International Mac Podcast

Everything went wrong for O2 today. With the iPhone 3G launch being the biggest day in the little phone companies life, well almost, and for most customers everything went wrong. Claiming unprecedented amount of customers wishing to purchase an iPhone, most Carphone Warehouse and most O2 Stores had limited supply of iPhones with some Carphone warehouse stores stocking one lonely 16GB model.

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Although it is true that some Trojans use vulnerabilities like the current ARDAgent vulnerability to gain root access, they do not need to. The core message about Trojans is getting lost amidst all the talk about plugging this vulnerability. Even if there was not a single vulnerability in OS X we would be at the mercy of Trojans. That’s the whole point of Trojans. Any program you run can do anything you can do. Let’s think about that for a moment, what can you do on your system without needing a password? Here’s a short list for starters:

• You can run programs.
• You can read, edit, and delete files
• You can use the network
• You can set programs to auto-start each time you log in

Remember, a Trojan is just an ordinary program that pretends to do something you want, but actually does something else. It could delete all your files. It could run a key logger and phone home with your credit card number, user names and passwords, bank details etc.. It could use your machine to send spam. It can set itself to automatically run each time you log in and continue with it’s nefarious actions. It can do all this WITHOUT the need to exploit a single vulnerability in your OS or your software. If you can do it, a Trojan can. Think about that for a second, it’s not a comforting thought!

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Some how, the crafty folks over at iLounge have managed to get hold of/take a photo comparing the current iPhone to iPhone 3G.

From these pictures, you can see how much of a difference the the curvature of the back makes. The un-recessed headphone jack is also very obvious. An althought the black plastic does look an little cheap. It is still overall, IMHO, an equally attractive phone.

It’s being reported this week that there is a Trojan Horse in the wild that’s targeted at Mac OS X (both Tiger and Leopard). This is quite a nasty beast which basically gives the attacker total control of your computer. This gives them access to all your files and allows them to snoop on everything you do, and hence collect sensitive data like banking details and credit card numbers.

If you run Mac OS X this should concern you. However, there is no need to panic and loose sight of the realities of the situation. This is not a virus or a worm, it’s a Trojan.

What’s the difference? Viruses and Worms spread from machine to machine, often without any need for any interaction on the user’s part, Trojans on the other hand have to be installed by the user. They work by pretending to be a legitimate program which an un-suspecting user then installs. They get their name because in many ways they are the digital equivalent of the wooden horse of Troy. (more…)

Why does everyone seem to hate the 16GB white version of the iPhone 3G?

I think that Johnny Ive and his team that he whips into photoshop mode as he stands by Steve Jobs’ side riding swiftly through the design department of the Apple campus on a glorious Apple branded chariot driven by beautiful white stallions (ok so maybe a little bit of poetic license there) do a fantastic job of making products that, if legal, I know some people would marry for their beauty.

The latest installment to the Apple design family is the iPhone 3G. Much similar to the iPhone 1.0, the iPhone 3G has one distinct difference. The back. On the 1.0 model the iPhone had a mostly metal back with a small black plastic bit towards the bottom.

This will probably look familiar to you all but what about the latest 3G iPhone design. The latest iPhone design has 2 different backs. Although the front is almost indistinguishable from the old iPhone the back looks quite different.

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The short answer to the question posed in the title is a resounding yes. Both are very able browsers and both perform excellently when it comes to standards compliance and speed, but they are not equal when it comes to security. There are many other grounds for arguing that FireFox is a better browser, their extension architecture for example, but I will be ignoring those today and only looking at security.

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