If you did not see this one coming then you are either deluding yourself or perhaps your just discovered this thing call the Internet. It seems that despite a temporary ban on Sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia sales are still booming. According to the Sydney Morning Herald the only ones that are being forced to comply with the ban are the local resellers. One of these Harvey Norman has let their displeasure known and have asked that both Samsung and Apple do something about it.

The problem is that Harvey Norman is looking to lose out on a possible $30 Million in retail sales because of this ban. This, coincidentally, is why Apple wants the ban in the first place. Oh they have put on a good show about their Intellectual Property being stolen and that the Tab 10.1 is a copycat product and many other items all of which were, unfortunately, bought by the judge presiding over the hearings.

This judge then issued a temporary ban on all sales of the Tab 10.1 in Australia. Technically this should mean online sellers that can ship there as well. However, as we have already mentioned this is not the case. According to several lawyers enforcing a complete ban especially one that is only temporary is near impossible and the amount of resources and money that it would take to track down every person that purchases one through the internet is simply not worth it. This loophole works in Samsung and the consumer’s favor even if it does lock out the local resellers.

While Apple has not made any comment on the situation yet they have made some of their usual threats to smaller online resellers some of which have stopped selling the offending tablet. Other and more larger online outlets have refused to be bullied and are still offering the popular iPad alternative for sale.

Our take on this is that Apple has such a culture of control they feel they have the right to shut out other companies even if they have to fudge the evidence or file knowingly invalid patents (ones either too broad, cover concepts, or the look and feel of something) by putting on some extra legal pressure. It really is time they discovered that consumers want what they want. Sometimes that is Apple and sometimes it is not. However, by trying to block competition and limit consumer choice we think that Apple could soon find the rather fickle market turning on them and finding way to get alternatives even if they are less than legal.

Source The Sydney Morning Herald

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Just in case all of the warnings that we gave you before about SCDA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) devices and how insecure most of them are was not enough. We now find that a new piece of malware that appears to be intended spy on industrial networks as a precursor to a future attack like the Stuxnet malware that hit last year. Dubbed Duqu because of a prefix attached to files the new malware creates this new bit of code is very concerning to security experts.


The code was found on several Windows based systems across multiple companies in Europe. These companies were not directly identified but all appear to have connections to industries that directly interact with basic infrastructure services.  As of right now Duqu appears content to just gather information and report back to its command and control servers (including using an internal key logger).  Duqu also appears to be sending JPG files back and forth between the server and the infected system, but as many found out to their dismay you can embed quite a bit of information in a JPG files so these could be used to send control instructions and responses or could be nothing more than test files right now.

So far researchers are at a loss as to what Duqu is collecting and why this is happening. They do know that the attacks have been going on since at least December 2010 and that the first variant identified used a stolen certificate much like the original Stuxnet did. Researchers at Symantec and McAfee also feel that the creators of this code had access to the source code of Stuxnet as the two pieces of Malware are very similar in the way they operate and the coding used. Both McAfee and Symantec have also stated that Duqu does not spread and that it does not appear to use any known exploits. This would indicate that the malware uses tactics like drive-by, or social engineering based exploits. These rely on human intervention to download and install the malicious code on a system usually via email or web link.

We personally wonder if this is related to some of the rumors about Anonymous stepping up their attacks on Governments and Large Corporations. After all with what they can gather using some fairly simple techniques (and a nice bit of coding) they can put some rather devastating plans into action very quickly. If this is the case (and this is all just speculation) then we might be looking at an attack that no one is really prepared for. Then again this could all be nothing more than a reconnaissance mission, especially considering the fact that the code uninstalls itself after 30 days…

Source Symantec and McAfee
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So the unheard of happened today; Apple reported their 4th quarter revenue and it was *gasp* under expectations. This was after so many people were heard to make predictions on Apple reporting another record quarter. The total revenue for the 4th Quarter of 2011 was 28.27 Billion which fell shy of expectations by just over a Billion Dollars. Revenue was still up over 8 Billion from Q4 2010 and Net Profits were up by 2.3 Billion. Apple products also enjoyed an increase quarter over quarter with iPhone sales increasing 21%, iPad sales up almost 170%, and Personal Computing Systems sales up 26%. iPod sales, which many are seeing as obsolete, were down around 27% from last year. Apple’s nest egg also grew to $84 Billion.

