GitHub Preserves its Code in the Arctic World Archive

GitHub plans to store all of its open source code in the Arctic World Archive to prepare for possible doomsday scenarios.

The data is stored on reels of film coated with iron oxide powder. It can be read by a computer or — in the event of a global power outage — a human with a magnifying glass. Crucially, this film will last for 1,000 years. Among the first data deposit at the vault is the source code for Android and Linux operations systems, as well as a range of programming languages, web platforms, cryptocurrencies and AI tools. GitHub is planning on having all active public repositories stored by February 2020.

This sounds like a neat project. It also sounds like the Arctic World Archive is “around the corner” from the Doomsday seed vault, another preservation project. Note: The photo I chose for the featured image is of that seed vault.

A Major New Security Feature is Coming to iOS 13.3

iOS 13.3 is heading our way soon, and it is set to contain a powerful new security feature. Forbes reported that it will support NFC, USB, and Lightning FIDO2-compliant security keys in Safari.

The move is revealed in Apple’s release notes for the second developer beta, which says iOS 13.3 supports NFC, USB, and Lightning FIDO2-compliant security keys in Safari. In other words, when the iOS 13.3 update drops, you will able to use physical security keys such as Yubico’s iPhone compatible YubiKey 5Ci–which was previously unavailable to browsers such as Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome. However, it could be used with some password manager apps such as 1Password.

Facebook is Fine With Political Lies But Bans Pro-Vaccination Ads

Facebook is happy to let politicians lie in advertisements on the platform, but it bans pro-vaccination ads that are rooted in science.

The study, published today in the journal Vaccine…found that a small group of “well-connected, powerful people” promoting broad anti-vaccination messages had successfully leveraged the platform’s targeted advertising service to reach select audiences…Meanwhile, those behind pro-vaccine messages well far less well funded and centralised, with their advertising often focusing on inoculating against specific conditions.

The New Motorola Razr is a Blast From the Past

The Motorola Razr is back. It’s still a flip phone but it’s a foldable screen with the old UI skinned on top of it, and it’s US$1,500.

As I fold the Motorola Razr in half for the first time, it becomes clear that the Razr — with its foldable 6.2-inch screen, 16-megapixel double-duty camera and $1,500 price tag — is the best designed, most completely thought-out foldable phone to date. Streamlined. Utterly pocketable. Nostalgic, with a sharp futuristic edge.

I still think foldable phones are a bit gimmicky for now, but a phone that folds vertically makes more sense to me than a phone that unfolds horizontally to become a tablet-like device.

GitHub Releases iOS App in Beta

GitHub announced a beta iOS app at its Universal conference on Wednesday. The Microsoft-owned company also extended its sponsor program, Techcrunch reported.

The new mobile app, which is now out in beta for iOS, with Android support coming soon, offers all of the basic features you’d want from a mobile app like this. The team decided to focus squarely on the kind of mobile use cases that would make the most sense for a developer on the go, so you’ll be able to share feedback on discussions, review a few lines of code and merge changes, but this isn’t meant to be a tool that replicated the full GitHub experience, though at least on the iPad, you do get a bit more screen real estate to work with.

Siri Might be Able to Interpret Your Emotions in The Future

Siri may soon be able to interpret your emotions using facial recognition. That’s according to a new patent, reported on by AppleInsider.

Intelligent software agents can perform actions on behalf of a user,” says Apple in US Patent Number 20190348037. “Actions can be performed in response to a natural-language user input, such as a sentence spoken by the user. In some circumstances, an action taken by an intelligent software agent may not match the action that the user intended.” “As an example,” it continues, “the face image in the video input… may be analysed to determine whether particular muscles or muscle groups are activated by identifying shapes or motions.” Part of the system entails using facial recognition to identify the user and so provide customized actions such as retrieving that person’s email or playing their personal music playlists.

Facebook Pay Rolls Out in U.S.

Facebook Pay launched in the U.S. Thursday, Computing reported, following a trial in India. The service supports payments on the Facebook and Messenger platforms.

“Facebook Pay supports most major credit and debit cards as well as PayPal,” said Deborah Liu, vice president of Facebook’s marketplace and commerce division. She continued: “Payments are processed in partnership with companies like PayPal, Stripe and others around the world. Facebook Pay is built on existing financial infrastructure and partnerships, and is separate from the Calibra wallet which will run on the Libra network.” In addition to enabling users to buy goods on the social network’s various platforms, it will also enable them to send money to friends and donate to fundraisers.

Disney+ Clears 10 Million Subscribers on Day One

Disney+ surpassed 10 million subscribers on its first day, The Verge reported. The app has been downloaded over 3.2 million times, despite tech teething-problems.

