developer center
Latest
Apple Developer Center outage fixed 'Remote Code Execution' issue
The Apple Developer Center downtime that brought the dev corner of Apple's online services down for over a week was apparently centered around what the company is calling a "remote code execution issue," MacRumors reports. The company posted the information on the Apple Web Server Notifications page, crediting 7dscan.com and knownsec.com for shedding light on the problem. Interestingly, Ibrahim Balic -- the man who claimed he may have been responsible for the downtime -- has also received a "thank you" from Cupertino, but not for the issue that caused the outage. According to Apple, Balic helped reveal "an information disclosure issue" which was then addressed on July 22nd, four days after the Developer Center hit the dirt.
Apple's developer center back online, again
"Here's where it all happens for Apple developers" reads the tagline, but that's not been the case for much of the last few weeks. This morning, Apple's advising that its developer centre is now fully restored, after being taken offline due to intruder attempts. Hopefully for real this time. In any case, Cupertino's offering up a month's extended membership in return for the inconvenience, as outlined in the official statement past the break. Now, back to it...
Apple's developer site partially restored after hack
Apple has partially restored access to its developer services, which went down for maintenance on Thursday, July 18 after being hacked. "We appreciate your patience as we work to bring our developer services back online," an update on Apple's developer site reads. "Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, software downloads, and other developer services are now available." According to Apple's system status page, the member center, Xcode automatic configuration, pre-release documentation, program enrollment and renewals, developer forums, videos, App Store resource center and technical support services are still offline. Apple will extend program membership and keep developers' apps on the App Store if their membership "expired or is set to expire during this downtime."
Ibrahim Balic talks Dev Center downtime with iMore
Last Thursday, Apple's developer site suddenly went offline. Apple announced the interruption was attributable to an "intruder" who was attempting to access the personal information of Apple's developers. So who was responsible for the downtime? A Turkish security researcher named Ibrahim Balic thinks he might be the cause. He caused a stir this week with the release of a YouTube video explaining exactly what security holes he reported to Apple, and what went wrong. Now iMore has published an interview with Balic in which he aims to shed more light on exactly what happened, the methods he used to test the Developer Center's security and his thoughts on Apple's response. Balic found an exploit not directly in the Developer Center, but in Apple's iAd Workbench, which allows users to build targeted iAds. By giving iAd a single piece of user information, Balic was able to retrieve a user's full name, username and email address. Once the exploit was discovered, Balic created a script to generate random users to see if Apple's servers would send back a match for the names in what he says was an attempt to test how serious the bug was. He reported the bug to Apple and the rest is (unconfirmed) history. It's a fascinating interview that gives a hard look at what might have gone down this past Thursday. Of course we don't know for sure since Apple hasn't commented. But if you're wondering what happened with the Developer Center last week, head over to iMore for the rest of the story.
Apple developer site hacked, names and addresses possibly compromised
Apple's developer website was hacked last week, according to an email sent to developers. The website reportedly went down for maintenance on Thursday, July 18. "Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website," the email reads. "Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers' names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed." Apple pulled the Developer Center site and is "completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database." [Thanks, Jordan!]
TiVo opens up Developer Channel, lets third parties create apps for your DVR
Other than what feels like a very slow pace of updates, one of our gripes with TiVo's Premiere DVR platform has been a relative lack of new apps being released. Hopefully that could change soon, now that the company has opened up its Developer Channel to allow interested parties access to its SDK and tools to build their own apps. Although as our friend Dave Zatz points out, it doesn't guarantee apps will be released even if certified, anyone ready to get down with TiVo's Adobe-based environment should take a peek around. The notes do reveal some interesting details like the fact that only one app can run at a time so when an app is launched the TiVo UI is suspended, and that apps are restricted to 720p resolution only, 32MB of system memory, 20MB graphics memory and 1MB hard drive space quota. We don't know yet what can be constructed with those tools, but go ahead -- surprise us.
Apple unleashes OS X Mountain Lion Preview to Mac Developer Program
You may still be purring your way through our in-depth preview, but Mountain Lion is now officially out of the bag, with Apple releasing a preview version of its latest OS X to the members-only Developer Program. If you're up to date on those $99/year dues, you can head on over to the Member Center to get your OS 10.8 fix, and start checking out those shiny new Messages, Reminders, Notes and Notification Center apps. Or kick up your feet and bring your desktop to the big screen with AirPlay Mirroring. If you have the Apple-approved credentials to proceed, you can find all that and more by making your way over to our source link just below.
Mysterious Samsung shows up in dev center sporting Gingerbread and 1280 x 768 screen
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Mystery Cellphone Theater. This week's enigma comes to us courtesy of T Store, a Korean app market, where the Developer Center lists an unannounced Samsung device with the model number SHV-E120S. Now, we can't tell you much about the E120S, only that it reports to sport a WXGA screen (that's 1280 x 768), Gingerbread, and a single-core MSM8250 Snapdragon. Sammy has a Korea-only handset with the SHV-E110S tag and a more standard 800 x 480 screen, and the company has made no secret about its desire to push pixel density well beyond the 300ppi mark -- still, there's no guarantee this is in fact a phone. It very well may be a tablet, or just a strange report from an emulator. Regardless, we're intrigued, and keeping our fingers crossed for 4.3-inch HD display.