In the meantime Intel Corporation posted a record $14.3 Billion in revenue and $3.7 Billion in net income. This is up 3.2 Billion over Q4 2010 and represents their recapturing of market share from Rival CPU maker AMD. Intel’s PC group had a growth of 22% over Q4 201o while their Data Center Group grew 15%. Intel has an Operating Income of 5.1 Billion which was also up 22% over Q4 2010. This is all coming at a time when many analysts are predicting the death of the PC as more and more tablets arrive on the market. However, Desktop and Server CPU sales remain strong and have increased more than expected. Meanwhile the poor Atom had a drop of 32% in revenue ($268 Million) over last year’s Q4.

The results are very interesting indeed and only go to show you that sometimes analysts forget to take a look at the raw data and the market before making predictions. We will be interested to see if Apple continues to drop in revenue through Q1 and Q2 of 2012 and Intel continues to climb. We know there will be some fallout from the loss of Steve Jobs, we just are not sure how much that will be.

Source Apple and Intel

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Does anyone check Google + anymore? Well if you do you might have come across a very interesting read today. It seems that one of their developers could no longer contain himself and posted a very telling rant about Google and the way it approaches its products. It seems that Google, despite being a rather large company with many years of experience in cataloging what people do on the internet still has not realized why other companies are more successful than they are.

I am not talking about search; although I am not a fan of Google’s search and retention practices I will admit they are one of the best search and ad companies out there. I am talking about their other products. Products like Google Docs, Google Chrome, and Google+. The problem is, according to the rant, that Google made each of these as a knee jerk reaction. They were not planned to integrate into a larger platform, they were not designed with user accessibility in mind. They were just built and shoved out the door.

You simply cannot do that in today’s market. You have to plan everything as an integrated approach. If you want a couple of examples then take a look at Microsoft’s Office or the way Apple integrates their OS.  To put it bluntly neither Google Docs nor Google + has this. Here is a great quote from the rant to tell you what I mean.

“We had no API at all at launch, and last I checked, we had one measly API call. One of the team members marched in and told me about it when they launched, and I asked: "So is it the Stalker API?" She got all glum and said "Yeah." I mean, I was joking, but no... the only API call we offer is to get someone's stream. So I guess the joke was on me.”

This is a great case in point, there is nothing that can work with or talk to Google+. Even the Google+ link on most sites will work about half the time, or requires constant updating to remain functional. This is because there is no service based platform to run these APIs on, the product just IS.  

I have a feeling that this has also extended over into Google’s mobile space and would go a long way to explaining why there are so many issues with Android that seem to remain despite updates. The lack of understanding accessibility and a platform based approach has led Android’s slow acceptance in the tablet market space. The product simply feels like a bigger version of the phone OS and still has many basic apps that are not as sophisticated as the ones that come on the phones (mail is one that comes to mind).  

Google as a company is in no danger of going away or going under, however they could find that many of their products will get swept away by other companies that understand accessibility and the need for a common platform better than Google does.

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It seems that nothing is sacred anymore as someone has hacked Sesame Street’s YouTube channel. The channel was hacked on Sunday and all of the content replaced with Porn. On the profile page was a note from someone claiming responsibility for the attack (See Below). So far one of the people listed has already denied any involvement in the attack. The inappropriate content was visible for about 20 minutes before Google’s own internal mechanisms shut it down for “repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines.".


The attackers replaced the profile information with the statement below;
“WHO DOESN'T LOVE PORN KIDS? RIGHT! EVERYONE LOVES IT! IM MREDXWX AND MY PARTNER MRSUICIDER91 ARE HERE TO BRING YOU MANY NICE CONTENT! PLEASE DON'T LET SESAME STREET TO GET THIS ACCOUNT BACK KIDS :( PLEASE...LET ME AND MRSUICIDER91 HAVE IT AND WE GONNA MAKE ALL THE AMERICA HAPPY!”

This latest attack shows just how vulnerable YouTube is and how important it is for companies to maintain security on their sites. It also is a good lesson for parents that forget how bad the Internet can be. There really is no place where you can just let your kids browse freely, even sites like Disney.com can be hijacked and replaced with something bad.

Stunts like this are rather distasteful and while I have supported (to a limited degree) many of the “activist” activities in the hacking community I feel that a single act like this ruins any positive actions that are currently on-going. I do wonder how long it will be before the conspiracy theories about this start popping up though. In the mean time I hope that the community find and “corrects” the people that are responsible whoever they turn out to be.

