Facebook disables some legitimate apps while targeting malicious ones

The use of tools to detect malicious patterns in apps led Facebook to temporarily disable some legitimate third-party apps that integrate with the social networking website, it said Thursday.

On Tuesday, a number of people complained that their Facebook developer accounts and apps were unavailable.

Facebook said it uses automated systems to identify and disable malicious apps, so as to protect its platform and users. These techniques identify a malicious pattern, find the apps that match that pattern, and then disable those apps.

"This normally results in thousands of malicious apps being disabled and improves our automated systems' ability to detect similar attacks in the future," Facebook employee Eugene Zarakhovsky wrote in a blog post.

But on Tuesday, Facebook started with a broad pattern that correctly matched many thousands of malicious apps but also matched many high-quality apps.

"When we detected this error, we immediately stopped the process and began work to restore access," Zarakhovsky wrote. "The process took longer than expected because of the number of apps affected and bugs related to the restoration of app metadata."



Facebook did not say how many legitimate apps were affected.

The company now plans to make improvements to its processes and technology, including better tools to identify overly broad patterns and better processes to verify that all the apps matched are in fact malicious. It will also address the bugs and bottlenecks that slowed down the recovery process.

Facebook has been unveiling tools to get developers to integrate their apps with its platform. In April it announced plans to acquire Parse, a cloud-based platform that provides cross-platform services and tools for developers. "By making Parse a part of Facebook Platform, we want to enable developers to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices," it said at the time.

Android tablets still rule, while Windows continues to slip

Both Apple- and Windows-branded tablets lost market share in the second quarter, each retreating in the face of increased pressure from Android, a market research analyst said last week.

In preliminary estimates for the quarter ending June 30, U.K.-based Strategy Analytics pegged Apple's share of the global tablet market at 28.3 percent, a dramatic decline from 47.2 percent the year before. When so-called "white box" tablets, which are almost exclusively powered by Android, are excluded, Apple's share fell to 40.4 percent from 48.2 percent in the first quarter of 2013.

Windows' share of the branded tablet market also slipped in the second quarter compared to the first, falling to 6.4 percent from 7.4 percent. With white-box tablets included, however, its year-over-year share jumped nine-fold, from a paltry 0.5 percent in 2012's second quarter to 4.5 percent in 2013.

Windows tablets had only one way to go when compared year-over-year, as Windows 8 and Windows RT, the two tablet-appropriate operating systems from the Redmond, Washington company, were not released until late in the third quarter of 2012.

By any measurement, Android solidified its first place position. Of the entire tablet market, including white-box units—which comprised 37 percent of all shipments—Android's share climbed to 67 percent from 2012's 51.4 percent. Strip out the white box tablets and Android's increase, while on a slower pace, was still impressive: 52.9 percent in the second quarter, up from 43.4 percent in the first three-month stretch of 2013.

Peter King, an analyst with Strategy Analytics, attributed Apple's share decline to a lack of new tablet models, echoing others who have pointed out that the Cupertino, California company has not released a new tablet or even refreshed an existing tablet since late in 2012.

"We may see Apple get back on track later this year if, as everyone expects, they launch new models," said King in an interview Tuesday. "We may start to see a bit of fight back in them."

Windows' problem in tablets has also been well documented.

Strategy AnalyticsApple- and Windows-branded tablets lost share in the second quarter to Android, which has a lock on the fast-growing low-priced part of the market.

"They screwed up in terms of sales and marketing," said King, referring to the 2012-13 launch of the Microsoft-made Surface RT and Surface Pro. "They excluded the vast majority of the world from buying it. People want to see a tablet, feel it, touch it, want their friends to buy it."

Instead, Microsoft sold the Surface RT in 2012, and—starting in early 2013—the more expensive Surface Pro, primarily online with a bit of help from its small-sized U.S. and Canadian retail chain.

Microsoft still overwhelmingly relies on its hardware partners for Windows-powered hardware. They have also been dogged by sluggish sales, and virtually all have either declined to support Windows RT or abandoned the scaled-down OS designed exclusively for tablets.

Nor have Windows tablet prices been competitive. "The $349 is where they should have started," said King, of this month's $150 price cut to the Surface RT line, a move that forced Microsoft to take a $900 million charge against earnings as it accounted for the discount and the overstock that drove it.

Microsoft has taken corrective steps, including the Surface RT price cut and a deal with the U.S. electronic retail chain Best Buy that will balloon the number of outlets selling Surface.

"Microsoft will be back," said King, ticking off the company's strengths, including a large war chest and this fall's free Windows 8.1 upgrade. "But for them, it's 'Okay, back to the drawing board,'" he added, noting that in the meantime Microsoft will have lost 12 months in its fight to claw out a significant share.

