Teen hacker releases Windows and Mac jailbreaking programs for iPhone 3G S

The teen hacker who unlocked the original iPhone is at it again. George Hotz, 19, claims to have created an app that can “jailbreak” the iPhone 3G S.That means the program, dubbed purplera1n, can install third-party software on an iPhone 3G S, even if that software is not approved by Apple. It didn’t take him that long to hack the iPhone 3G S, which has only been available since June 19.Jailbreaking is a big deal because it shows that it isn’t impossible to overcome Apple’s built-in security features for the iPhone. To some users, jailbreaking adds value to the phone because they are able to run a variety of unauthorized apps. Apple tries to close off vulnerabilities that make jailbreaking possible, but hackers such as Hotz look for new ones in a cat-and-mouse game.Note that while Hotz originally was able to “unlock” the iPhone so that it could make phone calls on non-AT&T networks, “jailbreaking” is different in that it merely allows unapproved apps to run on the iPhone.Hotz released software on Friday that works with Windows-based computers and the latest version of iTunes, as well as an iPhone 3G S running the latest iPhone 3.0 software. He talked about it in a blog post. Today, he released a Mac version. He warns that people who try the software should do a backup before they start.

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Green Dam: How China planned to censor the web

China has a long history of restricting internet access, but the Green Dam initiative would have represented a new front in the war on information. For the last decade, China has been fighting – and largely losing – a running battle against the internet, and the free access to information it brings. The government, so used to managing and monitoring the flow of news and disemmination of information within its borders, has at times appeared impotent in the face of a universal technology that has no respect for time zones or geography.Web users in China are used to intermittent interruptions to services – access to websites such as YouTube and Google is frequently disrupted, while internet access to many foreign news websites, such as the BBC, is often prohibited. The government uses a sophisticated filtering system, dubbed the Great Firewall of China, to “sniff out” web searches for censored material, such as pornography, or politically sensitive terms, such as the outlawed religious group Falun Gong. When the firewall identifies these banned searches, access to the relevant sites is halted on the servers.
However, the Green Dam software that China wants to install on every computer would have moved internet censorship from the servers in to people’s homes; it would have given the government the ability to control internet access at the level of an individual’s computer, stopping at source any searches or web use that it deemed inappropriate.Unsurprisingly, the Green Dam project lead to an outcry from Chinese internet users and from computer manufacturers, who baulked at the prospect of having to ensure every PC they sold in China was pre-installed with the new filtering software.The government’s climb-down, just four hours before the Green Dam edict was due to come in to effect, leaves officials with red faces. It remains unclear whether the change of plans was in response to online protests from citizens, complaints from manufacturers, or simply a realisation that, at an administrative level, the sheer size of the undertaking was too great, and could not be achieved in the proposed time frame.Even if Green Dam does get the go ahead in future, it will simply be applying a sticking plaster to a wider problem. Although there can be little doubt that ordinary computer users will have their browsing experience fundamentally disrupted by the technology, those internet users who are particularly web savvy or technically literate will find a way to circumvent the software. The cat-and-mouse game between the Chinese government and its citizens for control of the web will continue.

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Companies can learn from hacking of Palin's e-mail

SEATTLE — A precocious hacker cracks into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's private e-mail account, looking for dirt. In doing so, he opens a Pandora's box of tech security concerns for the presidential candidates — but perhaps even more so for Corporate America.That's the upshot of a fast-developing story playing out on tech websites Valleywag, Gawker, NetworkWorld and others. On Thursday, Kim Zetter, a veteran investigative reporter at Wired News, broke a story describing how a hacker, going by the nickname Rubico, easily changed Palin's Yahoo account password, rifled through her e-mail and posted the password on a popular tech discussion website, 4chan.org.Other 4chan participants subsequently boasted about accessing Palin's Yahoo account, posting family photos and samples of personal messages widely across the Internet.WIKILEAKS: VP contender Sarah Palin hackedA statement from John McCain's campaign condemned the hack as an "invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law.""It's a cautionary tale for all of us," says Owen Thomas, Valleywag's managing editor. "Passwords are easy to guess, and we don't use the extra protection sites like Yahoo offer us."The digital break-in underscores the risk corporations and government agencies take on when they give tacit approval to extensive workplace use of free, Web-based, applications such as e-mail, instant messaging and toolbars. A recent survey of 60 companies by Palo Alto found them all using a wide variety of different Web mail applications. The most popular: Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail and AOL Mail.According to postings by Rubico on 4chan, it took just 45 minutes to reset Palin's password using the Alaska governor's birth date, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse. The main tool for obtaining Palin's background details: Google searches.Yahoo declined comment on security features for its free e-mail service.

"We don't comment on the specifics of our security policies so that we don't give a roadmap to hackers and bad actors," says spokeswoman Kelley Benander.

Most corporations and government agencies have policies allowing "reasonable use" of free Web-based e-mail, says Palo Alto Network's product manager Chris King. Trouble is, he says, employees generally ignore "best practices around strong passwords, secure connections and access only from trusted systems."

Even before her selection as vice presidential candidate, Palin had come under criticism for using non-government e-mail accounts to conduct state business.

Valleywag reported Thursday that Palin's hacked account, and another Yahoo e-mail account she used, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, have been deleted.

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