Apple finally adopts HTTPS for the App Store - here's why it matters

Last year, a Googler named Dr. Elie Bursztein noticed that Apple's App Store protocols weren't very secure. Much of the interaction your iDevice had with the App Store was conducted via plain old HTTP. Apple should really have been using HTTPS, or secure HTTP. HTTPS, as you probably know, is HTTP traffic carried inside a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transaction Layer Security (TLS) wrapper. → SSL/TLS uses public-key cryptography to create a secure data channel, even between users or websites that have never corresponded before....

Google Glass: the ultimate creepy stalker toy?

Yesterday was a challenging day for the double X-chromosomed - or, really, for anybody who doesn't want to be spied on. First, there was this Ars Technica pieceabout ratters: hackers who use remote administration tools (RATs) to gain access to (primarily) women's webcams, files and PC microphones to steal files and surreptitiously spy on victims, whom they refer to as "girl slaves." Then there was this: ReadWrite's roundup of five creepy things you'll be able to do with Google Glass. If you're not yet familiar with Google's...

Skype in hot water over failure to let French police eavesdrop

French telecom regulators have suggested that Skype could face charges for failing to register as a telecom and do all the things that French telecoms are supposed to do - for example, let police eavesdrop on calls. ARCEP, the French telecom authority, on Tuesday posted a notice stating that they have informed the Paris public prosecutor that as Skype provides French internet users with the ability to make phone calls, it is thereby obliged to comply with regulations that include routing emergency calls and "implementing the means...

Barack Obama hacked by SQL injection

This story has been updated with content that supersedes much of the original content. Updates are found at the bottom of the story Hackers disclosed this morning that they have been able to compromise BarackObama.com through a SQL injection attack. The English of the post is quite poor; however, the researcher makes a very valid point. Shouldn't the most powerful, well-protected man in the world have a website that is at least reasonably secure? Storing credentials in plain text is even more embarrassing than being vulnerable...

Track and Field Athletes Test Positive, Eight Years Later

Six track and field athletes who competed at the 2005 world championships in Helsinki have been cited for doping after their samples were reanalyzed and found to contain banned substances, the sport’s international governing body said Friday. The athletes, from Russia and Belarus, include three gold and two silver medalists. Among them was Nadzeya Ostapchuk of Belarus, a shot putter who placed first. She had also been stripped of her gold medal at last summer’s London Olympics after testing positive for an anabolic steroid after her event. The...