Apps

Facebook Inaugural Internet Defense Award

August 28, 2014 — Leave a comment

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Finally, someone has realized that there is no such a thing as a bad investment in IT security. Finally, some positive news from the Facebook’s kitchen after the troubling series of events associated with the privacy controversies. This is what we need. A little bit of both to improve our IT security.

We need contests with prizes and bug bounty programs with awards. Facebook has generously awarded two German researchers with $50K for their paper “Static Detection of Second-Order Vulnerabilities in Web Applications.” The great thing about this news is that Facebook is willing to go to the next level.

The logic with this is quite a simple one. If we can detect these extremely important vulnerabilities, the next thing to do is to find a way to eliminate them successfully. Facebook is looking forward to seeing some additional research in this field. It will also invest some money for it, as well.

It comes without saying that is better to invest time and money in these kinds of IT security researchers, rather than to spy on your own users including all kinds of secret experiments, which threaten our privacy. Our hats off to Facebook for this one. We sure hope this is only the beginning.

Manchester United vs iPad

August 22, 2014 — Leave a comment

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For the sake of all of us, let us be a little bit more precise with this one, shall we? Manchester United has nothing against Apple. They just do not want you to carry your iPad into Old Trafford. In addition, you are not allowed to carry any of the “large electronic devices” with you during the games.

The funny part about this story is that you are allowed to use your smartphone, but not a tablet while the football match is on. Why? Well, it is very likely that the club’s management has realized that something like that would be the mission impossible, literally. So, what now?

Enjoy in your favorite football moments without your tablet. There is a concern that the football fans could record the matches by using their tablets. Yet, they could do the same with their smartphones. Right? It is really hard to find a logical reason for a drastic decision such as this one.

It is a simple and well-known fact that there is no device in the world, which can give you the true feeling and excitement of the live attendance to the football games. That is why this fear of huge sized gadgets seems almost as it is a bad joke. Let us wait and see what will happen with tablets and football, shall we?

Bosnia vs The World

June 18, 2014 — Leave a comment

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No, we are not referring to the World Cup in Brazil. It may come as a surprise, but Bosnia is the richest country in the world when you take only one criteria into consideration – the number of mobile phones. In Bosnia you have an average of 100 people using 91 mobile phones. As you can see Bosnia is an unofficial winner of the mobile phones world cup.

Here is some additional information to illustrate this intriguing phenomena. For example, in Turkey you have an average of 90 mobile phones for 100 people. For quite a long time China has been considered as one of the leading countries in the world when we take into consideration the average number of mobile phones. It is shocking that they have an average of “only” 89.

It seems that the moral of this interesting story is quite an indicative one. Perhaps when you are examining certain market, you should take into consideration the readiness of people to acquire your product or service, rather than to focus on the amount of an average salary. For what is worth, the citizens of some of the wealthiest countries in the world proved us all wrong about this one.

It is worth mentioning that apparently the smaller a country is, the higher the probability is that more mobile phones will be used by its citizens. One very serious rumor has it that there are some countries, which challenge this ratio with an unprecedented number of devices. Montenegro has more mobile phones than its citizens. One of the least likely places in the world for the mobile phones world cup finals to take place – the Balkans.

Watch Out! Godzilla Is On The Road!

June 10, 2014 — Leave a comment

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Here is something you do not hear about it every day, not even in San Francisco. Well, the electronic notification system for drivers in California had a couple of quite unusual announcements for its users. One of them, warned drivers about the Godzilla menace on the road. Some of the drivers accepted this prank quite well by ignoring it. What happened with the others?

Well, for what is worth, we saw some panic on the roads. Do not get us wrong. We are far away from any serious comparison with the notorious radio prank show, which included legendary Orson Welles and “The War of the Worlds”. However, the hackers responsible for these actions have proven themselves of being capable to influence this extremely important system.

Not so long ago, we got one more funny looking notice. This time about the zombies walking around. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out yourself what can happen, if these hackers decide to become more serious for a change. They can easily collapse the entire notification system for drivers. Because things are so serious the government had to interfere, as well.

So, what is the moral of this story? Listen carefully to all notifications you get this way or another while on the road. No matter how strange they may seem at the first glance, but above all, trust only your own eyes and ears, including a reasonable logic. We sure hope there are some hackers out there with enough moral and empathy to know their limits.