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Cellebrite’s Acquisition Adds Computer Forensics to its Portfolio

Andrew Orr ·

Cellebrite, a company specializing in hacking smartphones for law enforcement, has acquired BlackBag Technologies, a company specializing in hacking computers for law enforcement. This will let Cellebrite offer law enforcement an “all-in-one” forensic solution to cover smartphones, laptops, desktops, and cloud data.

It also means offering a broad array of field acquisition capabilities including consent-based evidence collection along with an integrated solution set that provides access, insight and evidence management to facilitate and control large-scale deployments and orchestrate the entire digital intelligence operation.

Cellebrite offers all of these capabilities to law enforcement, but the FBI still wants Apple to create a backdoored version of iOS.

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Apple TV+ Series 'Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet' Appearing at PAX South

Charlotte Henry ·

Forthcoming Apple TV+ series Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet looks set to appear at gaming expo PAX South this weekend. AppleInsider reported that the comedy is listed as a registered exhibitor.

Though details are scarce, Apple, specifically “Apple TV+ Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet,” is now registered as an exhibitor on a rolling list of PAX South participants maintained on the PAX event website. The expo begins on Friday, Jan. 17 and runs through Jan. 19. The company has yet to confirm an official presence at the popular annual event, but an appearance would not be too far fetched as “Mythic Quest’s” plot orbits the gaming world.

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Grindr Shares Personal User Data With Advertising Partners

Charlotte Henry ·

Popular LGBT dating app Grindr shared personal user data with thousands of advertising partners. Bloomberg News reported that the data included users’ location, age, gender, and sexual orientation.

The service — described as the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people — gave user data to third parties involved in advertising and profiling, according to a report by the Norwegian Consumer Council that was released Tuesday. Twitter Inc. ad subsidiary MoPub was used as a mediator for the data sharing and passed personal data to third parties, the report said. “Every time you open an app like Grindr, advertisement networks get your GPS location, device identifiers and even the fact that you use a gay dating app,” said Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems. “This is an insane violation of users’ EU privacy rights.”

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Amazon Donating $690,000 to Australian Bush Fire Relief Efforts

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced on Sunday that, like Apple, his firm will contribute to Australian bush-fire relief efforts. The donation will total $690,000 dollars, CNBC reported.

In an Instagram post on Sunday, Bezos pledged 1 million Australian dollars ($690,000) on behalf of the tech giant — an amount that has faced criticism by some on social media. “Our hearts go out to all Australians as they cope with these devastating bushfires,” Bezos said. “Amazon is donating 1 million AU dollars in needed provisions and services.” The figure was derided by some online, with people comparing the sum with Bezos’ personal net worth.

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How to Avoid Online Scams With This Guide

Andrew Orr ·

Emily Long put together a guide on how to avoid online scams, like not clicking links in emails, not sharing passwords, and more.

The basic rule for surviving internet scams is simple: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. A little common sense goes a long way to realizing that you aren’t going to suddenly win the Spanish National Lottery when you didn’t even know you had a ticket.

A useful guide.

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Tidbits Managing Editor Josh Centers (#6) - TMO Background Mode Interview

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Josh Centers is the Managing Editor of Tidbits.com and has published many Take Control (TC) books. He’s the author of Take Control of Apple TV and Take Control of Home Automation. He’s been writing the Take Control books for iOS since version 8, and his latest book is Take Control iOS 13 and iPadOS 13.

In his sixth appearance on the show, Josh and I explored what’s in store for Apple in 2020. We started by looking at the iMac Pro and its possible fate. Then we turned to the mythical xMac, and continued with the MacBook Pro line. In part II of the show, we took a look at the HomePod. Is it a dead product? Then we looked at iPhone (2020) 5G wrinkles. We finished by wondering what new thing Apple might do in 2020.

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Regulatory Filing Indicates New MacBook Pro Coming Soon

Charlotte Henry ·

A recent regulatory filing indicated that a new MacBook Pro could be on the way in the coming months. Apple only released the 16″ model in November 2019. AppleInsider took a look at what’s in the document

The new filings with the ECC include just one new model number, A2289, which is identified as an Apple-branded portable computer and associated spare components. No other details are made public about the model, aside from it being capable of running macOS 10.15 Catalina. It is unknown what the model indicates, as this could refer to an update to any of the MacBook variants available to date. The model number is accompanied by filings for two Apple TV models, using numbers that relate to already-available models. These are most likely to indicate the use of tvOS 13 on the Apple TV and Apple TV 4K. Another line is dedicated to the rackmount variant of the new Mac Pro, which has yet to be made available to purchase by Apple.

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Chrome and Firefox Ending Notification Permission Pop-Ups

Charlotte Henry ·

Fed up of getting pop-ups from your web browser asking for permission to send notifications? Chrome and Safari are looking to end that, Wired reported.

Chrome project manager PJ McLachlan wrote in a blog post this week that the company would start limiting the notifications in one of the next versions of the browser, version 80. “Chrome 80 will show, under certain conditions, a new, quieter notification permission UI that reduces the ‘interruptiveness’ of notification permission requests,” McLachlan says. So what does this look like? If you usually block browser notifications, Chrome will put permission requests from websites behind a small notification symbol at the right end of your browser’s URL search bar. On mobile there will be a small alert at the bottom of your browser window, which vanishes after a few seconds, saying that notifications are blocked.