Encrypting your iPhone backups? Time to choose a better password

Greg Kumparak, Mobile Crunch, 2/8/2010

If you’re using the backup encryption method introduced in iPhone OS 3.0 and your password is something like “cat”, “sex”, or “tetherball”, you should probably change it to something a bit more complicated. There be hackers wantin’ your goods!

Password recovery software company ElcomSoft has just released an iPhone backup cracking tool called iPhone Password Breaker.

Now, now – don’t panic. Unlike yesterday’s exploit, this isn’t some new security hole to worry about. In fact, it’s a tale as old as hacking itself: good ol’ fashion bruteforce.

The iPhone Password Breaker application is dictionary-based, meaning it gains access by cycling through a massive dictionary of words and common passwords (like the aforementioned “cat”, “sex”, and “tetherball”) and their variations (such as “c4t”, “s3x”, and “t3th3rb4ll”) until it finds the right one.

As I mentioned, this method is by no means anything new – dictionary attacks are the oldest and most rudimentary form of hacking. Ever try to guess your friends password by typing in random things you’d associate with them? That’s a dictionary attack – just with a much smaller dictionary.

However, this is the first time to our knowledge that someone has built a dictionary application specifically targeting the iPhone’s backup manifest file. As long as you play it safe (use good passwords, keep your backups secure), you should be fine – just know that such tools exist now.

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Patent suggests location-based social networking for iPhone

Chris Rawson, Tuaw, 2/8/2010

Imagine you and a friend are on a phone call, and both of you own iPhones. You’re trying to meet up somewhere downtown in a city neither of you know very well, so the best answer you can give your friend when he asks, “Where are you now?” is “Uhhh…” followed by several seconds of silence. It’s already possible to share your location using the Maps app on the iPhone — find your current location, tap on the blue marker on the map, tap “Share Location,” and then send it to your friend either as an e-mail or MMS. Then your friend receives the e-mail or MMS with your location, opens it in Maps, and has the option of finding directions to your location from his current location.

If that sounds like a lot of unnecessarily complex steps to answer the simple question of “Where are you,” you’re in luck, because according to a new patent application, Apple agrees with you. By putting “Request location info” and “Release location info” buttons on the call screen in the Phone app, it would be possible to share your location or request someone else’s with a single button press. The same process applies — the iPhone polls its GPS to find out where you are, then transmits that info to your friend’s iPhone — but instead of having to jump through all the hoops yourself, the OS handles it for you in the background. Once your phone receives a request for location info it comes up in a notification, probably very similar to the notifications location-based apps already use when they request permission to use location data. If you agree to release your location data to the caller, it’s transmitted in a fully encrypted signal to the caller’s iPhone. Your location data would then show up on your friend’s iPhone, complete with the option to find directions.

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KYOCERA to Unveil World’s Lightest, Smallest and Most Efficient LTE Base Station at Mobile World Congress 2010

Mobile Tech News, 2/8/2010

KYOCERA Corporation today announced its plan to showcase the industry’s first Long Term Evolution (LTE) micro base station at Mobile World Congress (MWC), taking place February 15-18 in Barcelona, Spain. The world’s smallest, lightest and most efficient LTE base station*, Kyocera’s prototype LTE micro base station is unique in its compact, all-in-one design, giving network operators an ideal tool to complement existing networks by enhancing coverage or adding incremental capacity in high-use areas. Kyocera invites MWC attendees to see the micro base station at MWC Hall 2, booth 2E66, and is offering private briefings by appointment for media, analysts and network operators.

Kyocera’s micro base station weighs less than 26.5 pounds (12 kg) with a volume of 12 liters, and offers 8 watts of transmit power, a fraction of typical macro base stations. Designed to address gaps in coverage and overloaded network “hot spots,” the micro base stations function cooperatively with existing macro base stations in highly scalable “heterogeneous” networks. This is enabled by Kyocera’s pioneering work in the development of interference-mitigation technology. The company is a leading contributor of such technology to the 3GPP.

