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New York Police Highlight Cases of Women Stalked With AirTags

Charlotte Henry ·

Police in West Seneca, New York, highlighted cases of AirTags being used to stalk women who initially did not know they were being tracked. Local news outlet WGRZ has details and comment from a senior officer.

“A female came in and she got this message notification on her phone that there was an Apple AirTag or device moving with her, so she came to the station,” West Seneca Lieutenant Jonathan Luterek said. Luterek says officers found an AirTag under the bumper of the woman’s vehicle. And just this week, a different woman got the same message on her phone.
“Officers checked over her car pretty thoroughly and weren’t able to locate it. It disconnected shortly after, so at this point it’s really unknown if it was on the vehicle, or if her phone got alerted about something nearby,” Luterek said.  Officers do not believe the two cases are connected and say there is no reason to panic, but they do want to raise awareness.

Concerns about incidents such as this were raised when the device was first launched. Indeed, the features that alerted the women were introduced by Apple to reduce the risk. It is still something to be aware of though and important to know what to do if you find yourself in such a situation.

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Security Flaw in Fisher-Price 'Chatter' Phone Could Let People Eavesdrop

Andrew Orr ·

A Bluetooth bug found with Fisher-Price’s Chatter phone could let others eavesdrop on your conversation.

With just the online instruction manual to go on, the researchers feared that a design flaw could allow someone to use the Chatter to eavesdrop.

Ken Munro, founder of the cybersecurity company Pen Test Partners, told TechCrunch that chief among the concerns are that the Chatter does not have a secure pairing process to stop unauthorized phones in Bluetooth range from connecting to it.

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Steve Jobs Returned to Apple 25 Years Ago

Charlotte Henry ·

This week marks a major landmark in Apple history. It’s 25 years since the company acquired NeXT and Steve Jobs returned. MacRumors has a good reflection on the episode.

“With this merger, the advanced software from NeXT will be married with Apple’s very high-volume hardware platforms and marketing channels to create another breakthrough, leapfrogging existing platforms, and fueling Apple and the industry copy cats for the next ten years and beyond,” said Jobs. “I still have very deep feelings for Apple, and it gives me great joy to play a role in architecting Apple’s future.” Jobs initially returned to Apple as an advisor, making his first appearance at Macworld San Francisco in January 1997 to announce details of how Apple planned to incorporate NeXT technology into future releases of Mac OS. Jobs went on to replace Amelio as the company’s interim CEO just nine months later, and he ended up dropping the interim title and remaining CEO until stepping down in August 2011 due to health issues.

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What is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)?

Andrew Orr ·

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is out with another explainer article, this time about DAOs.

Simply put, DAOs are software enabled organizations. They allow people to pool resources toward a common goal and share in value creation when those goals are achieved. DAOs run on top of open blockchain networks like Ethereum, organized by tokens with their rules encoded in smart contracts. DAOs aren’t tied to a physical location, which allows them to mobilize quickly and attract talent from all over the world

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Time For the 13-Inch MacBook Pro to go

Charlotte Henry ·

It’s time for the 13-inch MacBook Pro to be put out of its misery. No M2 chip. The end. That’s the view of Macworld Contributing Editor Samuel Nyberg. When he outlines what this would mean the Mac lineup looks like in 2022, it’s hard to disagree.

If the choice is between a ‘good enough’ MacBook with M2 and modern design, or an absolute monster with M1 Pro/Max and a 14in screen, who would choose a tired old MacBook Pro 13in? A device, moreover, with a Touch Bar, a five-year-old design, and no MagSafe. We know Tim Cook is an expert at saving money when he can. The iPhone had basically the same design for four years (from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 8), a design that now lives on in the iPhone SE. Reusing the same old chassis, the same old components, is a great way to save development and manufacturing costs for Apple. Cook would certainly like to squeeze a few more years out of his old MacBook Pro 13in design. But how about swallowing the stinginess and showing some pride in Apple’s products instead?

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Hacking US Diplomats in Uganda May Have Led to NSO Group Downfall

Andrew Orr ·

ArsTechnica shares the story of how U.S. diplomats in Uganda were hacked by Pegasus, a spyware tool from NSO Group.

Israeli and US officials declined to confirm that the Ugandan hack directly triggered a decision to blacklist NSO. But one US official who discussed the issue with Israel’s defense ministry said: “Look at the entire sequence of events here—this is careful, not by chance.” He added that putting NSO, one of the jewels of Israel’s tech community, on a US blacklist was designed to “punish and isolate” the company.

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DuckDuckGo to Release Private Browser for Mac in 2022

Andrew Orr ·

On Tuesday, DuckDuckGo shared its review of achievements and improvements in 2021. Looking ahead, the company plans to release a private browser for the desktop.

Instead of forking Chromium or anything else, we’re building our desktop app around the OS-provided rendering engines (like on mobile), allowing us to strip away a lot of the unnecessary cruft and clutter that’s accumulated over the years in major browsers. With our clean and simple interface combined with the beloved Fire Button from our mobile app, DuckDuckGo for desktop will be ready to become your new everyday browsing app.

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'Have I Been Pwned' Completes FBI Ingestion Pipeline for Passwords

Andrew Orr ·

Troy Hunt, creator of Have I Been Pwned, has completed a pipeline that enables the ingestion of passwords from law enforcement agencies, like the FBI.

The premise is simple: during the course of their investigations, they come across a lot of compromised passwords and if they were able to continuously feed those into HIBP, all the other services out there using Pwned Passwords would be able to better protect their customers from account takeover attacks. Fast forward to now and that ingestion pipeline is finally live.

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State Legislators Help Libraries in Fight Over Ebook Licensing Terms

Andrew Orr ·

A report from Axios says libraries want better licensing terms for eBooks from Amazon and other publishers. States are stepping in to help the libraries.

A Maryland law set to take effect in January and a similar bill in New York would require publishers that sell ebooks to consumers to also license them to libraries on reasonable terms. The Maryland law and New York bill say it is not reasonable to limit the number of ebook licenses libraries can buy at the same date they are available to the general public.

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Loopring Releases Layer 2 Counterfactual Wallet for iOS

Andrew Orr ·

On Tuesday Loopring announced the release of its Layer 2 Counterfactual Wallet for cryptocurrency.

With the release of our Counterfactual Wallet, users can now deploy the Wallet on L2-only, bypassing a costly creation fee on L1. This-try-it-before-you-buy-it option allows users to experience the power of Ethereum L2 right away. If users would like to withdraw funds to L1, they can deploy their Ethereum L1 smart contract wallet, paying for the creation cost at that time.