The H Week - WordPress 3.0, Wi-Fi encryption, AT&T problems
In the past week, AT&T exposed more private customer data, Apple updated its Mac OS X operating system and the Flock web browser dropped Firefox in favour of Chromium. The Wi-Fi Alliance said it would start to disallow WEP and TKIP encryption in access points, and a number of open source software projects released updates to their applications.
Featured
This week, The H took an in-depth look at how a trojan can find its way onto a browsing PC via an iFrame on a web site and published the first feature in our mini-series from the UK TransferSummit.
- CSI:Internet - Alarm at the pizza service
- TransferSummit - Open innovation in software means Open Source
Open Source
Open Source Initiative board member Simon Phipps announced that he would develop a new member-led governance charter for the organisation, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth confirmed that rumours of a special version of Ubuntu Linux for tablets were based on a misunderstanding and European Commissioner Neelie Kroes emphasised choosing open standards. OFCOM announced plans to encrypt the Freeview HD service's electronic programme guide, causing issues for open source developers creating applications that decode TV, and FFmpeg and Opera added support for the open WebM / VP8 video format. Google is reportedly "laser focused" on the user experience for the next major update to its open source Android mobile operating system and Logitech announced that its Android-based Google TV set-top box will officially be called "Logitech Revue with Google TV".
- Phipps leads change at Open Source Initiative
- No Ubuntu for tablets
- European Commissioner: "Choosing open standards is a very smart business decision"
- Freeview HD to have encrypted EPG
- FFmpeg 0.6 adds WebM/VP8 support
- Opera 10.60 Beta supports WebM / VP8
- Report: Google focusing on UI for next major Android release
- Logitech's Google TV box to be called Revue
Open Source Releases
- WordPress 3.0 adds multi-site support
- Mozilla issues final Thunderbird 3.1 release candidate
- Mozilla releases Thunderbird 3.0.5
- Mozilla releases Firefox 3.7 Alpha 5 developer preview
- Flock 3 Beta drops Firefox, switches to Chromium
- Sugar on a Stick v3 Mirabelle released
- OLPC XO-1.5 software updated
- Parted Magic partitioning tool updated
- NetBeans IDE 6.9 arrives
- First beta of SharpDevelop 4
- Khronos Group releases OpenCL 1.1
- Transmission 2.00 BitTorrent client released
- MonoDevelop 2.4 released
- SyncEvolution 1.0 now with built-in SyncML server
- Version 2.5.0 of the Parrot virtual machine released
- Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition 2.0: Windows in the cloud
- openSUSE 11.3 first release candidate available
Security
This week, the Wi-Fi Alliance confirmed that it would begin disallowing WEP and TKIP encryption in access points, the open source IRC server UnrealIRCd developers reported that their file servers have been compromised for several months and that the IRC server code had been replaced by a version with a built-in backdoor and Microsoft installed yet another Firefox add-on without asking users for permission. Apple updated its Snow Leopard operating system to version 10.6.4 and issued a security update for users running Mac OS X 10.5.8. AT&T's Chief Privacy Officer issued an apology email to iPad 3G owners for leaking the email addresses of more than 100,000 of its customers. Later in the week, AT&T had further problems handling iPhone 4 pre-orders and inadvertently leaked more confidential customer data. Adobe withdrew the native 64-bit version of its Flash Player on Linux, leaving some users exposed to a number of vulnerabilities.
- WEP and TKIP Wi-Fi encryption methods to be discontinued
- IRC server had backdoor in source code for months
- Microsoft installs another Firefox add-on without asking users' permission
- Apple releases Mac OS X 10.6.4 update
- AT&T apologises to iPad 3G owners for security breach
- Further problems at AT&T
- Flash Player 10 for 64-bit Linux vanishes, leaving some users exposed
Security Alerts
To see all last week's news see The H's last seven days of news and to keep up with The H, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow honlinenews on Twitter. You can follow The H's own tweeting on Twitter as honline.
(crve)