excessive.

“Weighing all of these considerations, I conclude that the jury’s award of $675,000 in statutory damages for Tenenbaum’s infringement of thirty copyrighted works is unconstitutionally excessive,” she wrote. “This award is far greater than necessary to serve the government’s legitimate interests in compensating copyright owners and deterring infringement. In fact, it bears no meaningful relationship to these objectives. To borrow Chief Judge Michael J. Davis’ characterization of a smaller statutory damages award in an analogous file-sharing case, the award here is simply ‘unprecedented and oppressive.’”

This is the second time a damages award in a P2P file-sharing victory has been minimized by a Judge. Previously, a Minnesota jury awarded the RIAA $1.9 million but Judge Michael Davis reduced the damages to $2250 per song.

It is good to see these trials starting to backfire against the RIAA. They came in with an agenda to make examples of a few people, hoping for huge verdicts which would scare people from using P2P networks to share music. Unfortunately for the RIAA, as we all are quite well aware of, this has not happened – more music is being shared today than ever, while the recording industry continues to generate record-breaking revenue.

File-sharing is hardly hurting the bottom lines of the companies the RIAA represents. In fact, many would argue quite the opposite – that file-sharing is aiding the industry in generating more revenue by allowing people to be exposed to music they otherwise would never have previously considered purchasing. Try before you buy, if you will.

Although the Tenenbaum case was mostly a joke, it is quite nice to see a judge apply some common sense to these verdicts. The amount of damages written in to copyright law is there as a deterrent for people who attempt to profit off illegally selling music. The idea of file-sharing was not a glimmer in anyones eyes and was never taken in to account when the law was written. Is it time for Congress to revisit this clause and update it so it takes modern technology in to account?

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Those jackasses at patent holding company NTP once again have opted to use the courtroom to attempt to generate revenue rather than innovating in the technology space. This time they are suing Google, Apple, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola for allegedly violating eight of their patents covering wireless email delivery.

In 2001, NTP filed a similar suit against Research In Motion, and in 2006, the suit was dismissed after RIM paid $612 million in a settlement. As a result of that arrangement, RIM is not named in the new suit, nor is Nokia — the world’s largest smartphone maker — since both companies have licensing agreements with the patent company.

I find the timing quite interesting. The NTP vs. RIM lawsuit concluded in 2006, yet it took NTP four additional years before deciding to sue these companies. Here in 2010 Apple and HTC own the smartphone market with their iPhone and Android products respectively. Could this suit have anything to do with the extreme popularity of those devices?

Surely there is a relationship otherwise, for example, why not sue Apple upon the release of the first iPhone since its email capabilities have virtually remained the same?

Either way, patent holding companies like NTP – companies which purchase patents rather than innovating themselves – which do not produce any types of products but opt to use the courts for profit only end up hurting the technology sector as a whole. As long as there are greedy bastards like NTP running around suing companies on baseless grounds then many corporations will be afraid to take risks for fear of being in the crosshairs of some pointless, faceless, product-less lawsuit machine.

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What a lovely Independence Day surprise: global iTunes accounts have been compromised and used to purchase up to $600 worth of AppStore apps per account. Initially the suspicious activity pointed towards one specific developer, but has since spread to multiple developers, multiple iTunes accounts and more than the US iTunes store. The Next Web has a detailed list of the facts surrounding this breach.

• A number of iTunes have been account from across the globe, not just the US, and used to purchase apps.
• iTunes users have reported anywhere between $100-$1400 spent using their accounts.
• Many of the apps have been purchased to specifically climb up the iTunes ranking to gain momentum in the hope that others will purchase the apps based on their high sales.
• Currently all the app purchased have been owned by Asia based developers with little information known about them. Clearly they feel being based in Asia will give them immunity to any US laws.
• The developers website and support links direct users to non-existent websites or landing pages.
• The initial rogue developer’s have now been removed from the app store but other unethical developers still have their accounts available in the app store – details on those to come.

Check your iTunes purchase history and/or your online banking access to determine if your account has been compromised in this security breach. If it has, I suggest immediately contacting Apple’s iTunes customer service and your bank to dispute the charges, so that you may recover any potentially lost funds as a result of this incident.

It is not really known how widespread this security breach is, or what vector was used to facilitate the hack. The initial hack by Vietnamese developer “Thuat Nguyen” that was reported all over the blogosphere may have lead to discussion about entirely unrelated security incidents.

At this point nobody knows exactly what is going on or how all the breaches are tied together. Be on the lookout for additional information once it becomes available. In the meantime, check out your purchase history to ensure your account was not used in the breach.

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