Spicy iPhone

With search boxes becoming increasingly the first place people go to find anything, does it really matter what your URL is?

Filed under: Tips and tricks, Internet, Security, TUAW Tips

Recently, we reported on AT&T’s push to make it easier for iPhone & iPod touch users to connect to their Wi-Fi Hot Spots. One of our readers, Jamie Phelps, pointed out on his blog that AT&T’s Wi-Fi service is not actually a “secure connection,” as is advertised in various places on their website; we had overlooked this, and mistakenly reinforced the company’s shaky claim in our post.

This brings to light an important point about wireless networks and security, however. It’s really easy (and sadly all too common) to hop on to an available wireless signal in your office, at the hotel, or your favorite coffee spot and not even think twice about logging in to your e-mail or checking your bank balance.

What many users don’t realize is even though the server you are connecting to (i.e. your bank’s website) may employ several layers of security, the connection between your computer and the wireless access point is very likely to be unsecured. Anyone who is within range of your computer can trivially monitor the traffic being sent between your computer and the access point, allowing them to see what websites you may be visiting or capture details about other services that you may be connected to. This isn’t because of some gaping vulnerability or software bug, it’s just an inherent part of how wireless networks work.

So, what can you do to protect yourself? Read on for a list of simple steps you can take to ensure that your wireless connection is safe and secure.

Continue reading Staying Safe: securing your wireless connection

TUAWStaying Safe: securing your wireless connection originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to a short-sighted lawsuit filed in a U.S. district court, Microsoft, Yahoo, and RealNetworks did not properly license more than 200 compositions that they offered through their streaming services. If the plaintiffs get what they’re asking for,

Apple has seeded firmware 3.1 to developers and there is already info coming out on the new features. Of course, they have updated the baseband so if you want to unlock, don’t upgrade. Also, If you want to jailbreak, don’t upgrade. There is speculation that if you upgrade, you may never be able to jailbreak again. Here’s info from the Dev Team and then a list of new features.

You’ve seen us give this warning before, and there are only so many ways to say it or come up with a clever title But here it is: ultrasn0w users must stay away from any firmware updates past 3.0 (including today’s 3.1 beta) until we release the tools that let you update the firmware without updating the baseband. For most phones out there, baseband updates are irreversible and you’ll lose ultrasn0w.

The 3.0 jailbreak was one of those (rare) times where both the jailbreak and the unlock coincided (the only other time was 2.2). It’s important that people realize that *most* firmware releases aren’t like that, and you need to take steps (via the tools) to separate the firmware update from its included baseband update.

This warning does not apply to the iPhone 2G, which uses BootNeuter for the unlock, not ultrasn0w.

List of new features:

- Non-destructive video editing now gives you the option to trim your clip then “Save as copy…” rather then replacing the original clip.
- Voice Control now works over Bluetooth
- iPhone vibrates when moving icons
- Updated AT&T profile to 4.2
- Updated modem firmware to 5.08.01
- Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz.
- APIs to allow third party apps to access videos and edit them.
- MMS buttons are back in the Messages app for AT&T customers but still don’t work

ScreenShots

Thanks to gadgetsonthego.net, theiphoneblog.com, iclarified.com & blog.iphone-dev.org for all the info.

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