Along with displaying the micro base station, Kyocera will offer a live demonstration at MWC of its ultra-efficient macro base station, which weighs less than 39.7 pounds (18 kg) with a volume of 20 liters, and uses only 211 watts or less of power — significantly less than any LTE base station demonstrated to date. Kyocera achieves unprecedented performance in both its micro and macro base stations through state-of-the-art RF technology and the industry’s most efficient power amplifier. For network operators, Kyocera’s infrastructure products offer significant reductions in both capital and operating expenditures (CapEx and OpEx).

“LTE networks are capable of offering rich content and amazing features, but only if coverage is consistent and provides reliable multi-megabit-per-second speeds for all consumers,” said Junichi Jinno, Executive Officer & General Manager of Kyocera’s Corporate R&D Group for Equipment and Systems. “Kyocera’s micro and macro base stations are the industry’s best, most cost-efficient tools for operators to implement and fine-tune a network that delivers on this promise.”

Kyocera’s infrastructure business began in 1995, and the company has since perfected its all-in-one design in more than 634,000 base stations installed globally using PHS technology. At Mobile World Congress, Kyocera along with Starent Networks (now part of Cisco), a leading provider of multimedia core technology, will demonstrate a complete LTE solution for mobile operators worldwide. The joint demonstration, which consists of base stations (eNodeB) from Kyocera and evolved packet core equipment from Starent, is available at MWC2010 in Kyocera’s booth.

Kyocera’s booth at MWC will also feature infrastructure and terminal devices employing WiMAX and iBurst broadband technologies, along with a broad array of mobile handsets. Network operators, journalists and analysts wishing to schedule private briefings at MWC may do so by contacting John Chier, Director of Corporate Communications at Kyocera Communications Inc., at john.chier@kyocera.com.

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Sn0wbreeze 1.4 Released to Jailbreak and Unlock iPhone OS 3.1.3

iPhone Hacks, 2/8/2010

iH8sn0w dev team have released Sn0wbreeze 1.4 to jailbreak and unlock iPhone OS 3.1.3. However, please read the post carefully before proceeding.

Sn0wbreeze allows users to upgrade from a jailbroken iPhone OS 3.1.2 or lower to iPhone OS 3.1.3, which was released few days back to fix some minor bugs.

sn0wbreeze is a tool for Windows and iPhones, setup custom boot logos, activate your iPhone, root partition size, build custom IPSW, and more!

As mentioned earlier, Sn0wbreeze will work ONLY if you have an iPhone or iPod touch running iPhone OS 3.1.2 or lower, which has been JAILBROKEN or PWNED. It will NOT work if you have already upgraded to iPhone OS 3.1.3. It allows users to upgrade their jailbroken iPhone runing iPhone OS 3.1.2 or lower to jailbroken iPhone OS 3.1.3.

It can jailbreak the following devices:

• iPhone 3GS (OLD BOOTROM ONLY. If the 4th/5th digits of the serial # are before 40 then you should have the old bootrom. If your current jailbreak is tethered DO NOT try this.)
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 2G
• iPod Touch 2G (OLD BOOTROM ONLY. If your current jailbreak is tethered you have the new bootrom so stay away and/or If your model # starts with MC you have the new bootrom so stay away!)
• iPod Touch 1G

And it can unlock the following devices:

• All iPhone 2G
• iPhones with 04.26.08 Baseband
• iPhones with 05.11.07 Baseband

(You can find your baseband via the Settings app (General->About->Modem Firmware)

You can download the latest version of Sn0wbreeze from iH8sn0w’s website.

Please remember hacking your iPhone could void its warranty. So please proceed with caution and at your own risk and don’t forget to take a backup of your iPhone (refer to this post for more details).

As always, let us know how it goes.

Update:

Dev Team have released PwnageTool 3.1.5 and Redsn0w 0.9.4 for iPhone OS 3.1.3

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Google working on smartphone software to automatically translate foreign languages into your native tongue

Nicholas Deleon, MobileCrunch, 2/8/2010

Google says it’s working on smartphone software that would automatically translate foreign languages into your native tongue. So, if you’re talking to your Venezuelan pen pal, and he says, “No me gusta el fútbol americano,” you can react in horror as you try to explain to him the importance of a game where more time is spent setting up plays than actually executing them is the greatest sport in the world. Porqueria.

If all goes according to plan, the software could be ready in just a “couple” of years, which is to say Google has no idea when it’ll be ready for public consumption.

