Alexander’s Blog

There are things that you should do if you are an IT administrator and there are things that you shouldn’t do. Here’s an example of things that you should never do…….and for obvious reasons.

“A former senior database administrator for GEXA Energy in Houston was sentenced today to 12 months in prison for hacking into his former employer’s computer network.

Steven Jinwoo Kim, 40, of Houston pleaded guilty in November to one count of intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization and recklessly causing damage. Kim was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore in the Southern District of Texas. Kim was also ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution to GEXA Energy and to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.

According to court documents, on Feb. 5, 2008, GEXA Energy terminated Kim from his position as a senior database administrator and revoked all of his administrative rights and access to the GEXA Energy computer network.”

Read the rest of the story here on how he used his home PC to mess up the database of about 150,000 GEXA Energy customers and copied personal information of customers to his computer causing the company $100,000 worth of loss.

Here’s something in the news lately that is rather interesting. According to this blog on ZDNet, Microsoft is turning over all Windows 7 and server source code to Russia’s new KGB.

“Microsoft has always carefully protected the source code to its operating systems. In fact, a key distinction between the various Windows variants and open source OSs like Linux and BSD is that Linux and BSD are open source.”

“That’s why a little piece of news covered by ZDNet UK’s Tom Espiner is so astonishing.

According to Espiner, Microsoft has turned over all its source code for Windows 7, along with its source for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server to Russia’s Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii. The FSB is present-day Russia’s successor to the infamous Soviet-era KGB.”

“From a security perspective, this is an astonishing act. The agency that took over from the KGB and which has been just recently proven to be conducting long-term spying operations against the United States now has access to Windows source code — while at the same time, most American IT operations don’t.

Not only does this give the Russians the opportunity to find gaps in Windows security — it gives them the opportunity to do so while most American companies and organizations don’t have the same opportunity to find the same gaps and plug them.”

“If Microsoft’s going to give source code to Russia, it should release it to the public. Open source certainly hasn’t harmed Linux’ success and doing so would at least put American IT operators on a level playing field with the Russian secret service.”

I haven’t seen Microsoft’s response to this so far and will let Microsoft explain what exactly is and isn’t shared but I do know that Microsoft has a Product Source Program for the benefit of governments, enterprises, OEMs, developers, faculty & students, system integrators, and Microsoft MVPs like me.

The MVP Source Licensing Program (MVPSLP) is a no-cost program that licenses Microsoft Windows source code to qualified Microsoft MVPs. The program gives MVPs the opportunity to differentiate themselves professionally as Windows platform experts through access to Windows source code. Similarly, there are free programs for enterprises and governments. The Government Security Program (GSP) provides national governments with information to help them evaluate the security of Microsoft products.

I don’t think we should panic over this because Microsoft is run by Americans who love this country. It’s hard for me to believe that they would pass on any information to the Russians, or to any other government for that matter, that could impact our security. Not to mention the fact that all export of such information is subject to the U.S. export approval and over 90% of Shared Source offerings are available for download by anyone. According to Microsoft:

“The Product Source Programs, licenses selected Microsoft product source code to qualifying customers, partners, and governments. Access to source is granted only to those who are eligible and who qualifying under the terms of each program.”

Again, I haven’t seen Microsoft’s response to this but I seriously doubt that Microsoft will release every single bit of Windows code to anyone outside Microsoft…..and definitely not to the new Russian KGB (called FSB). If Microsoft does, they would join the Open Source community and as far as I know Microsoft has no intention of doing that.

I recently read an article by MVP Susan Bradley titled “iTunes account theft strikes close to home.” In her article Susan explained how someone used her credit card to make a purchase and Apple offered no help tracking down the perpetrators.

“My next stop was Apple’s iTunes customer service, where I explained the situation and asked what had happened to my account. And that’s when the fun began.

Exactly how did someone gain access to my account? The e-mail I eventually received from Apple offered no explanation — just a recommendation that I change my password and contact my bank to remove the charges.”

Obviously, Susan did a little research and here’s what she found:

“I researched the Web and quickly discovered I wasn’t alone. About a year ago, blogger Gary LaPointe suffered a similar fate. In late May 2010, others added similar experiences to his post. More reports also showed up in Mac forums and in a Facebook page devoted to iTunes issues. The problem spread as far as Japan, where a news story discussed local iTunes identity thieves.

Since May, there’s been more bad news for Apple. In a highly publicized incident, AT&T came under fire for a security breach affecting iPad 3G users. Hackers found a vulnerability in AT&T’s customer database and used it to harvest e-mail addresses. With that information, they then posted a list of notable iPad 3G users such as Diane Sawyer and my sister. AT&T sent apology e-mails to everyone who owned an iPad with 3G Internet access.”

Both Apple and AT&T’s reputation has been tarnished by several security breaches lately.

“Apple’s woes didn’t stop there. On opening day for preorders for the iPhone 4, allegations by several tech sites — including a Gizmodo story — charged that the AT&T preorder site had inadvertently shared personal information among site users.”

Although AT&T has been responsible for some of these security breaches, Apple is automatically affected by these stories, especially after Apple admitted in an open letter that the signal bars on iPhones were essentially fake.

Today, in an open letter to public Apple finally admitted that the problems that iPhone users are experiencing are real. But Apple’s explanation is rather strange. They essentially say that although they know about the reception problems, they can’t really help you. However, they will do you a favor and fix the problem with the signal strength (the bars on the phone) so it will correctly show you how really pathetic the signal quality is. Currently, the signal bar gives you fake results so you don’t have a clue as to what exactly is your signal strength on your iPhone. The problem is associated with iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4.

