Yesterday, New York Senator Charles E. Schumer and New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly announced Tuesday that the major cell phone carriers in the United States and the Federal Communications Commission have agreed to their call to set up an integrated database of unique cell phone identifiers, known as International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers, to allow cell phone companies to permanently disable stolen cell phones.

According to a news release:

The announcement is part of an effort led by Schumer and the NYPD to crackdown on the growth of cell phone theft and its related crime by making stolen cell phones worthless on the black market. IMEI numbers are similar to Vehicle Identification Numbers that are unique to automobiles throughout the country and allow law enforcement to track stolen property. As part of his effort to crackdown on the illegal sale of stolen cell phones, Schumer is also introducing legislation making it a federal crime to alter or tamper with a phones IMEI number.

“Our goal is to make a stolen cell phone as worthless as an empty wallet,” said Schumer. “By permanently disabling stolen cell phones, we can take away the incentive to steal a cell phone in the first place and put a serious dent in the growing rates of iPhone and smart phone theft. I want to commend FCC Chairman Genachowski and the cell carriers for working with us to help crack down on this growing crime trend and putting in place a comprehensive database that will allow carriers to identify stolen cell phones so they cannot be reactivated once sold on the black market.”

“With the press of a button, carriers will be able to disable phones and turn highly prized stolen property into worthless chunks of plastic,” said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. “Like draining the swamp to fight malaria, we’re trying to dry up the market to fight i-phone thefts.”

Currently, when cell phones are reported stolen, many American cell phone companies only deactivate the phone’s “SIM” card, which is the account data storage component of the device. While deactivation of a SIM card does not allow for the device to be used with existing data and account information, SIM cards are easily removed and replaced, allowing stolen phones to be easily resold on the black market. In August of last year, Schumer urged carriers to shut off phones based on IMEI number and called on the FCC to help the carriers facilitate the adoption of a database. In January, Schumer successfully urged AT&T to include the NYPD at the GSM Association’s North America Committee on Security and Fraud to discuss ways to combat cell phone theft.

Schumer and Kelly announced today that CTIA, the major wireless industry association, had committed to have its members work together with the FCC to establish a nationwide, interconnected database that will allow the carriers to share information on stolen cell phones across networks in order to track stolen phones and deter cell phone theft. As a result, cell carriers in the United States will no longer just deactivate SIM cards, which store a user’s account information, but instead, they will deactivate the actual handheld device, using the phone’s individual IMEI number. IMEI numbers are unique to the actual handheld device similar to a vehicle VIN number and can be found usually in battery compartments of phones.

As part of the overall effort to clamp down on cell phone theft, Schumer also announced he would be introducing legislation that would make it a federal crime to tamper or alter a cell phone IMEI numbers in order to activate a stolen phone. Schumer’s legislation will be modeled on similar federal statutes with respect to VIN numbers on automobiles. Anyone convicted of tampering with or altering the IMEI number on a cell phone could face a maximum of five years in prison.

According to the New York Police Department, 42% of all property crimes of individuals in New York City in 2011 involved a cell phone. Cell phone robberies in New York are being fueled in large part by the fact that stolen phones, like the iPhone and Android phones, are easily resold on the black market because they use SIM card technology. Cell phone theft and its resultant violence is a growing problem in the New York metropolitan area. Just a week ago, four separate teenagers had their cell phones stolen from them in a one hour period in Uniondale, Long Island, and in August of last year a 16-year-old boy was beaten up and robbed of his cell phone inside a train station in Brooklyn.

Nowhere is that clearer than with the Flashback Trojan, a gnarly piece of malware designed to steal personal information by masquerading as very mainstream browser plug-ins. Yesterday Russian antivirus company Dr. Web said that an estimated 600,000 Macs are now infected as a result of users unknowingly installing the software.

So here’s a quick FAQ on the Flashback Trojan, including information on what it is, how to tell if you have it, and steps you can take to get rid of it.

What exactly is Flashback?
Flashback is a form of malware designed to grab passwords and other information from users through their Web browser and other applications such as Skype. A user typically mistakes it for a legitimate browser plug-in while visiting a malicious Web site. At that point, the software installs code designed to gather personal information and send it back to remote servers. In its most recent incarnations, the software can install itself without user interaction.

An earlier version of the Flashback Trojan’s installer.

(Credit: Intego)

When did it first appear?
Flashback as we know it now appeared near the end of September last year, pretending to be an installer for Adobe’s Flash, a widely used plug-in for streaming video and interactive applications that Apple no longer ships on its computers. The malware evolved to target the Java runtime on OS X, where users visiting malicious sites would then be prompted to install it on their machine in order to view Web content. More advanced versions would install quietly in the background with no password needed.