You’ll recall that Google already has a fairly robust translation software suite, and it’s totally free. It’s not entirely machine translation, though, which is generally rubbish, since people can help contribute with certain words and phrases that might not mean what the literal definition suggests.

Like, I just used the word “rubbish” to mean that machine translation is not always very accurate, not that it’s refuse.

All part of Google’s plan to ensure that humanity is fully dependent on its services, I suppose.

Here’s a tip: learn Spanish or French or Italian in high school, and you can pretty easily pick up any other romance language with not too much effort. Spanish and Italian and Portuguese are pretty much “mods,” to use a PC game word, of Latin, so it all works out.

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RIM Making Necessary Changes as Smartphone Competition Heats Up

Michael Barkoviak, Daily Tech, 2/8/2010

RIM making adjustments to better compete with the iPhone and Droid smartphones

A TD Newcrest analyst said Research In Motion is making necessary changes to keep up with rival smartphone manufacturers, as the company continues to look for new ways to increase the number of apps it offers.

Analyzing industry thoughts on the RIM BlackBerry 3G Pearl 9100, Tour2 smartphone, and a new device that has both a physical keyboard and touchscreen — the group found RIM is adjusting.

“We are not changing any estimates at this time, but we believe there could be upside to our numbers for the May quarter.”

The dominant smartphone maker now has several anticipated phones in the coming months, which will help it compete against Apple, Motorola, Samsung, HTC, and others.  Even more phone manufacturers are expected to test out the smartphone market this year, including Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and other companies that must evolve to meet changing consumer needs.

Analyst Chris Umiastowski expects the 3G Pearl 9100 to be “a big success, just like the last Pearl,” he said in an analyst note.  Another phone includes a hybrid device that has an optical navigation pad, physical keyboard and touchscreen keyboard.

Verizon Wireless reportedly will receive the Tour2 smartphone device — said to now be in development — including built-in Wi-Fi and a new optical trackpad that will replace the original trackball.

Furthermore, RIM is reportedly hearing positive comments regarding its new WebKit browser, but didn’t elaborate further.

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Google to Add Multitouch to More Android Apps

PJ Jacobowitz, PC Magazine, 2/5/2010

Last month when Google launched HTC’s Nexus One” smartphone, its Web browser, Google Maps and Picture Gallery applications all lacked pinch-to-zoom multitouch gestures. Earlier this week, Google released an update for the Nexus One that enables pinch-to-zoom in these applications. It now turns out that this update will not be limited to the Nexus One.

Soon, Google will unleash a new Android platform release called “Android 2.1 – Update 1,” which will include the updates for all Android manufacturers, the company said.

Once Google makes it available, it would be possible for any Android devices that have a touch screen with multitouch capability to offer pinch-to-zoom gestures in the Web browser, maps and gallery applications. That could potentially include every Android phone now available in the U.S. But notice the fine print: Google is releasing this to manufacturers, not directly to users. It will be up to Motorola, Samsung, HTC and the wireless carriers to boil the new software down for their individual phones.

The Motorola Droid (which currently runs Android 2.0.1 and the Motorola CLIQ (which runs Android 1.5) will most likely receive Android 2.1 – Update 1. Last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las, Vegas, Motorola chief executive Sanjay Jha said that both phones will receive updates to Android 2.1 “as shortly as possible.” Sprint has also announced that their HTC Hero and Samsung Moment phones will receive Android 2.1 updates during the first half of 2010.

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Number of Location-Aware Apps Keeps Growing Rapidly – But Very Few are Cross-Platform

Frederic Lardinois, ReadWriteWeb, 2/5/2010

We are still in the early days of location-based apps, but according to new data from Skyhook, there are now over 6,000 location-based iPhone apps, 900 Android apps and 300 BlackBerry apps. Skyhook, the company that allows non-GPS enabled devices to triangulate locations by using nearby WiFi signals, also found that only a small number of these location-based apps are currently available across the three major app stores. There are currently only 43 cross-platform location apps.

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How To: Get full websites on an Android phone

Ian MacGregor, Ian’s Thoughts, 2/5/2010

A user agent is a client application implementing a network protocol used in communications within a client-server distributed computing system. The term most notably refers to applications that access the World Wide Web, but other systems, such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), use the term user agent to refer to both end points of a communications session.