It seems like most people are getting a chuckle out of reading Apple’s response to the problem. I am sure Apple doesn’t think it’s funny. At least not with the concerns of potential class action lawsuit looming over their head. Here’s what Apple says (the bold highlights are mine):

“We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”

Apple also blames the iPhone users because they don’t hold the phone properly and says that other phones have similar problems so this isn’t really that bad. I can’t speak for everyone else but my Motorola phone never loses its signal strength no matter how I hold the phone. I tried holding it upside down, backwards and forward, at every angle, even jumping up and down, but could not duplicate Apple’s claim that that’s how cell phones are supposed to work. But then again, I don’t have an iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, Droid, Nokia or an RIM phone. This may come to Apple as a surprise that my cell phone works while driving through the I-90 tunnel, in elevators, and even in basements…..and no, my service provider is not AT&T. According to Apple:

“To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.”

I guess Apple’s engineers didn’t know how to calculate the formula’s properly so Apple has decided to use AT&T’s formula for calculating signal strength.

“To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.”

In an effort to justify the great quality of iPhone 4, Apple said that they “continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS.” I don’t think criticizing your own product is such a great idea. In fact, it’s a bad marketing idea. There are 41,152,350 people who purchased an iPhone by the end of 2009. Considering the fact that just in three days (June 24-26, 2010) Apple sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s, I wouldn’t be jumping up and down if only a couple of hundred people are excited about iPhone 4′s reception, compared to a worse product iPhone 3GS. That’s not something to brag about.

Apple admits that the mistake with the formula goes back all the way to iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G. It will take them a few weeks to offer a software update.

“We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.“

To help the public, Apple has announced the following:

“As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.”

If you own an iPhone longer than 30 days, you are out of luck. Keep in mind that Apple won’t release the software update for several weeks…..okay, they said “a few weeks.” If you wait for the software patch then you may not be eligible for a refund if you miss the 30-day deadline. Obviously, if they don’t come out with a patch for the next 30-days (i.e. “a few weeks”), you are guaranteed to be ineligible for a refund.

You may have read about Apple’s recommendation to use bumper as a workaround (which they sell for $29 each). What people find funny is that Apple also claims that this is not a design flaw, it’s a software problem. How does using a bumper fixes a software bug? Talking about bumpers, you might want to read this article “Why Apple’s iPhone 4 bumper case is a rip-off” on Ars Technica’s Web site.

Makes you wonder why Apple’s testing and quality control department were not able to discover this and other iPhone flaws. Perhaps the iPhone manual should include instructions on how to properly hold Apple’s iPhones. Can you imagine someone making a really important phone call accidentally holds his/her iPhone in an improper method (whatever that is). Aren’t you glad President Obama uses a Blackberry, not an iPhone? Until Apple fixes the iPhone flaws, dialing 911 on an iPhone might not be a good idea.

You can read the entire open letter here.

Here are some additional links of interest.

1. My blog post from June 29, 2010: Is iPhone a Lemon?
2. Guardian’s blog: Steve Jobs solves iPhone 4 reception problems: ‘don’t hold it that way’
3. Sharee English’s blog: To iPhone or not to iPhone
4. Ars Technica article: Why Apple’s iPhone 4 bumper case is a rip-off
5. ZDNet: Is Apple covering up the real problem with it’s iPhone?
   

Today I read Jason O’Grady’s review of his iPhone 4 on ZDNet titled “My iPhone 4 is a lemon, oh my!” With all the horror stories about Apple’s iPhone, from being notorious as one of the most hackable phone on the market today to the disastrous service from AT&T that iPhone users have experienced, it’s no surprise that iPhone 4 will not be winning any awards or raving reviews any time soon from Jason O’Grady, a respected  journalist and author who specializes in mobile technology. Jason has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets so if he says his iPhone is a lemon I absolutely believe him. Here a are a few selected quotes from his article on ZDNet. Make sure you read his entire article.

“Say what you will about the iPhone 4, but mine’s a lemon. Reviewers have called it “the best smartphone,” “worth upgrading” and “game changing,” but they’re all bogus superlatives that don’t apply to mine. Sure, it looks great, it’s all shiny and gorgeous, but what good is a phone that can’t make phone calls?

“Dropped calls. My experience was bad almost from the beginning. The first five calls that I made — business calls, mind you — resulted in dropped calls. I began my iPhone 4 experience by apologizing to my client for the phone problems. Not good.”

“Signal loss. My next bad experience was the “death grip” issue, where simply holding the i4 would degrade its signal from a solid five bars to one or zero (my video of the flaw is here). Holding it wrong? No. The antennas are in the wrong location. Apple completely missed the boat on this obvious defect and flaw in the design.”

“Proximity sensor. My iPhone 4 constantly mutes, holds or switches to FaceTime when it touches my face. Clearly a problem with the iPhone’s proximity sensor.”

“Custom ringtones. I had to fight with my iPhone to get my custom ringtones to sync and since then it’s been downhill from there. My ringtones keep playing in a stuttered loop after I answer the call. I hear a garbled version of my ringtone ringing after I answer the call. The only solution is to hang up and call the person back.”

“Battery life. For the all hype around battery life on the iPhone 4, I’m not seeing it. I charged mine overnight, unplugged it at around 8 am and got the 20 percent battery warning before 6pm. I wasn’t using it excessively mind you, nothing out of my normal usage pattern (brightness at about 50 percent) but I was using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth intermittently throughout the day.”

Check out the complete article here. You might also be interested in Sharee English’s blog “To iPhone or not to iPhone.” I am not saying that everyone iPhone user has trouble with their iPhone but a lot of people believe that iPhone is way over hyped, is over priced and there are definitely some serious issues with service and security. It’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread as Apple would like you to believe. Just Bing or Google “iPhone horror stories” and see what I mean.