How did it infect so many computers?
The simple answer is that the software was designed to do exactly that. In its initial incarnation, the malware looked very similar to Adobe’s Flash installer. It didn’t help that Apple hasn’t shipped Flash on its computers for well over a year, arguably creating a pool of users more likely to run the installer in order to view popular Web sites that run on Flash. In its newer Java-related variants, the software could install itself without the user having to click on anything or provide it with a password.

What also didn’t help is the way that Apple deals with Java. Instead of simply using Java’s current public release, the company creates and maintains its own versions. As it turns out, the malware writers exploited one particular vulnerability that Oracle patched in February. Apple didn’t get around to fixing its own Java version until last week.

What has Apple done about it?
Apple has its own malware scanner built into OS X called XProtect. Since Flashback’s launch, the security tool has been updated to identify, and protect against a handful of its variants. A more recent version got around this by executing its files through Java. Apple closed off the malware’s main entry point as part of an update to Java earlier this week.

How do I tell if I have it?
Right now the easiest way to tell if your computer has been infected is to run some commands in Terminal, a piece of software you’ll find in the Utilities folder in your Mac’s Applications folder. If you want to find it without digging, just do a Spotlight search for “Terminal”

Once there, copy and paste each one of the code strings below into the terminal window. The command will run automatically:

defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
defaults read /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES

If your system is clean, the commands will tell you that those domain/default pairs “does not exist.” If you’re infected, it will spit up the patch for where that malware has installed itself on your system.

Uh oh, I have it. How do I remove it?
Security firm F-Secure has posted a step-by-step walkthrough on its site. It too requires hopping into Terminal and running those commands, then tracking down where the infected files are stored, then manually deleting them. There are also likely be removal tools built into Mac antivirus/malware programs in the near future.

So now that fixes are here am I safe?
The very nature of malware is that its authors make changes to the software to get around increased security fixes. That’s already happened with this particular piece of software initially targeting users by pretending to be Adobe Flash before evolving.

CNET’s advice on this malware, and with any software is to download it from trusted sources. That includes the direct sites of software makers, as well as CNET’s Download.com. This results in software that’s secure and up to date.

Previously, Google had introduced a similar feature that could estimate travel time, but that was based on historic rather than real-time traffic data. It also provided two scenarios, but the traffic data was based on average conditions for an area instead of the actual conditions at the time of your travel.

The new feature utilizes data gathered from Android users that enable the My Location feature through Google Maps on their devices. The more Android users that participate the more traffic data Google Maps is able to collect in order to provide the real-time estimates. So it’s possible that you may not see current traffic information for a certain route because no data has been collected from any Android users on that route.

Print Parade Schedule | View Interactive Parade Routes | Reviewing Stands

There is a small catch to all this live TV-viewing, of course: it only works within the home.

The app joins TWC’s iPad app, released back in March 2011 and the Android app launched last month. The new iPhone version is actually a universal app, meaning one download now supports both the phone and tablet platforms.

As you may expect, you can’t watch live TV just anywhere – the iOS device has to be connected to the home’s Wi-Fi network in order to function. It also offers a number of features typical for TV provider mobile apps, including a remote control functionality, the ability to program your DVR (this feature also works remotely), and the ability to configure parental controls, among other things.

The app is fairly backward-compatible, however, as it works on iPhone 3GS and up, iPod Touch (3rd or 4th gen) and any iPad, all of which have to run at least iOS 4.3. Customers will also have to have the Navigator set-top box or a DVR in their home, as other models may not function properly.

TWC isn’t the first to add mobile phone support for its TV service. Comcast’s app arrived on the scene in May 2011, Cablevision launched on iOS in August and Verizon FiOS has FlexView, which works on the iPad and Android (but not iPhone).

TWC TV for iOS is available here on iTunes.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Orleans Technology Services Receives 2011 New Orleans Web Design & Development Award

NEW YORK, NY, October 21, 2011 — New Orleans Technology Services has been selected for the 2011 New Orleans Award in the Web Site Design & Development category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).

The USCA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2011 USCA Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a New York City based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association

OK – I need to declare I am not an Apple worshipper. Yes, I have an iPad, which I l love, and an old iPod which I use when travelling, but otherwise I am a PC person through and through.

I tell you this in advance because there is nothing more polarizing that the subject of Apple versus the rest of the world.

Apple users believe they have seen the light and are messianic about the company. Everyone else thinks the Appleites have drunk the Kool-Aid, probably need therapy and gleefully look forward to when the Apple empire’s cool veneer starts to wear thin.

Now there are whispers that that process may have begun. In addition to beating out Apple’s iPhone over Christmas, Samsung, which uses the Android platform, is now the biggest seller of smartphones in the world, according to the latest data.

The train is getting up a head of steam – partly led by Brian Deagon, who predicted in an Investors.com article that “Apple will lose its cool factor” in 2012.

