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Wireless bug leaves some notebooks open to attack [UPDATED x2]
From the “Hiding in a bunker waiting for the end of days” desk…
According to a blog on The Washington Post’s site, a nasty security bug in the MacBook’s wireless card driver allowed two hackers attending this week’s BlackHat Briefings security convention to hack into and take control of an Apple MacBook. This glitch is not unique to the MacBook; similar holes have been found in a coupe other Windows PC notebooks. The demonstrating duo, Jon Ellch and David Maynor “said they ultimately decided to run the demo against a Mac due to what Maynor called the ‘Mac user base aura of smugness on security,’” according to the article.
The vulnerability can not be blocked by firewalls or safeguarded against with antivirus software, since the driver, developed by Atheros, low-level code. Also, according to Ellch and Maynor, the machine may be vulnerable whenever the wireless card is on regardless of whether explicitly tell it to connect to a network, since many cards will connect automatically to an available open network (although by default Mac OS X will ask you if you want to connect to an open network first, giving the user at least some sort of first line of defense) . It is important to note that this vulnerability is not a vulnerability in Mac OS X, Windows XP, or any other operating system.
Luckily there have been no known exploits in the wild, and the companies in question have been contacted so a fix likely will be available soon.…
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A couple updates
Greetings, loyal DT readers! Here are a few quick updates in the life of me.
I’m working on three articles right now: two product reviews (MacBook and OmniPlan beta) and one blog entry. I have yet to actually start writing write any of the three. That’s what a lack of energy and time does to you. Maybe this weekend I’ll get to something. And if you’re tired of waiting for us to write something worth reading, you could always write your own!
My MacBook is mooing at the moment. It also makes a soft humming sound (the purported “whine?” but it doesn’t bother me at all. The screen is bright. Native apps run very smoothly. Non-native apps run at about G4 iBook levels. There’s the CliffsNotes version of my MacBook review. Be certain to read my full review whenever I finish with it (hopefully I’ll churn it out over the weekend). You’ll be tested on that material.
A two-week heat wave is no fun. The coastal fog finally made its triumphant return today and caused temperatures to plunge. Hooray!
And finally, I’ve been tossing around an idea for a new side-project site. I won’t say anything yet, except that it has nothing to do with tech. Those who know my background are free to make random guesses as what it could be, though 
Until I get the energy to write something,
Nick
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Apple addresses some minor notebook issues
From the “My computer is yellow!” desk…
Is your white MacBook’s palmrest so yellow that it looks like someone smeared nicotine all over it (even though you don’t smoke)? Does your MacBook Pro whine more than a four-year-old? Is your clothing going out of style? If you answered yes to any of these questions (well, maybe not that last one), Apple wants to know!
Apple has posted a pair of very short knowledge base articles (if you want to call one-sentence blurbs “articles") addressing the discoloration of the palmrests on some MacBooks and high-pitched whining of some MacBook Pros. If your ICBM* laptop is exhibiting either of these annoyances, contact AppleCare and they should be able to help.
Don’t believe me? Read them for yourself!
*That’s “Intel-Chip-Based Mac” for the uninitiated.
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Diving In
The story of two Mac geeks switching to Ubuntu Linux has been a topic of discussion around the Mac Web for the past few weeks. It all started back, oh, about a month ago when well-respected Mac guru Mark Pilgrim announced his switch to Ubuntu Linux. Soon thereafter, blogger and Mac geek Cory Doctorow also decided to make the switch. Somewhere in between, Jason Kottke of kottke.org wrote the following: “If I were Apple, I’d be worried about this. [...] Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.” Kottke has since offered up a clarification on his position, one that I personally agree with — this isn’t necessarily going to mean we’ll see a mass-migration from the Mac, but this isn’t something to ignore.
Of course Crazy Apple Rumors hopped on the bandwagon and announced that they were going to become “Crazy Ubuntu Rumors Site” (or CURS of short), but changed their minds when they realized that there really aren’t any rumors for Linux. Ahem.
At any rate, there seems to be some out there who do feel that this is indeed a sign of things to come. From where I’m sitting (at a desk in my bedroom with an Indigo iMac G3 to my left, an iBook G4 directly in front of me, and a Mac Plus in the closet to my right, if that matters to you at all), I don’t see this as two Mac heads…
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SpamSieve 2.4.3
I get spam. You get spam. We all get spam. And not the meat kind. Nobody likes it, but depending on who you ask about 80-90% of all the emails sent are spam. And of course, you have better things to do that sort out which emails are ones that are important to you and which are asking you whether you want a penis enlargement for the umpteenth time. So this is where SpamSieve comes in.
Now OS X’s Mail has a built in spam filter, which can do a pretty good job, but you do have to watch it. For some people it works, for some it doesn’t. I’m lucky enough to be the latter. It got to the point where almost all emails were being put into my spam box, even ones I’d told mail to specifically not include. I was starting to feel like nobody loved me. So, fed up of trudging through manually sorting my email I decided to give SpamSieve a whirl.
SpamSieve works using a technique called Bayesian analysis. Without going into the workings in too much detail, this method analyses how likely certain words are to appear in spam messages, making it highly accurate, and more importantly, it learns as you receive more email.
Installing SpamSieve is an easy task. You open the application, close your email and simply choose one of the install menu items. SpamSieve supports most of the popular email clients such as Mail, Eudora, Mailsmith and Entourage. Once installed you…
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more stuff
- Wireless bug leaves some notebooks open to attack [UPDATED x2]
- A couple updates
- Apple addresses some minor notebook issues
- Diving In
- SpamSieve 2.4.3
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- Microsoft Acquires iView Multimedia
- Sweating it [UPDATED]
- PopCopy, OmniGroup, others team up for PopLottery [UPDATED: first drawing deadline extended]
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- Taking the Plunge: The Biggest Beta Trial I’ve Ever Done
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- News of the Weird: Alexa.com hacked? [UPDATED: Nope!]
- Five Reasons Why There WILL Be Macs in 2010
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- iMac: All Your Base-ic Needs In One
- Rumors: end the madness
- Apple updates abound
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- iMac vs. The World: Round Deux
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- iMac vs. The World: Round 1
- The Apple Method