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Have you ever loaned someone money and as soon as you gave it to them you thought “well I will never see that back”. I have to wonder if Steve Ballmer is thinking that very thing right now. His company, Microsoft, has just written a very big check to Nokia and a few other EU based phone makers for a huge marketing push on Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). We wonder if this is too little too late. So far Windows Phone 7 has not managed to even capture 2% of the market share. Much of this is due mistakes made in the way Windows Mobile 6.5 was coded. Yes, I am saying that Microsoft started losing market share as far back as Windows Mobile 6.x.  From there they had a good chance to build on the relative success of the ZuneHD but failed to read the market queues properly and ended up making two of the worst received mobile phones ever. These were the Kin phones which had a product lifespan of only six weeks.

After that things began to decline rapidly and Windows Mobile never really took off again. We have talked about some of the reasons for this in recent articles and it really does boil down to Microsoft’s in ability to understand the market and the competition. However, for once they are going to try and do some marketing. We honestly do not feel that any amount of marketing done by Microsoft can save the Windows Phone division (unless they hire the entire Apple PR team. Still we do think they have to try.

The reality is that Microsoft and its partners must change the image of Windows Phone, they have to offer better hardware, faster response and more content than either Apple or Android can, the problem is that Microsoft just does not have the apps to match either of these two companies. In my opinion they do have a much better music service, but you cannot produce a winning phone with just that.

Steve Ballmer will need to keep his check book handy as 2011 runs into 2012 because I have a feeling they will need it just to get on the map for the Holiday Season. To give you an example of what I mean; I asked a few people what they thought of Microsoft’s mobile OS and all I got was a blank look. They did not even know there was such a thing. Like I said, this is going to be an uphill battle and all the trash talking and cash is not going to replace the lack of handsets and market knowledge about the product.

Source Mobile Today

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So Sprint got the iPhone 4S, and they are selling them like crazy… There is just one tiny little problem. No one seems to have trained their support staff on how to deal with them. Let me tell you about the 3.5 hour ordeal that we personally went through and after talking with more than a few other excited iPhone 4S owners ours was not a one off event.

The call started around 12PM Eastern Time as the phone had just arrived and we were excited to get things going. Previous to our return to Sprint we were with AT&T through the introduction of the iPhone 4. Unfortunately with the iPhone 4 we had issues, from a four hour battery to the grip of death. It was not a fun time and prompted us to move to Sprint. However, we knew that there are always activation issues when a new phone comes out. What we did not expect was to have activations issues with the personnel instead of the activation or iTunes servers.

After about a 30 minute wait (which we thought was quite short considering the circumstance) an activation rep picked up the line. Our first indication that all was not as it should be was when the rep told us to remove the back of the iPhone and take out the battery.  We explained that this was impossible on the iPhone and that the IMEI and Serial numbers on the box as well. The rep then told us that without the numbers from under the battery she could not activate the phone for us. As you can imagine we were more than a tad annoyed by this point, but we pressed on. After some time we were able to convince the tech that we could not remove the battery and that the serial on the box was indeed valid. Just as we saw light at the end of the tunnel… we were disconnected at just about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

We called again and at 1 hour and 45 minutes into our ordeal we were back on the phone; again we had to explain that the serial was on the box, but at least this rep did not ask us to remove the battery. The next hurdle was running the activation wizard on the phone. This completed successfully but did not apply the phone number to the phone. The rep then tried to manually program the phone but the iPhone would not recognize any of the programing codes that he tried. We were advised to wipe the phone completely and start over. At 2 hours and 30 minutes we still had not been able to activate the phone and were grasping at straws, doing everything from activating over WiFi, iTunes and more than one wipe of the phone. Finally one of the wipes must have done something (or the system caught up) as we saw the new number displayed on the phone. Our attempt at running the iPhone 4S on Sprint’s network was finally running and it only took 3.5 hours out of our Friday afternoon.

We would suggest to Sprint that they update their activation steps or give better training as they are only going to get more iPhone customers in the coming months. If everyone has to go through 3 hours to get activated they might have more than a few that will turn to other companies that do understand the iPhone instead of waiting for Sprint to catch up.

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If you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks (or are in the mainstream media) then you might not have heard about the Occupy the world movement that is going on. I am not just talking about Occupy Wall Street, but literally Occupy the world. In fact as I am writing this Occupy Orlando is starting up not all that far from where I am sitting. Although these protests are non-violent the ratings and profit based media companies will be sure to highlight anything that is remotely violence related, but I digress.

Many have wonder about the whys of these protests and have asked about the specific goals. What does Anonymous and the people that are actually at each days event want? The media has been very confusing here as well, they have pointed out multiple times that there have been no statements about why these protests are happening or what the goals are. This is despite numerous press releases from Anonymous and also from the people that are actually in the streets! You have to wonder if there is not someone trying to put out misinformation about these protests to downplay their importance.