Web user agents range from web browsers to search engine crawlers (spiders), as well as mobile phones, screen readers and braille browsers used by people with disabilities. When a user agent operates, it typically identifies itself, its application type, operating system, software vendor, or software revision, by submitting a characteristic identification string to its operating peer. In the HTTP and SIP protocols, this is transmitted in a header field User-Agent.

Many websites use the user agent identification string to decide which type of content will be served to the client. This is why you may see a smaller version of a website on a mobile phone and a larger version of the same website on a desktop computer.

To change the user agent string on Android-powered phones, follow these steps:

1. On a Desktop computer, visit this page and copy down the string of text printed below “Your User Agent is:”

2. On your Android-powered phone, open the browser and tap Menu > More > Settings

3. Scroll to the bottom of the settings page and tap to enable the “Custom user-agent” checkbox, this will enable you to enter a custom user agent string in the box below it.

4. In the User-agent string box, below the box you just checked, enter the string of text that you copied from the website in step 1.

5. Close the settings window and surf the web as normal. You should now see full versions of websites instead of mobile versions.

You can return to using the default user agent string provided by the Android OS simply by unchecking the checkbox that you checked in step 3.

I usually keep a few different user agent strings in a text file on my phone so that I can change them if needed.

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Cisco adding iPhone app for voice-over-Wi-Fi

Matt Hamblen, Computerworld, 2/4/2010

Cisco Systems Inc. plans to add voice-over-Wi-Fi capabilities to its existing iPhone app by April, part of a continuing effort to expand its unified communications technology into the mobile space.

The current iPhone Cisco Mobile app requires users to have a Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage server installed at a business. The server is usually administered by a company’s IT department.

Cisco Mobile already gives iPhone users quick access to many of the standard Cisco IP features, such as visual voicemail and Mobile Connect, software that can route calls from a work number through a company’s phone switching network and then out to an iPhone. The iPhone client software is free.

Cisco sees voice over Wi-Fi for the iPhone as a less expensive way to communicate because it would eliminate the need to use cellular voice minutes when placing a call in a Wi-Fi zone, said Laurent Philonenko, general manager of Cisco’s unified communications business unit.

The upcoming version, to be called Cisco Mobile Voice, will also be free and is expected to be available by April. Among the new features it will offer is “shake to lock,” which allows a user to end a call with a simple shaking gesture of the phone, he said. Another, named “call preservation,” allows a phone call to stay connected, even if a user opens a different application in the iPhone.

Cisco is also developing another iPhone application for voice-activated dialing. That app can be launched by bringing the phone to the ear and speaking, since the iPhone’s accelerometer detects the movement. It will be part of the Web 2.0 IP Telephony Widget.

Philonenko spoke to reporters in Boston and other cities from San Jose, Calif. via videoconference and was joined in Madison, Wisc., by Pat Scheckel, vice president of converged infrastructure solutions for CDW, which resells computers and related gear to businesses.

CDW, which has 3,500 customer deployments of Cisco’s mobile and unified communications technology globally, has already worked with one manufacturing company that has implemented voice over Wi-Fi using Nokia smartphones and Cisco 7925 IP phones, Scheckel said. “They had exorbitant cell phone bills and now just use Wi-Fi,” he noted.

Philonenko said it is important for Cisco to bring its mobility apps to iPhone, which has gained ground in large businesses in the past two years. Cisco eventually plans to bring all of its mobility applications to Nokia and BlackBerry devices, and, later, Android phones, he said. “Android is not yet a big factor in the enterprise ,” he said. “And we think Windows Mobile will re-emerge….

“The iPhone came from nowhere and companies like CDW are now deploying them by the thousands,” Philonenko said. With smartphone devices proliferating, cell networks seem to have saturated the globe, “but there’s still not enough 3G bandwidth for what people want to do.” As a result, Wi-Fi is seen as a relief valve, raising the value of voice over Wi-Fi, he added.

Cisco, which offers Webex collaboration software as well, is tracking the growing importance of social networking, Philonenko added. “Everything we do [at Cisco] is going to be mobilized,” he said.

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