Telstra and Privacy in the Clouds

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Category: Industry News

Published on Sunday, 11 December 2011 15:19

Written by Christian Dunn

By now you have probably heard about the major Telstra Bigpond outage that occurred this weekend.

On Friday a user searching for contact details for Bigpond stumbled across a (what should have been internal) website providing access to the details of all customers on bundled packages (i.e. phone/internet), including some account passwords.

After notifying Telstra access to the site was immediately shut down.

From Friday until Sunday up to 1 million customers have been unable to access Bigpond account details or emails and over 60000 users have had their account passwords reset.

Welcome to what I like to call "Cloud and present danger". These days as more companies move applications online or into the cloud, it is important to consider the ramifications that those decisions may have. Previously we would have used virtual private networks or dedicated internal networks to access critical customer portals and information. As cloud hosted applications have become the norm I have seen a shift in the industry to using secure web portals rather than VPN or private networks to provide information to other sites.

Why? It is easier to implement, it works from anywhere and it can be faster to activate new stores and provide access to staff or customers. Unfortunately it also means if there is any breakdown in security including lost passwords or failure of secure logins, or an inadvertant change in settings by an administrator this means there is no second level of protection so instantly all of your companies critical data is visible online. In this case it could have been as simple as a system administrator disabling password security to test a feature which has caused this massive breach.

I am constantly suprised companies haven't considered this, especially in the light of some major privacy breaches in the last year. Protecting your data behind a VPN or private network ensures that even if there is a fault that enables all your information to be visible or insecure, then that information is only insecure within your corporate network, not to the outside world.

This does not necessarily apply to all applications and services but there are definitely some critical considerations when you are dealing with the personal information of your customers that all too frequently seem to be disregarded. As we move more of our personal information online, including health, the benefits and risks are only going to make this a more pertinent issue.

If you are one of the affected Telstra customers your services should be restored this evening, but expect some changes in light of this latest breach.

If you are a company owner considering moving your business critical applications into the cloud, think security. Your customers will thank you later.

iiNet vs AFACT Part 2

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Category: Industry News

Published on Saturday, 03 December 2011 23:22

Written by Christian Dunn

If you haven't been following the news iiNet and AFACT are back in court again over the rights of the recording studios to report to an internet provider that a user is sharing illegal content and enforce action to be taken against the user.

ZDNet has been giving a great day by day rundown of the latest court action:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/high-court-day-1-iinets-control-over-choice-339327119.htm
If a user shares illegal media with a torrent application on their home internet connection and this is detected by the copyright protection groups such as AFACT and they report this should you be punished? Can your internet activity be filtered? This is where it all began. Does iiNet have the ability to control your actions with Torrent applications and sharing illegal media? Whose responsibility is it anyway? Should they be responsible for passing on to you threats or fines for sharing illegal media, even by accident? How could they prove it was you? Is iiNet responsible for providing you internet access or are they responsible for what you do with that internet access?

http://www.zdnet.com.au/high-court-day-2-iinet-says-afact-lawsuit-inevitable-339327224.htm
"No matter what kind of warning notice scheme iiNet put in place to stop users breaching copyright, if it didn't include an account termination threat, it wouldn't have been enough to prevent the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) from launching legal action" That pretty much sums up iiNet's case. At first they were told they should have sent a warning letter, so they agreed with that option, then AFACT wanted a notice of termination if illegal media not removed in days, then the ability to throttle connections or terminate your connection. Really? If iiNet had to do that, wouldn't you just use Telstra or TPG? So iiNet would end up losing customers.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/high-court-day-3-afacts-final-pitch-339327285.htm
While iiNet responded that it would cost them to police these actions, AFACT believes it is in iiNet's interest to stop user from using programs like BitTorrent because they are heavy bandwidth hogs and would save iiNet money. While iiNet believe they have no control over what you do on the internet, with programs like BitTorrent, AFACT believe that once you have been detected sharing copyrighted material and iiNet is notified that any further breaches are the responsibility of iiNet so they will have to take actions to stop you sharing.  Judgement in the case is expected in early 2012.

Samsung vs Apple

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Category: Industry News

Published on Saturday, 03 December 2011 22:56

Written by Christian Dunn

In the ongoing battle between Apple and Samsung there have been a number of big turns of event.

Samsung is now moving up the ladder as one of the largest mobile device suppliers in the industry.

This survey from the US indicates that in the smartphone hardware market Samsung now have 25% of the market. No surprise that Android is now on 45% of smartphones too.  Read more: http://www.bgr.com/2011/12/02/android-steals-blackberry-share-samsung-top-vendor-in-new-comscore-report/

Samsung released this great youtube ad at the time of the iPhone 4S launch which makes me laugh, especially as I have an iPhone and a Galaxy S II.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab may be available in Australian Stores shortly after Apple lost it's bid to keep an injunction on Samsung selling it's Apple competitor. Apple are planning to appeal to the High Court although they may not have much luck, and Samsung are planning to have the Galaxy in stores as soon as stock is available. Read more here: http://www.thegalaxytab.com/2011/12/01/australians-eager-to-buy-new-galaxy-tablets/

Siri-ously?

Siri for the iphone 4S looks handy and useful just like Voice Control, Vlingo and Pocket Blonde on my Android Galaxy S II but will you use it?
Personally I feel like a bit of a dick talking to my phone. I suppose I could work more in the car while driving but it does prompt you to check it's actions, a smart move so you don't accidentally send your boss a 2am drunk message, but a limiting factor as you have to take your eyes off the road. Your thoughts?

iOS 5.0.1 redeems the 3GS

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Category: Industry News

Published on Monday, 14 November 2011 07:29

Written by Christian Dunn

3GS owners finally have a reason to rejoice. If like me your iPhone running iOS 5 responded like a 386 running windows 98 and single finger typing was actually too fast then your prayers are answered. iOS 5.0.1 was distributed over the air to iOS 5 users over the weekend. You will see an alert from your settings app. This alert allows you to install the update anywhere as long as you have sufficient battery life and a decent signal to download the update. From up to 1 minute for my email or messages to open to almost instantaneous, was a massive difference. This patch was designed to resolve the battery drain issue for 4S users which was apparently caused by apps not turning off devices correctly. It appears to have made a big performance boost for all users. 3GS and 4 owners should update immediately. It's nice to have my phone back...well one of them.

Adobe Mobile gone in a Flash

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Category: Industry News

Published on Wednesday, 09 November 2011 22:51

Written by Christian Dunn

It's official, mobile Flash is dead.

Adobe has announced that it plans to stop development of Adobe Flash for mobile devices and cut 750 staff.

Adobe will try to redirect developers to it's Adobe Air platform although HTML5 will be the direct replacement for flash on mobile devices.

The bad news is for all the website owners who now need to arrange to redesign their sites not to include Flash.