“The iPhone is boxy, flat and feeling stale. The Samsung Galaxy smartphone seems cooler,” he writes. “Smartphones and tablets will become commodity items and Apple will be eaten by the collective Android gang.”

It seems Samsung has managed to do something that eluded others – cloak themselves in the coolness that was previously Apple’s.

The latest ambush ad from Samsung hits Apple users’ “I’m too sexy for my shirt” attitude right between the eyes. The message: while cool is OK, if someone else has a better product, suddenly your coolness looks like your parents disco-dancing in the village hall under florescent lights.

For Apple, the jury is still deliberating on the effect Steve Job’s death will have on the company. Android has very well funded partners and a strong business model. If this sniping continues, Apple will be forced on the defensive.

By now Appleites are frothing and ready to hit their MacBook Air keys to put me down. Well go ahead – but never forget Apple fell from grace once before. There is no immutable law that says it can’t happen again.

Richard Quest, CNN

Tablets, phones, IVI systems and Ubuntu TV are a far cry from Ubuntu’s humble beginnings as an easy to use Linux desktop. “Linux for human beings” has always been Ubuntu’s tagline, not “Linux for human being’s portable electronic devices.” So one might be forgiven for asking “WTF, Canonical?” I posed a slightly more polite version of that question to Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical.

According to her, CES 2012 will be the first glimpse of an expansion of Ubuntu’s reach across a spectrum of consumer devices. Canonical has a broad multi-screen strategy, and much of their work on the Unity interface to date has been laying the foundation for that strategy. Moreover, the work on Unity is just one example of Canonical’s efforts to move beyond being simply an integrator of components for a functional desktop Linux experience. Their Software Center is another example, as an effort to reward application devlopers. They’ve been working with OEMs to assist in product development. There’s also UbuntuOne, their cloud storage and synchronization service. And Canonical has been working hard to develop touch interface support in the Linux world, as well as driving better ARM support.

Ubuntu TV is to be the first proof point of this new strategy. Silber says that you’ll be able to watch your own media files, streaming media, or broadcast media. The goal is to combine all of these media sources without radically changing user behavior. Specifically, Ubuntu TV is not simply a Linux desktop on your TV. Canonical, says Silber, does not believe in the “browser on your TV” experience. “Browsers belong on secondary devices — tablets, phones, etc,” Silber told me.

Playing on the Ubuntu tagline, Silber claims Ubuntu TV is “TV for human beings. It just works.” As you can see from the images, Ubuntu TV will have a similar interface to the current Ubuntu desktop, with the launcher on the side, but there will be fundamental differences. The goal is to make Ubuntu TV the “OS for your television”, and not necessarily a set-top box. In that regard, Canonical is working with hardware partners to execute Ubuntu TV. It should be clear at this point that while Canonical has made great strides with it, Ubuntu TV it is not, yet, a finished product. They’ll be demoing working code at CES, but we shouldn’t expect working hardware for a little while yet.

I pointed out to Silber that there is a large, vocal body of people who despise the Unity interface, and asked whether it was really a good idea to extend that for media consumption purposes. Silber, like most poeple at Canonical, remained firm that their user testing bore out the merits of Unity. “Judge us by our actions, but also by our results,” she said. As you might recall, the first version of Ubuntu to ship Unity was also the fastest adopted version of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu TV will be open source, and we should expect an application development framework from Canonical. I asked Silber about Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), and how Canonical was working with content producers and distributors. I specifically wanted to know whether Canonical was drawing any lines in the sand with respect to the kinds of content that would be playable on Ubuntu TV. She said that they’re making an effort to reduce the proliferation of DRM, but they recognize that they’re late to this party and have a lot of work ahead of them. Silber acknowledged that Canonical is involved with UltraViolet, stating that “it helps simplify things from our perspective” with respect to encodings and DRM.

According to Silber, the biggest hurdle for Ubuntu TV is breaking down all the walled gardens that content producers and rightsholders have erected. Every studio wants you to watch their content on their website, with their widgets, and their advertising — all under their control. Canonical believes that there should be a single, elegant interface for consuming media, regardless of the content source. Silber believes that Canonical and Ubuntu represent a reasonable middle ground as a relatively vendor-neutral solution to this problem. Canonical isn’t in the media production business, nor are they in the hardware manufacturing business: they just want to be the OS for your TV (for now).

That notion of “reasonable middle ground” extends beyond just Ubuntu TV. As Canonical pushes to get Ubuntu onto more devices, Silber says that many CE manufacturers are looking for a third option to the iOS / Android hegemony. Again Silber admits that Canonical is late to this game, but this does allow them to learn from the mistakes of the trailblazers, as well as to identify under-served markets. Device manufacturers want a platform for innovation that supports post-sale service revenues in ways that Apple and Google aren’t satisfying. They’re also increasingly aware that upgrades are fundamentally important to the successful longevity of their products. Canonical, according to Silber, is a smaller, easier to work with partner that has a proven rhythm for releasing major updates.

