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Report: Some Robinhood Accounts Were Hacked

Andrew Orr ·

Bloomberg reports that some Robinhood users had their accounts hacked and investments liquidated. But Robinhood said that the company itself wasn’t hacked.

A limited number of customers appear to have had their Robinhood account targeted by cyber criminals because of their personal email account (that which is associated with their Robinhood account) being compromised outside of Robinhood. We’re actively working with those impacted to secure their accounts.

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Here Are 6 Privacy Reasons You Should Delete WhatsApp

Andrew Orr ·

Sebastian Meineck shares six privacy reasons people should delete Facebook-owned WhatsApp from their devices.

But WhatsApp also has its flaws. On closer inspection, user privacy and data protection are no longer its priority, and plans to merge it with other Facebook-owned services like Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs are concerning.

Signal is a good open-source private messenger to use instead.

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Belgium Drops Huawei in Favor of Nokia 5G Contracts

Andrew Orr ·

Amid U.S. pressure to exclude Chinese company Huawei from 5G infrastructure, Belgium is moving forward to work with Nokia.

The Belgian capital Brussels is home to the NATO alliance and the European Union’s executive and parliament, making it a matter of particular concern for U. S. intelligence agencies.

“Belgium has been 100% reliant on Chinese vendors for its radio networks – and people working at NATO and the EU were making mobile phone calls on these networks,” said John Strand, an independent Danish telecoms consultant.

“The operators are sending a signal that it’s important to have access to safe networks.”

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Nearly Half of iPhone Users Think Their Device Has 5G

Charlotte Henry ·

Nearly half of iPhone users believe that their device is 5G enable, despite the fact no 5G iPhone exists… yet. AppleInsider reported on the finding of a survey by Global Wireless Solutions.

The study, performed by Global Wireless Solutions, asked 5,000 U.S. smartphone users if they believed their iPhone could access 5G. While 49% answered yes, 29% of all smartphone users were unsure whether their phones could access 5G. Some of the confusion could be attributed to the carriers. For instance, AT&T had falsely displayed a 5G E connectivity logo on consumers’ phones connected to 4G networks as early as February of 2019. This was months before the first 5G phone from any manufacturer would even be available for purchase, and a year before the carrier started rolling out its 5G network. GWS points out that when only looking at users that purchased a phone in 2020, nearly a quarter were unsure about their phone’s 5G capabilities. Much of the uncertainty comes from rural and suburban folks. About 45% of rural consumers and 47% of suburban consumers are unsure whether their carrier provides 5G. Nearly 73% of urban users believe their carrier offers 5G.

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ProtonMail CEO Compares Apple In-App Purchase Rules to 'Mafia Extortion'

Charlotte Henry ·

Protonmail CEO Andy Yen is not happy with Apple. At all. In an interview with The Verge, he described growing tensions between the two firms over the implementation of In-App Purchase rules.

For the first two years we were in the App Store, that was fine, no issues there,” he says. (They’d launched on iOS in 2016.) “But a common practice we see … as you start getting significant uptake in uploads and downloads, they start looking at your situation more carefully, and then as any good Mafia extortion goes, they come to shake you down for some money.” “We didn’t offer a paid version in the App Store, it was free to download … it wasn’t like Epic where you had an alternative payment option, you couldn’t pay at all,” he relates. Yen says Apple’s demand came suddenly in 2018. “Out of the blue, one day they said you have to add in-app purchase to stay in the App Store,” he says. “They stumbled upon something in the app that mentioned there were paid plans, they went to the website and saw there was a subscription you could purchase, and then turned around and demanded we add IAP.”

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Spotify Finally Gets Lyrics Search, Two Years After Apple Music

Charlotte Henry ·

This week, Spotify finally unveiled a lyrics search feature. It allows users to look for a song using the words in it, instead of by artist or title. As Engadget noted, Apple Music launched a similar tool nearly two years ago.

The two leading music services often add features seemingly inspired by their competition; the latest is lyric search. A Spotify engineer tweeted earlier today that users can now input lyrics into the app’s search field to get song results, something that Apple Music has offered since late 2018. As you can see from the screenshot above, songs that include the lyrics you input will have a “lyrics match” label; they show up along side other potential results, so keep an eye out for that label if you’re specifically searching with lyrics.

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Apple’s Internal Networks Were Hacked for Three Months

Andrew Orr ·

But don’t worry, they were hacked by good guys working under Apple’s bug bounty program. Sam Curry, Brett Buerhaus, Ben Sadeghipour, Samual Erb, and Tanner Barnes found a total of 55 vulnerabilities.

During our engagement, we found a variety of vulnerabilities in core portions of their infrastructure that would’ve allowed an attacker to fully compromise both customer and employee applications, launch a worm capable of automatically taking over a victim’s iCloud account, retrieve source code for internal Apple projects, fully compromise an industrial control warehouse software used by Apple, and take over the sessions of Apple employees with the capability of accessing management tools and sensitive resources.

When I first saw the news I was aghast to learn that Apple only paid them US$55,000, but the blog post was updated to add that the team so far has gotten 32 payments totaling US$288,500. Still doesn’t seem enough to me. Apple needs to work on its internal security.

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Apple Maps ‘Look Around’ Feature Now Available in Phoenix, Arizona

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple Maps feature ‘Look Around’  is now available in Phoenix, Arizona. Macrumors spotted the update, which recently arrived in cities in the UK and Ireland.

Apple recently expanded its “Look Around” feature in Apple Maps to Phoenix, Arizona, providing 3D street-level imagery that’s similar to Google’s Street View. Apple has been slowly adding the Look Around feature to new cities. It expanded to Chicago in April and several cities in Japan in August. Though not yet mentioned on Apple’s website, Look Around last week expanded to London, Dublin, and Edinburgh.

Cool Stuff Found

Here’s the Official Trailer for ‘Wolfwalkers’ on Apple TV+

Andrew Orr ·

Apple shared an official trailer for “Wolfwalkers” an animated film about the last wolves of Ireland. In a time of superstition and magic, a young apprentice hunter, Robyn Goodfellowe, journeys to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last wolf pack. While exploring the forbidden lands outside the city walls, Robyn befriends a free-spirited girl, Mebh, a member of a mysterious tribe rumored to have the ability to transform into wolves by night. As they search for Mebh’s missing mother, Robyn uncovers a secret that draws her further into the enchanted world of the WOLFWALKERS and risks turning into the very thing her father is tasked to destroy. It arrives December 11.

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‘Dickinson’ Season 2 Premieres on Apple TV+ January 8

Andrew Orr ·

Apple has announced “Dickinson” season 2 on its YouTube channel and it will premiere on Apple TV+ January 8, 2021. The series also scored an early renewal for a third season. Dickinson is a half-hour comedy series starring Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld. Dickinson audaciously explores the constraints of society, gender, and family from the perspective of rebellious young poet Emily Dickinson. Created, written, and executive produced by Alena Smith and executive produced by Hailee Steinfeld, “Dickinson” stars Hailee Steinfeld, Jane Krakowski, Toby Huss, Anna Baryshnikov, Ella Hunt, and Adrian Blake Enscoe. Wiz Khalifa guest stars.