Some of the factors involved in the decline of share in Apple- and Windows-marked tablets, however, will not be easily addressed.

Android tablets, especially the cut-rate white box units, have a stranglehold on the low-priced segment. "Outside the U.S. and Europe, sales are driven by the low-cost models, not because they're great, because they're not, but because people [in those markets] don't have as much disposable income," said King.

The cutthroat price war in tablets has prompted analysts to call for Apple to consider discounting the iPad mini, the company's $329 7.9-inch tablet, to $249.

Minus cost cuts and discounts—far from a given by either Apple or Microsoft—there's no chance either company will shove Android aside as the share leader, said King, parroting other analysts who have said Google's operating system will remain dominant for the foreseeable future.

Strategic Analytics based its early tablet estimates on polls of vendors, publicly-released data and supply chain checks. Its numbers represent "sell-in," or tablet shipments, not final sales.

Profits dip again for Apple, while iPhone sales beat record

Apple’s profits fell for a second consecutive quarter, even as the company enjoyed record iPhone sales for the April-to-June time period.

For its fiscal third quarter ended June 29, Apple reported sales of $35.3 billion, with net profit at $6.9 billion. That translated to earnings of $7.47 per diluted share. Apple’s revenue marked a record for the June quarter, ticking up 1 percent from the $35 billion Apple posted in last year’s third quarter. Still, profits fell 22 percent year-over-year, down from $8.88 billion in 2012. Apple also reported a drop in profit during its fiscal second quarter of 2013.

Apple’s performance for the third quarter topped analyst expectations. Analysts were looking for the company to earn $7.32 a share on $35 billion in revenue.

With a tiny increase in revenue but a drop in profit, you’d rightly conclude that Apple’s gross margin dropped: For the quarter, it was 36.9 percent, versus 42.8 percent on the year-ago quarter. That’s because Apple’s most popular products now have lower margins than the top-sellers a year ago.

Apple says international sales accounted for 57 percent of its revenue for the quarter.

The company also says it has issued $18.8 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.

While Apple generally keeps a tight lid on future product announcement, company officials did reiterate a point made during its second-quarter earnings announcement in April—that the company plans to roll out new products starting this fall and into the next year. “We are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products,” CEO Tim Cook said in an statement accompanying Apple’s earnings announcement.”

Apple says it sold 32.2 million iPhones—a record for the June quarter. That’s up from 26 million iPhones in the year-ago period. For the U.S., iPhone sales rose 51 percent year-over-year, Apple says.

“iPhone 5 remains by far the most popular [phone], but we’re also very happy with sales of iPhone 4 and 4S,” chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer told analysts during a Tuesday conference call. Those older phones, of course, are lower-margin devices, since Apple charges customers $200 or $100 less for those phones, respectively, compared to the iPhone 5.

Oppenheimer said that iPhone sales remain ahead of expectations, and that Apple is particularly pleased with the iPhone’s strong year-over-year growth in both developed and emerging markets. Apple says that ComScore shows the iPhone holds the top spot in the U.S. market for the three month period ending in May, with a 39 percent share. And the iPhone is the top-selling smartphone in Japan, and the top or second-best selling smartphone in most markets IDC tracks.

With government, business, and education, iPhone holds a 62.5 percent share of the U.S. commercial market.

Cook suggested that Apple is at least open to the notion of trade-ins for smartphones. “I like the environmental aspect of it,” he said, though he stressed that Apple hasn’t announced any plans on that front. Cook pointed out that “residual value of iPhone stays high, and there’s so much demand around it. So that makes the trade-in program very lucrative.”

The picture was less rosy for iPad sales, but Apple has a perfectly reasonable explanation for the 14 percent drop in tablet sales from last year’s third quarter. A year ago, Apple introduced the third-generation iPad and enjoyed a full quarter’s worth of sales to the tune of 17 million units. This quarter, sales fell to 14.6 million iPads.

Still, Apple has plenty of reason to remain bullish on the iPad. Oppenheimer said that the iPad ranked tops in a 2013 U.S. tablet satisfaction survey by JD Power and Associates. And during the quarter, the company inked a deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest district in the U.S., to roll out iPads to 640,000 students.

In fact, the iPad got the bulk of the credit for a strong quarter of sales to U.S. schools. According to Oppenheimer, the last three months generated the highest quarterly revenue ever for Apple’s U.S. education institution business.

Mac sales also fell in the quarter, down 7 percent from last year to 3.8 million units. Still, Oppenheimer pointed out that the 3.8 million Macs sold beat Apple’s own expectations. And Apple’s sales still were ahead of the total PC market, which saw sales contract by 11 percent according to estimates from research firm IDC (which is owned by the same company that owns Macworld). By Apple’s math, the Mac gained market share during the quarter.

