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BBM Protected users can chat securely on Android and iOS
While BBM Protected has been keeping enterprise users' chats secure since last year, it only used to work if it's installed on both parties' phones. Now, though, the feature can keep convos secure even if only one of the chatters has it. In fact, the other person doesn't even have to be a BlackBerry user: Protected now works even on iOS and Android devices. Considering you can't exactly force, say, clients to ditch their iPhones, Samsungs and HTCs, among other brands that carry Android, this is definitely good news. Those who absolutely have to chat through secure methods only need to start a Protected convo, and the message above will appear so long as the other person has the BBM app. Hopefully, company execs can stop worrying about employees unknowingly leaking sensitive info by using unprotected apps. Unless, of course, they're the ones being reckless.
FairGame, a new(ish) way to unDRM iTunes tracks on your Mac
While we'd love an easy (and legal) way to strip DRM from our iTunes-purchased songs on our Macs, that probably won't happen anytime soon, so we'll just have to settle for the next-best thing: re-encoding those protected AAC files using Apple's own iMovie software. While we first heard about this hack in the summer of 2004, it was a bit too labor-intensive on a per-file basis to be troubled over. However, we just caught wind of a new program called FairGame that serves as an automated interface to re-encode your audio files using that technique, and converts a protected iTunes track into an unprotected AAC file; it's not quite DRM-stripping in it's purest form, but for many a Mac user it's going to have to do.[Via iPodNN]