The Mandalorian, the live-action Star Wars show easily considered the crown jewel of Disney’s streaming service, saw north of 2 million streams over the first day, according to people familiar with the matter. That number has more than likely grown due to overnight and second day viewing. By the end of the day, Disney+ was also the top app in the App Store, according to Apptopia. Launching with a bundle — ESPN+ and ad-supported Hulu — also helped bump up both apps in app stores, according to Apptopia’s report. Sources familiar with the matter told The Verge that the bundle also saw a notable increase in sign-ups following the launch of Disney+. To put everything into additional context, analysts projected that Disney+ would have anywhere between 10-18 million subscribers in its first year. Disney has signed up more than half of those projected numbers in 24 hours.

Google Will Offer Consumers Checking Accounts

Google is going to partner with banks to start offering checking accounts. Techcrunch reported that the consumer service will begin next year.

The initial financial partners that Google is working with include Citigroup and Stanford Federal Credit Union, and their motivation per the WSJ piece appears to be seeking out and attracting younger and more digital-savvy customers who are increasingly looking to handle more of their lives through online tools. Per Sengupta’s comments, they’ll also benefit from Google’s ability to work with large sets of data and turn those into value-add products, but the Google exec also said the tech company doesn’t use Google Pay data for advertising, nor does it share that data with advertisers.

Disney+ Alters Scene Between Greedo and Han Solo

Disney+ has altered the shoot out scene between Greedo and Han Solo, making this the third alteration over the years.

You can see the footage isn’t as lightened as some previous editions. It does lean on the grainier look used in the 1977 reel, but it is longer overall. That is because an additional bit of dialogue was added to Greedo. Not only does the version make it more difficult to tell whether Greedo shot first, but it sees them shout something at Han Solo before being killed.

Privacytools.io Delists Startpage Over System1

Privacytools.io delists Startpage from its list of privacy tools and services. Startpage had been taken over by Privacy One Group, which itself is owned by System1. System1 is a targeted advertising company with a business model that seemed—to many—to be in conflict with Startpage’s own privacy-centric model.

Because of the conflicting business model and the unusual way the company reacted, claiming to be fully transparent but being evasive at the same time, we have no choice but to de-list Startpage from our recommendations until it is fully transparent about its new ownership and data processing. Remaining questions include…

Suspicionless Searches of Travelers' Devices Ruled Unconstitutional

A federal court ruled that suspicionless searches of travelers’ phones and laptops is unconstitutional, a win for privacy rights.

The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and ACLU of Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.

504th Military App Could Expose Soldiers’ Data

The 504th military app gives soldiers weather updates, training changes, and other logistics. But its terms of service say it collects a lot of personal data, and if the app was hacked it could potentially expose top-secret information.

The app’s permissions — which suggested it could pull GPS location data, photos, contacts and even rewrite memory cards — frustrated soldiers who have taken extreme precautions they felt were glossed over by Trotter and other senior leaders…The worst-case scenario, he said, was “our cover might be blown.” While the app said permissions could be disabled, the soldiers said there was a failure of confidence it was secure. Senior leaders checked the phones of subordinates to ensure they had the app installed, soldiers in the unit said.

Why it’s especially concerning: “The app developer, Straxis LLC, is based in Tulsa but has a subsidiary in southern India.”

Twitter Wants Users to Help it Finish Deepfakes Policy

Twitter announced proposals for its policy to tackle deepfakes on Monday. Now, The Verge reported, it wants users to help it finish the job.

Late last month, the Twitter Safety team announced it’d be seeking feedback on what a deepfake and synthetic media policy would look like on the platform. In a blog post on Monday referencing that announcement, Twitter vice president of trust and safety Del Harvey wrote that if manipulated media was flagged on the platform, Twitter could end up placing a notice next to it alerting users that it’s been distorted, warning them that it’s false before they share it, or adding context in the form of a link or news article breaking down why others believe that it’s untrue. Twitter could also remove the content, Harvey wrote.

Is Facebook Secretly Accessing Your Camera? This Man Found a Bug

For years there have been anecdotes from people saying that Facebook secretly uses their phone’s microphone and/or camera for targeted advertising. Joshua Maddux tweeted about a bug he found within the Facebook app. By tapping on a profile picture and slowly sliding it down the screen, you can see his rear camera being accessed on the left hand side. He tested it using five iPhones running iOS 13.2.2.

Found a @facebook #security & #privacy issue. When the app is open it actively uses the camera. I found a bug in the app that lets you see the camera open behind your feed. Note that I had the camera pointed at the carpet.

Private Press Briefings Suggest New Apple Products This Week

Writing for 9to5Mac, Zac Hall says that Apple could be holding private press briefings this week. If this is the case then we could see new Apple product announcements as early as the middle of the week.

This week appears to be one of those occasions based both on what 9to5Mac is hearing privately and suggestions by multiple public disclosures. If Apple is holding private press meetings at the start of this week, that suggests we could see the subject of those meetings announced publicly by the middle of the week.

