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iOS 13 Bug Affects Third-Party Keyboard Apps

Andrew Orr ·

A bug in iOS 13 and iPadOS affects keyboard apps. They can be granted full access even if you haven’t approved that.

Third-party keyboard extensions in iOS can be designed to run entirely standalone, without access to external services, or they can request “full access” to provide additional features through network access. Apple has discovered a bug in iOS 13 and iPadOS that can result in keyboard extensions being granted full access even if you haven’t approved this access.

Because Apple mentions an “upcoming software update” I assume this bug also affects iOS 13.1.

Podcast

Thriller Novelist Carter Wilson - TMO Background Mode Interview

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Carter Wilson is the USA Today and #1 Denver Post bestselling author of six critically acclaimed, standalone psychological thrillers, as well as numerous short stories. He is an ITW Thriller Award finalist, a three-time winner of the Colorado Book Award, and his novels have received multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. His latest novel, The Dead Girl in 2A, was released in July 2019.

Carter didn’t plan to become a novelist. It was really quite by accident. He got his bachelor’s degree from Cornell and planned to work in hotel services. Then, on a spring day in 2003, an exercise to ward off boredom during a continuing-education class evolved into a 400-page manuscript. Since that day, Carter has been constantly writing. We chatted about the craft of thrillers, his writing technique, killing off characters, and how he plans his storylines. It’s been an amazing journey.

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Russian Confesses to JPMorgan Chase Hack

Andrew Orr ·

Russian national Adrei Tyurin confessed to the 2014 hacking of JPMorgan Chase which stole the data of over 80 million customers.

Tyurin carried out the hacks at the direction of co-conspirator Gery Shalon, who used the stolen data to further a variety of schemes, including securities fraud. One scheme involved artificially inflating the price of certain publicly traded stocks by marketing them in a deceptive and misleading manner to customers of companies Tyurin had hacked.

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Backblaze Storage Pod Celebrates 10 Years

Andrew Orr ·

Ten years ago, cloud storage company Backblaze introduced the Storage Pod. It’s a custom-built server for reliable, cheap storage. Today is the Pod’s 10th Anniversary.

Back in 2007, when we started Backblaze, there wasn’t a whole lot of affordable choices for storing large quantities of data. Our goal was to charge $5/month for unlimited data storage for one computer. We decided to build our own storage servers when it became apparent that, if we were to use the other solutions available, we’d have to charge a whole lot more money. Storage Pod 1.0 allowed us to store one petabyte of data for about $81,000. Today we’ve lowered that to about $35,000 with Storage Pod 6.0.

It’s an interesting, worthwhile read. Backblaze is a good cloud storage provider in my opinion.

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No No-Deal Brexit Could Lead to a Data Disaster

Charlotte Henry ·

Data currently flows freely between the UK and other EU countries. Daphne Leprince-Ringuet Wired explained why a no-deal Brexit could put this in jeopardy.

The UK is part of the mutually agreed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in 2018 and covers its European members with the world’s strongest data protection rules. This means that personal information gathered in other GDPR-protected countries can enter the UK with no barriers, as it is assured that data will be equally protected in the country. The UK’s Data Protection Act 2018 supplements GDPR, and in some cases goes slightly further, making the UK’s rules more stringent in some specific cases. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the Data Protection Act will ensure that personal information processed in the UK will keep enjoying the same level of protection they do now. Still, under EU law, the UK will be automatically considered a third country not bound by GDPR rules, and able to diverge from the current strong standards if parliament so decides. Consequently, data from EU countries would not be able to flow freely to the UK.