A consumer advocacy group has expressed outrage over Apple Inc.’s battery replacement program for the iPhone, while developers and hackers are trying to figure out ways they could expand the capabilities of the hot new gadget. The hybrid cell phone, iPod media player and wireless Web-browsing device launched to much fanfare on June 29. On the same day, the Foundation for Consumer and Taxpayer Rights fired off a letter to Apple and AT&T Inc., the cell phone’s exclusive carrier, complaining that customers were being left in the dark about the procedure and cost of replacing the gadget’s battery.
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A well-known hacker claims to have overcome restrictions on Apple Inc.’s iPhone, allowing highly technical users to bypass AT&T Inc.’s network to use the phone’s Internet and music features. In a post dated July 3 on his blog, Jon Johansen, 23, a prolific hacker of consumer electronics gadgets since he was a teenager in Norway, said “I’ve found a way to activate a brand new unactivated iPhone” without signing up for AT&T service.
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Opportunistic spammers are increasingly posting additional threats, such as links to malware, within the body of their unsolicited email messages, according to new findings by internet security company Marshal. The practice, which Marshal has dubbed “piggyback spam”, was only prevalent in around two to three percent of spam until the last seven days, when it shot up to around 15 percent of total spam.
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Microsoft has said it plans to send out six security bulletins, three of which it has rated as “critical” (its highest severity rating), in its monthly Patch Tuesday release on July 10. All three of the critical vulnerabilities can result in the takeover of users’ compromised systems, according to Microsoft’s Advance Notification for July, 2007, announcement. Without providing details, the company said the three “critical” issues affect Windows and Office, and specifically Excel, and its Microsoft .Net Framework offering.
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Not long ago the scourge of the internet, email worms have declined sharply in 2007, a security company has revealed. According to UTM security vendor Fortinet, the incidence of mass-mailing worms has declined by 5 percent each month since the start of the year, putting the once-feared worm well below other types of attack in terms of volume.
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Hackers may successfully unlock an iPhone in as soon as three to seven days, according to a representative of one effort that aims to unlock Apple Inc.’s new handset. “We believe it will be easy. We are privately aware many of the iPhone engineers came from other handset manufacturers, and we understand their design techniques fairly well,” said gj, speaking in an interview conducted using IRC (Internet Relay Chat). He requested that his real name not be used.
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Hackers are increasingly targetting USB drives and other portable storage devices as a way of spreading viruses. Though specially-created web pages infected with worms and Trojans are still the most common way of circulating malware, cybercriminals are now using new methods, according to security firm ESET.
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Mobile-device manufacturer RIM is unconcerned about a new release of software that aims to compromise the security of a BlackBerry device. The latest version of legal spying software FlexiSpy enables remote third parties to bug the voice calls, log SMS and mobile email messages and track the location of a BlackBerry user. Ian Robertson, senior manager of security and research at RIM, said users need not be particularly worried about the capability of FlexiSpy.
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It seems as if someone is trying to entice people who are after the Grand Theft Auto mod video, into infecting themselves with a Trojan horse virus. Even though YouTube videos are still safe, this has not stopped those criminals who have nothing better to do in finding new ways in to enticing people who use Youtube to then get infected with the latest Trojan horse.
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APPLE’S IPHONE has been cracked only three days after it has been released with hackers breaking into the firmware and discovering the master root password. According to Builder AU the password was found in an official Apple iPhone restore image function. The archive contains two .dmg disk images: a password encrypted system image and an unencrypted user image.
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