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Apple buys and shuts down Asian social network iCloud
In a bid to direct every conceivable iCloud domain towards one website, Apple has bought the rights to iCloud.net from a small Chinese social network.It was one of the few iCloud related sites not owned by Apple, and AppleInsider reports that the tech giant paid $1.5 million in order to acquire the domain. With its network no longer having a home, the Chinese company announced that it is shutting down its services for good on March 1st. The independently owned social network had been operating since 2011.
Second 'celebgate' hacker sentenced to nine months in prison
For his part in the "celebgate" celebrity hacking scandal, 29-year-old Chicago man Edward Majerczyk will be sentenced to nine months in federal prison. Last July, Majerczyk agreed to plead guilty to felony computer hacking charges, admitting that he scammed more than 300 people, including 30 celebrities, in order to steal their Gmail and iCloud account info.
iCloud logs your calls, but it's not leaking anything
Apple scored points with privacy advocates early in 2016 by resisting the FBI's attempts to crack into the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. But the tech giant gave the government one concession: If the phone's data had been backed up to iCloud, Apple would have handed it over to help the investigation. Which gives some cause for concern -- like from a Russian security firm, which discovered that if users sign up for iCloud Drive, their devices secretly sends call records back to the tech giant's servers. But this is exactly how it's supposed to work, says Apple.
Hacker behind 'celebgate' jailed for 18 months
The individual behind the 2014 iCloud image leaks -- more commonly known as the Fappenning -- has been sentenced. Ryan Collins, 36, will serve an 18 month jail term for one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Misuse Act and another of illegally obtaining access to a computer. Officials at the Department of Justice believe that Collins was able to access over 600 accounts, including those of several famous women. Collins was also found to have run a fake modeling agency in which he mislead people into sending him their naked images.
4Chan may have wiped Clinton campaign chief's iPhone
Hillary Clinton's campaign chief, John Podesta, might be having a particularly lousy week. In the wake of WikiLeaks dumps revealing Podesta's email and the sensitive account details inside, intruders (apparently from 4Chan's /pol board) claim to have hijacked his iCloud account and wiped his iOS devices. They may have been the ones who briefly compromised his Twitter account, too. Podesta's social account is back in running order, but it's not certain what happened to his iPhone and iPad.
Apple fuels TV service rumors with cable exec hire
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has hired Peter Stern (second from right), a former executive at Time Warner Cable. The paper believes that Stern will be working under Eddy Cue on the firm's "cloud services," whatever those may be. It's too early to jump to conclusions, but it's interesting to note that Stern was believed to be negotiating with Apple in the early days of its TV project. The paper also says that Stern feels that the business model of the set-top box is outdated and that the future of TV is apps. That's a sentiment shared by several of his new colleagues, including Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Apple launches 2TB iCloud storage for $20 a month
Apple has introduced a way to stop that annoying "full storage" iCloud message from popping up in the near future: a new tier that offers 2TB of space. The company has updated its iCloud pricing list ahead of its September event to include the new option, and it will cost you $20 a month in the US, or £14 in the UK. 9to5mac, which first reported on the new tier, noted that there are rumors swirling around that Cupertino is launching a 256GB iPhone 7 during the event. If that's true and you decide to get both, then you won't have to worry about deleting photos and videos for quite sometime. The bigger storage option would also allow you to save more folders on iCloud when macOS Sierra comes out.
Apple announces $200,000 bug bounty program
Unlike many of the other major tech companies, Apple has never had a formal bug bounty program or corporate policy for welcoming outsiders who poke holes in their security features. However, as TechCrunch reports today, Apple's head of Security Engineering and Architecture Ivan Krstic announced at Black Hat that his company will now offer cash bounties of up to $200,000 for hackers and researchers who find and report security flaws in Apple products.
iOS users report Apple ID lockouts (update: temporary fix)
You might want to hold off on trying the iOS 10 beta if you can't bear to be without two-factor sign-ins. At least a handful of users are reporting a two-part problem that has locked them out of their Apple IDs. The first part is a bug with app-specific passwords that can force a password reset, regardless of the iOS version you use. It's not the worst issue if you're using a stable version of iOS, since it takes mere moments to get a new password. Things may go haywire if you're an iOS beta tester with two-factor authentication turned on, however. Users say that Apple's iForgot password system doesn't work for those experimenters, shutting them out of their accounts the moment the app-specific password glitch creeps up.
Second man pleads guilty to breaking into celebrity accounts
No, the convictions over celebrity account breaches aren't over yet. Chicago man Edward Majerczyk has agreed to plead guilty to using phishing scams to fool more than 300 people into compromising their Gmail and iCloud accounts, including 30 celebrities. The bargain reduces his sentence from a maximum of 5 years in prison to between 6 to 12 months. We'll learn the extent of his time behind bars in a few weeks, when the case transfers from California to Illinois for sentencing.
Apple reportedly designing its own secure servers
Apple's track record for online services like iCloud has been shaky at best. According to The Information, the iPhone maker has spent years trying to come up with an internal solution that can handle the amount of data that the company needs to keep iMessages, photos, iTunes, Apple Music, the App Store and others running smoothly. More importantly it's also trying to keep hackers and spies out of its network by designing its own hardware.