I’m looking forward to the release of Apple’s ‘Tag’ Bluetooth beacons.

macOS Mail Stores Encrypted Emails in Plain Text

IT specialist Bob Gendler found that macOS Mail was storing encrypted emails in plain text. He first notified Apple on July 29, but only got a temporary fix from the company 99 days later on November 5.

The main thing I discovered was that the snippets.db database file in the Suggestions folder stored my emails. And on top of that, I found that it stored my S/MIME encrypted emails completely UNENCRYPTED. Even with Siri disabled on the Mac, it *still* stores unencrypted messages in this database!

Mr. Gendler shard a fix in his blog post.

How Everyone Ignored it When Steve Jobs' Shared The Secrets of iPad Success

During the 2010 media event unveiling the iPad, Steve Jobs revealed much of Apple’s strategic thinking behind the product. However. as an editorial on AppleInsider, points out, much of the industry ignored it.

It was as if Jobs were giving the industry a Xerox PARC style tour of the secret labs inside Apple. He not only revealed the next big thing that would radically change the computing landscape but also detailed exactly what was going to make it commercially successful. To compete for relevance and fill a valuable niche between a regular PC and a phone, Jobs said iPad would need to be much simpler to use than a PC. And to stand apart as useful next to a smartphone, it would be critical to have tablet-optimized mobile apps that were more sophisticated than a phone. These ideas may seem obvious today, but were once opposed and defied by competitors and critics.

If Your YouTube Account Isn’t ‘Commercially Viable’ Google Will Delete It

According to YouTube’s new terms of service, your YouTube account can be terminated if it isn’t commercially viable enough. The phrasing is broad enough that some people think this means Google will take action against people using adblockers.

YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable.

I’m personally not sure if that’s the case. You don’t need a Google account to watch YouTube, nor does Google need you to have an account for it to track you.

Judge Rules Cops can Search Through DNA Database GEDmatch

A judge recently ruled that law enforcement have the ability to search through DNA database GEDmatch, overriding the choice of its over one million users.

In the wake of that attention-grabbing case, GEDmatch changed its policies in May 2018 to make it less easy for police to access their data. Users now have to opt in to having their data made available to police; information they upload is set to private by default. Rogers told the NYT that as of October, less than 15% of current users, 185,000 out of 1.3 million, have opted in to sharing their data with police.

Only 44% of People Correctly Spotted Fake News on Facebook

In a small study (n=80) undergraduate students were fitted with a wireless electroencephalography (EEG) headset. They were then asked to read political news headlines as they would appear on a Facebook feed to determine their credibility. They overwhelmingly chose headlines that aligned with their political beliefs as true.

“We all believe that we are better than the average person at detecting fake news, but that’s simply not possible,” said lead author Patricia Moravec, assistant professor of information, risk and operations management. “The environment of social media and our own biases make us all much worse than we think.”

We're Still Waiting for Sign In with Apple to Take Off

Sign In with Apple is a private, convenient way for Apple customers to create accounts with apps and websites. But so far only a smaller number of developers have implemented it. Apple says that if apps include other single sign-on options like Facebook and Google, they have to include Sign In with Apple. April 2020 is the deadline and it can’t come soon enough.

While other companies such as Facebook and Google already offer their own sign in buttons, those options allow app makers to access more of users’ personal information…By comparison, Sign in with Apple only shares your name and an email address with the app maker, and using your real email address is optional.

Amazon Ring Surveillance Cameras Leak Customer Data

Romanian security company Bitdefender found that Amazon Ring doorbell cameras were leaking customer data like Wi-Fi credentials.

Bitdefender researchers have discovered an issue in Amazon’s Ring Video Doorbell Pro IoT device that allows an attacker physically near the device to intercept the owner’s Wi-Fi network credentials and possibly mount a larger attack against the household network.

At the moment of publishing this paper, all Ring Doorbell Pro cameras have received a security update that fixes the issue described herein.

You can view the whitepaper [PDF] here.

Apple Gets Closer to 50% Share of Smartwatch Sales

The Apple Watch absolutely dominates the smartwatch market. It sales made up nearly 48% of smartwatches solde in the third quarter of 2019, according to research by Strategy Analytics reported on by AppleInsider.

It is claimed Apple Watch shipments reached 6.8 million units in Q3 2019, up 51% from the 4.5 million believed to have shipped in the same quarter in 2018. To Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawson, Apple “remains a long way ahead of the chasing pack,” and “continues to fend off strong competition from hungry rivals like Fitbit and Samsung.” Wearables were a big help for Apple’s recent financial results, with it and Services helping plug a shortfall in revenue from iPhone sales to bring Apple up to $64 billion. In the period, wearables revenue rose year-on-year by 54% to $6.52 billion… In terms of market share, Apple makes up 47.9% of smartwatch sales in the quarter, up from 45% in Q3 2018, and edging ever closer to the 50% mark.