While Ubuntu TV is still a developing product, it’s a positive sign of things to come from Canonical. Silber assured me that we should expect additional news throughout the year that demonstrates the viability of Ubuntu as a platform across multiple consumer devices. With UbuntuOne as a data synchronization service to connect Ubuntu-powered devices, I think we can expect interesting things in the way of converged user experiences from Canonical in 2012.

SplashData, a company that offers a “complete password management and security solution,” culled from data stolen and posted online by hackers some of the most awesomely bad (and yet commonly used) passwords of all time. And while the research is for 2011, this isn’t the first such list–if you’ve seen one of these before, you’ll probably notice several culprits reappearing from years past.

The 25 most popular passwords in SplashData’s 2011 list:

password

123456

12345678

qwerty

abc123

monkey

1234567

letmein

trustno1

dragon

baseball

111111

iloveyou

master

sunshine

ashley

bailey

passw0rd

shadow

123123

654321

superman

qazwsx

michael

Football

Let’s go over what makes a good password again: You’ll want to include different types of characters, numbers and special characters in conjunction with each other. The longer your magic passphrase is, the better. Separate words with spaces if possible (underscores work, too). And while this ought to be a no-brainer, don’t use the same password for everything.

Last but not least? Your dog’s name’s a definite no-no…unless, of course, it happens to be Mr8@Mxyzptlk76%5.

Google uses the data to help pinpoint the location of cellphones and other mobile devices within broadcast range of the routers. That information is useful for weather and mapping services, among other things, and can allow Google to show relevant advertising for nearby businesses.

Under the agreement, which was announced by Google and the Dutch Data Protection Authority, owners of Wi-Fi routers can add “_nomap” to the end of a router’s name to tell Google that they do not want its information included.

If many people opt out of the registry, Google’s ability to offer location-based services could be compromised. The company would then have to use cell tower locations and the Global Positioning System to determine a phone’s location, which could result in less accuracy and greater use of battery power.

But while Google’s collection of Wi-Fi location data has been controversial in Europe, analysts in the United States were skeptical that many owners of routers would bother to remove them from the database.

“I think the Wi-Fi network operator would be more than happy to have it plotted,” said Chenxi Wang, principal analyst covering security at Forrester Research. “It doesn’t hurt them in any way.”

Jacob Kohnstamm, the chairman of the Dutch Data Protection Authority, called the agreement a positive step for consumer privacy.

“We all hope that with enforcement actions like these, the bigger firms will use privacy by design from the start so we don’t need to go into enforcement mode,” Mr. Kohnstamm said.

Google, the global search engine leader, was found to have illegally collected information about 3.6 million routers in the Netherlands from March 2008 through May 2010 as it compiled its Street View mapping service. It has said that it was using the information to help log the position of cellphones running its Android operating system.

Google had faced a fine of 1 million euros, or $1.4 million, from the Dutch agency for its illegal data collection. Mr. Kohnstamm said officials at the agency would independently verify whether Google keeps its promise to remove the data once a router owner uses the new opt-out procedure.

“Assuming Google follows through on its agreement, the fine will not be levied,” he said.

In a statement, Google said the Wi-Fi location data could not be used to identify individuals.

“Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don’t identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people’s privacy,” Google said.

Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, wrote in a blog post that Google hoped other companies that log router locations would also use Google’s “_nomap” suffix as an opt-out mechanism.

Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, which collects similar data through its phones and other devices, declined to comment.

Google began advertising the details of the opt-out procedure in several Dutch newspapers and on its Web site. Mr. Kohnstamm said Google agreed to offer the option after it was requested by officials in the Netherlands and France, and several other European countries he declined to name.

The Netherlands has been one of Europe’s most aggressive enforcers of data protection laws, using sanctions and legislative action to tightly restrict how companies that do business on the Internet can collect and manipulate personal data.

Google ran afoul of data protection officials from Europe to Hong Kong when it acknowledged that its Street View mapping vehicles had collected private data from Wi-Fi routers as the cars were compiling panoramic maps. This went beyond logging the name and location of the routers to include data traveling over the networks. Google attributed the unlawful data collection to a programming error and apologized publicly.

The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., settled most of the complaints by privacy regulators by deleting the data, although prosecutors in Hamburg, Germany, are still weighing whether to bring criminal charges against Google.

Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg data protection supervisor whose inquiry brought Google’s Wi-Fi collection practices to light, said his office was awaiting a decision by criminal prosecutors before deciding whether to levy penalties.