One of my favorite statements that have been put out was reposted recently by a commenter on TorrentFreak.com

“We The People demand that ALL corporate influence in politics and the courts come to an immediate and permanent end. No more “Citizens United”, no more lobbying, no more “Justice that only money can buy”, no more corporate campaign contributions, no more lying sellout puppet politicians, no more illegal tax breaks for corporations, no more bailouts, no more pro-corporate legislation, no more corporate impunity, no more predatory lawyers, no more oppression. We demand the Voice of the People be heard loud and clear, and corporate money shuts the fuck up. It’s OUR world, it’s not for sale, and we’re taking it back!”

Anyone else think that is ambiguous? I did not think so. Now this comment (taken from another blog) was under an article that illustrates exactly what people are talking about with corporate involvement in politics and the judicial system. It appears that in many bit torrent cases Law Enforcement Officers, Politicians, Public Figures (most notably actors) and US Military serving overseas are excluded. Now wait a minute…. Haven’t the Big Media companies talked about the massive harm that Bit Torrent downloads cause and the importance of reclaiming the money lost from these activities? You would think that no one would be excluded especially people that have the ability to pay the disproportionately large settlements. It also raises the question of “why are politicians excluded from ANY law”. You would think that as lawmakers and leaders in our country that they would (and should) be held to a higher standard. Alas this is not and has not been the case for many years.

It shows that with the right amount of money or a lobbying group (which is also money based) you can get what you want in our legal system. This has impacted our technology sectors in many ways, where companies attempt to crush competition in the court room instead of in the market. All you have to do is look at the number of useless or broad patents and you will see how low we have sunk. I am all about a company protecting its inventions and their products from blatant theft and or reproduction, but someone has to draw the line and reign in these corporations. Soon there will be nothing new out there or we will be faced with bland and boring products that are nothing more than refreshes. This hurts the consumer and the economy. So the next time you hear one of the big media companies say that Anonymous or the Occupy movement has no clear goal, just take a quick look on the internet and you will quickly see what they are angry about. You might also find that you agree with them and what they are hoping to accomplish.

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Well it is time for another Apple Legal Round up. On Friday October 14th 2011 we find that Apple has managed to get a preliminary injunction on the sales of some of Samsung’s products in Australia. Most notable in this ban is the Galaxy Tab 10.1. This injunction and ban was handed down after Apple rejected a compromise offer to Apple. Apple is using this offer to bolster their claim that the Tab is a copy of their iPad and that it infringes on their Intellectual Property. On the other hand their rejection of this could be seen as an indication that they are not looking to cooperate and just want a competing product off the market. Either way the ban will be in place until after the case in heard in court.

In the Netherlands, Apple has managed to avoid having their own products banned. It seems that Samsung put in a complaint stating that Apple has infringed on their patents involving 3G technologies. However the judge in this case was not buying it. Samsung’s complaint and accusations were thrown out along with Apple’s own counter complaints. It is quite possible that they are getting a little tired of the bickering between these two companies. In this case Samsung has stated they will pursue other avenues to protect their IP.

In the US a judge has refused a preliminary ban on Samsung products stating that Apple has to prove their claims before any ban or injunction will be put into place. This case is a little interesting as it seems that the judge may hold some doubts to the validity of the patents in the first place. At one point US District Judge Lucy Koh held up both tablets and asked the Samsung lawyers present to identify them. It took a few moments before the answer could be supplied.  Apple maintains that their design is what makes all of the difference and that no one should be copying it. The problem with that comment is that all tablets are going to have a similar design. They are rectangular devices with a screen on one side. Only logos and color differentiate most of them in terms of appearance. In any case Apple now has to not only prove that Samsung has violated these patents, but now also has to prove that the patents are valid.

These items are just the latest news in the patent war between Samsung and Apple. As of this writing there are over 20 legal cases in progress around the world. The enmity between these two comes from a bad ending to a partnership that Samsung and Apple enjoyed right up until Apple began designing their own chips for their products. May have felt that Apple used the information and technology provided by Samsung to start this venture only to find themselves not only left out, but being the target of Apple’s legal team attempting to suppress their products.

I doubt that we will ever know what really kicked all of this off but one thing is fairly clear IP or not; Apple wants Samsung’s (and others) phones and Tablets off the market. They know that even a temporary delay in sales can hinder or even kill a product.

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