The Mac was one of the few product lines to see any changes during the quarter, with Apple updating its MacBook Air lineup at the beginning of June by adding new Intel processors. Company executives had little to say about any impact those new laptops had on overall Mac sales, but Oppenheimer did call it the most successful MacBook Air launch to date, adding that customer response was great.

But during the call, executives implied that there were better things to come. Oppenheimer noted that June’s Worldwide Developers Conference included previews of both the Mac Pro and the next version of OS X, code-named Mavericks.

The iTunes Stores—which includes the App Store, Mac App Store, iBookstore, and the music, movies, and TV sections of iTunes—generated $4.3 billion in billings, Oppenheimer said, culminating in the best week and best month ever for App Store. That translated to quarterly revenue of $2.4 billion, up 29 percent year over year. Total quarterly revenue from iTunes, software, and services generated $4 billion in revenue.

Oppenheimer said that Apple now has over 320 million iCloud accounts, and 240 million Game Center accounts.

As for brick-and-mortar retail efforts, the Apple Store saw revenue of $4.1 billion for the quarter, virtually unchanged from the year-ago quarter. Oppenheimer reported that Apple saw 16,000 visitors per store each week.

For the quarter, Apple had an average of 405 stores, with average revenue per store at $10.1 million—down $1 million from the year-ago quarter. Apple opened six stores across five countries during the quarter, giving it 408 stores around the globe; 156 of those outlets are outside the U.S.

The company plans to open nine new stores during the September quarter, giving it 27 new openings during the 2013 fiscal year. It’s not just about new stores, however: Apple says that it relocated four of its stores to more appealing spots; it will complete 23 such relocations before the end 2013 fiscal year in September.

China has been a particularly critical part of Apple's business in recent years, but that took a hit in the third quarter. “China was weaker” in this quarter, Cook acknowledged, but maybe not as weak as it might seem at first blush, he argued. “Our sell-through in China was only down four percent from the year-ago quarter, when you normalize for channel inventory,” he said. Hong Kong drop was worse, though mainland China was up five percent year over year, “but that’s a lower growth rate than we have been seeing,” Cook added.

“I attribute that to many things, including [the fact that] the economy there clearly doesn’t help us there or others,” Cook said.

Still, China drove $4.9 billion of revenue—about 14 percent of the company’s earnings—Cook pointed out. “And a few years ago, that was within the hundreds of millions. We have a very strong market there.” He added that year-to-date, iPad sales are up 48 percent in China year over year, and half a million developers in China are working on iOS apps. He also said that Apple would double its number of retail stores in China “over the next couple years.”

Cook said that Apple will continue to work to boost iPhone and iPad sales, “both of which are currently lower then where we would like or need them to be. We’re doing that very cautiously, because we want to do it with quality.” He added that, “over the arc of time, China is a huge opportunity for Apple, so don’t get discouraged over the 90-day cycle with economic factors.”

Apple’s not done returning cash to investors. The company’s Board of Directors has announced another cash dividend, this one at $3.05 per share of common stock, payable on August 15 to any shareholder as of August 12.

For the next quarter, Apple is predicting revenue between $34 billion and $37 billion, with gross margins between 36 and 37 percent. That sales figure would put Apple’s performance in line with the $36 billion in revenue it reported in the fourth quarter of 2012. For the coming quarter, Apple also predicts operating expenses will be between $3.9 billion and $3.95 billion, with a tax rate of 26.5 percent.

That may dissatisfy some sections of Wall Street, where the focus is on growth and new products, but Apple’s Cook told analysts on Tuesday that he doesn’t think the company’s goals diverge from investors’ focus on profits.

“We’re here to make great products, and we think that if we focus on that and do that really well, the financial metrics will follow,” Cook said. “We don’t look at those two things as mutually exclusive.”

Lindsay Lohan Rehab Mercy -- $5 Mil Lawsuit On Hold While She Gets Help

Lindsay Lohan
$5 Mil Lawsuit On 'Rehab Hold'

Lindsay Lohan just learned a bad lesson while she tries to get her life back on track in rehab -- addicts get special breaks when they're sued.

As we reported, D.N.A.M. Apparel Industries -- which manufactured clothes for Lindsay's 6126 line back in 2009-2010 -- sued the actress for the massive $5 million sum in May, claiming her "drug-addled image" made the clothes unsellable ... and they lost millions as a result.

But in a twist of irony, Lindsay's "drug-addled image" just bought her more than a month to scramble a legal defense -- because D.N.A.M. has just agreed to a ceasefire while she's in treatment.

According to new court docs, D.N.A.M. won't serve Lindsay 'til she leaves rehab in mid-August "in a gesture of good faith and so as not to disturb her healing process."

