How blockchain will kill fake news (and four other predictions for 2020)

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2019 03:00:00 -0800

As blockchain’s hype cycle continues to befuddle many about its potential beyond  cryptocurrencies, businesses and governments are moving ahead with projects involving everything from digital identities to voting and supply chain tracking.

Blockchain has slipped into the “Trough of Disillusionment” (see Gartner Hype Cycle), because it got ahead of its technical and operational maturity. As a result, interest has waned as most experiments and implementations failed to provide expected results.

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Apple confirms HomeKit-secured CCTV and router systems

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 06:14:00 -0800

Apple has at last confirmed which routers and smart home security systems will support the HomeKit Secure Video and HomeKit-enabled routers systems it introduced in iOS 13.

Safe as houses?

HomeKit Secure Video and HomeKit-enabled routers patch two of the bigger gaps in smart home security coverage: they give users strong control over who can access video captured in your home and provide a welcome additional barrier against hackers and others attempting to break into home networks via the router.

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Why isn't Apple (yet) supporting Tim Berners-Lee to 'save the web'?

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 07:36:00 -0800

Apple isn’t (yet) among the signatories for a global campaign to save the web launched by Tim Berners-Lee.

I hope this is something the company plans to change.

What’s the story?

Berners-Lee, inventor of the web, is concerned that the web is becoming a forum for political manipulation, fake news, privacy violations and other harms that he fears may plunge us all into what he calls “digital dystopia.”

He’s launched a new global action plan and is asking governments, companies and individuals to commit to protecting the web and ensuring it benefits humanity.

“The power of the web to transform people’s lives, enrich society and reduce inequality is one of the defining opportunities of our time,” he said.

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Blackberry refreshes its UEM suite, focuses on zero-trust access

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2019 10:17:00 -0800

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The 5 true takeaways from Android's camera vulnerability circus

Credit to Author: JR Raphael| Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2019 09:21:00 -0800

I don’t know if you’ve read much news this week, but it seems the sky is falling and we’re all terribly doomed.

No, I’m not talking about that news — as usual, that’s another column for another publication — but rather the news that a security flaw in some Android camera apps could turn our phones into privacy-plundering spy portals and bring an end to human life as we know it.

I mean, have you seen some of these headlines?!

  • “Hundreds of millions of Android phone cameras can be hijacked by spyware”
  • “Android flaw lets rogue apps take photos, record video even if your phone is locked”
  • “An Android flaw lets apps secretly access people’s cameras and upload the videos to an external server”

Holy hibiscus, Henry! Even I’m trembling from all of that, and I know it’s a bunch of misguided, sensationalized hooey.

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Throwback Thursday: See if you can wriggle out of this one

Credit to Author: Sharky| Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2019 06:00:00 -0800

It’s several years ago during a major virus outbreak — if you know your history of computer viruses, you can narrow it down — and a user at a remote site calls this pilot fish to complain that her computer won’t let her get any work done.

“I asked her if she had called the local technician — who worked for me — and she replied that she had called him numerous times but he had not picked up his phone,” says fish. “I told her I would take care of it.”

Fish calls his tech, who says he has spoken to the user each time she called and explained to her that he’ll help her as soon as he can, but he’s finishing work in another area.

That satisfies fish, who goes back to his own work. And soon he gets a message from his tech, sent from the irate user’s email account, reporting that the tech checked the user’s PC, found a virus and removed it, and updated the PC’s virus definitions. Case closed.

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Facebook's iOS 'bug' secretly filmed users. IT, take note.

Credit to Author: Evan Schuman| Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2019 09:41:00 -0800

News reports last week — subsequently confirmed by a Facebook executive’s tweet — that the Facebook iOS app was videotaping users without notice should serve as a critical heads up to enterprise IT and security execs that mobile devices are every bit as risky as they feared. And a very different bug, planted by cyberthieves, presents even more frightening camera-spying issues with Android.

On the iOS issue, the confirmation tweet from Guy Rosen, who is Facebook’s vice president of Integrity (go ahead and insert whatever joke you want about Facebook having a vice president of integrity; for me, it’s way too easy a shot), said, “We recently discovered our iOS app incorrectly launched in landscape. In fixing that last week in v246, we inadvertently introduced a bug where the app partially navigates to the camera screen when a photo is tapped. We have no evidence of photos/videos uploaded due to this.”

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Security lessons from a Mac-only fintech company

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2019 07:43:00 -0800

Apple remains a highly secure choice for enterprise professionals, but security threats remain and the environment requires sophisticated endpoint management tools, confirmed Build America Mutual (BAM) CTO, David McIntyre.

The Mac only bank

BAM is one of the leading U.S. municipal bond insurers and has insured over $65 billion since launch in 2012. It also has the rare distinction of being a fintech firm that is completely based on Macs.

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