Apple will power part of iCloud with Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud Platform has reportedly scored another major client after getting Spotify in February: Apple. Cupertino has struck a multi-million dollar deal with its staunchest rival to move part of iCloud and its other cloud-based offerings to GCP, according to Financial Times and CRN. Sources say the company's using a combination of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure and its own data centers at the moment. Neither corporation has confirmed the info yet, but CRN's sources told the publication that the deal is worth between $400 and $600 million.
Man pleads guilty to hacking celebrity accounts for photos
The celebrities affected by the massive nude photo leak in 2014 got some answers today. A 36-year-old man from Pennsylvania named Ryan Collins has been charged with computer hacking felony for infiltrating over 50 iCloud and 72 Gmail accounts. He has also agreed to plead guilty to one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer, according to the US Attorney's Office of the Central District of California. In his plea deal, Collins admitted to executing a phishing scheme to obtain celebs' usernames and passwords from November 2012 to September 2014. Once he got access to their accounts, he searched for and stole explicit images. In some cases, he even downloaded people's entire iCloud backups.
Apple pushes iOS patch to counter the dreaded 'Error 53'
As reported earlier this month by the Guardian, a number of iPhone users -- specifically those who have had their home buttons or screens repaired by third-party technicians -- have had their devices bricked due to "Error 53". This error occurs when the device doesn't recognize the replacement cable running to the home button, throwing the device into a boot loop. Apple announced on Thursday that it is releasing an update to iOS 9.2.1 to counter the issue and restore functionality.
Slow down, Apple: Perfect your iOS apps before moving to Android
Apple CEO Tim Cook let an intriguing bit of news slip earlier this week at a town hall meeting with the company's employees. Apple Music for Android was apparently just a first step: The company is considering bringing more of its software and services to Google's mobile OS. It sounds a little crazy, as Apple's message for decades has been how well its software and hardware work together. But both Google and Microsoft are infiltrating iOS with their own excellent apps, pushing many of Apple's services to the side. Cook may feel he needs to fight back and bring more Apple apps to Android -- but he first needs to make sure the company's software runs better on its own hardware than it currently does.
Tim Cook hints more Apple apps could come to Android
Apple stepped into the Android waters late last year with the launch of Apple Music on Google's competing mobile OS. But if comments made by Tim Cook at recent "Town Hall" event for Apple employees are to be believed, it might not be the last. According to sources at the event who reported info to 9to5Mac, Cook said that Apple Music on Android was a way of "testing the waters" to see if it could further expand its services division on Android.
Apple increases iCloud Music Library limit to 100,000 tracks
Apple has made good on its promise to increase the iCloud Music Library limit to 100,000 tracks. This was previously set at 25,000, so the change increases the cap threefold. The move was first teased in June, with Eddy Cue, the company's SVP of Internet Software and Services, promising it would arrive before the year's end.
Apple updates iWork productivity apps for OS X, iOS and the web
Now that OS X El Capitan and iOS 9 are available to everyone, Apple's updating its iWork productivity suite to take advantage of certain new features. The refreshed Keynote, Numbers and Pages apps come with support for 3D Touch and Force Touch, as well as Slide Over, Split View and Picture-in-Picture modes. But keep in mind some of these will only work if you have compatible hardware, including the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus and the ultra-thin MacBook -- either way, you'll need to have the latest versions of iOS and OS X installed. In addition to this, you can also preview shared Keynote, Numbers and Pages documents on iOS and Android browsers, while iWork '08 and '06 users get the ability to start opening and editing files. Lastly, Apple says iWork for iCloud is officially out of beta and there are "many new features" on the service, such as support for 10 extra languages and a way to comment on docs.
You can now restore deleted iCloud files, contacts and calendars
If you've ever accidently deleted a file in a cloud service (or worse had someone delete a shared file) you know that any restore feature is a god send. Apple recently launched its own file restore feature for iCloud.com users that resurrects files, contacts, calendars and reminders. The new feature is buried in the Advanced area within Settings and deleted files seem to be available for restore for up to 30 days. While grabbing old files before they disappear forever is a no brainer, iCloud's restoring of calendar and contacts carries with them warnings that the restored data will overwrite the calendar and contact data currently on your devices. So you want to be careful before you start going back in time with abandon.
FBI seized computers linked to celeb photo leak scandal
A huge celebrity nude leak scandal took the internet by storm last year -- now, an unsealed federal search warrant gives us a peek into the FBI's investigations. Apparently, the feds used phone records and IP to track one of the computers used to access the celebrities' compromised accounts in October 2014. That computer was linked to two email addresses owned by a 30-year-old man named Emilio Herrera. As a result, the FBI conducted a search of Herrera's home in Chicago and ended up seizing several computers, antiquated phones, memory cards, a Kindle Fire and, curiously, even two floppy disks. Herrera isn't necessarily a suspect, though: he wasn't even arrested, and investigation's still ongoing.