FYI, the lawsuit's already been filed ... but the legal process can't begin until Lindsay has been served with the documents.

You'll recall ... Lindsay initially sued D.N.A.M. for $1.1 million, claiming the company licensed the 6126 trademark, but shortchanged her big time on hundreds of thousands of dollars she claims she was promised in exchange.

 

Encryption can’t protect your data while you’re logged in

You carry a lot of data and sensitive information on your laptop, tablet, and smartphone. The standard method of protecting that information from prying eyes is to encrypt it, rendering the data inaccessible. But with most encryption software, that information becomes accessible the moment you log in to the device as a matter of convenience.

Think about what information that might be: names, postal and email addresses, and phone numbers for friends, family, clients, and business associates; calendar events indicating where you’ll be and when you’ll be there; personal photographs; and more. You might also have proprietary information about your company, clients, information that companies have entrusted you under the terms of non-disclosure agreements, and other sensitive information that should be secured.

Encrypting data protects it from unauthorized access.

Encryption basically scrambles the data so it’s nothing but unusable gibberish to anyone who isn’t authorized to access or view it.

And that’s great, but ask yourself this: How many steps must you go through to decrypt your data? Encryption is designed to protect data, but it should also be seamlessly accessible to the user—it should automatically decrypt, so you don’t have to jump through hoops to use your own encrypted data. And that means it’s not protected at all if someone finds your laptop, smartphone, or tablet in a state that doesn’t require a log-in password.

The Department of Justice and the National Security Administration—the same NSA that allegedly has omnipotent access to all data everywhere—have expressed frustration over iOS 6 and declared its encryption to be virtually impenetrable. There is a way to bypass it, but only Apple knows the magic trick, and there’s a massive backlog of requests from law enforcement.

Remote lock and wipe capabilities are no security or privacy panacea.

There is also a general layer of encryption in iOS that functions purely as a means of remotely wiping the device running it. Rather than literally erasing all of the data—which would take a little time depending on how much data there is—this remote wipe tool simply resets the encryption key, instantly rendering the data useless. That’s handy, but it’s not foolproof.

iOS devices also have hardware-based encryption that protects your data, including your email and its attachments. That encryption, however, is tied to a passcode, meaning you must actually assign and use a passcode for your iOS device in order for your data to be protected.

The BitLocker encryption in Microsoft Windows works along the same lines. The TPM (Trusted Platform Module) chip provides a hardware-based element, and the user login provides the key to unlock the encryption and make the data available to the user.

All popular encryption tools lock data from unauthorized access, but are designed to unlock when a user successfully logs in. The data is then available as if it weren’t encrypted at all, and the user doesn’t have to take any additional steps to access or use the encrypted information.

Can you see the problem with this approach? This feature designed to make encryption more convenient renders the data protection impotent as long as you’re logged in.

Tripwire Director of Security Operations Andrew Storms explains, “If a thief catches your device in an unlocked state, they have a potential window of opportunity to access the data stored on that device.”

The best way to secure data is to configure your mobile devices to require passcodes after short periods of nonuse.

That “virtually impenetrable” iOS encryption relies on your device being locked with a passcode. When you set a passcode in iOS, you can choose whether the device should require the passcode immediately, or in one minute, five minutes, 15 minutes, or even an hour. An hour! If you choose that setting, you’re basically leaving your “encrypted” data exposed to potential compromise for 60 minutes.

The best way to secure the data on your mobile device is thus to configure the device to require a passcode after a relatively short period of nonuse. Set the time limit too short, and you’ll find yourself becoming irritated by repeatedly having to retype your passcode. Leave it unlocked for too long and you give a thief plenty of time to access all your supposedly encrypted data.

According to Tripwire CTO Dwayne Melancon, “In an enterprise environment, a lot of these complementary policies can be driven using group policies—for example, requiring screen locking, passwords upon waking, and setting short timeouts for automatic locking and automatic locking when the lid of a laptop is closed.”

While iOS and other mobile devices—as well as many other encryption tools—provide the ability to remotely lock or wipe the data from a device, that tool is useful only if you realize the device is gone. Every second your laptop, tablet, or smartphone remains unlocked while it’s out of your control is time that your encryption is not doing anything to protect your data.

Tripwire’s Storms points out that remote lock and wipe capabilities are no panacea: “On mobile devices, a clever thief will immediately disable all network access, so the device is unable to receive that remove lock or kill switch signal from corporate administrators.”

A better alternative to timed lockouts might be to have some sort of Bluetooth, NFC (near-field communication), or other close-proximity wireless device that pairs with your laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Keep this device on your person, and if you move too far away, your mobile device will automatically lock to prevent unauthorized access.