Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

I was somewhat scared when I noticed this list of usernames / passwords for MySpace. Yeah, someone actually managed to hack my MySpace account, which is more incredible given that I don’t ever log into it:

Myspace hacked accounts 3/20/08
Here a list of myspace accounts and passwords

Example:
Username : Passwords get it

MySpace is pretty advanced in this regard; somehow they detected that my account had been compromised and when I logged in now to change the password, I received this neat message warning me:

MySpace Announcement: Your account has been phished!

What can I do?
Change your password. And don’t use your current password ever again. Why do I care? We’ve blocked your account until you change your password. This means you can’t send a message, post a bulletin, send a comment or add a friend until you’ve changed your password.

What does “phished” mean?
“Phished” means that someone stole the email address & password that you use to login to MySpace. They might be sending out messages, comments or bulletins as you!

How did this happen?
You went to a fake page that asked for your MySpace login email and password, and you gave them your info. Only login to www.myspace.com. Learn more

I’ve changed all my users and passwords now, but still it’s a tiring experience…

Gawker is running an interesting story, Sarah Palin’s Personal Emails, about how Sarah Palin’s personal emails were leaked to Wikileak’s Sarah Palin Yahoo inbox 2008. Apparently an unknown individual loosely associated with the anti-Scientology movement Anonymous obtained access to gov.sarah@yahoo.com, Sarah Palin’s email address, and took some screenshots of the emails he found there:

It looks legit! The offending posts, screenshots, heretofore unseen family photos, and emails have all been deleted from Imageshack and 4Chan. But we have them. You want to read Sarah Palin’s email?

It’s kind of sad to see Palin’s email only has 174 total messages. I’ve been using email for hopefully less time than her, yet my gmail account has 48,163 email messages in it (say three years worth. Perhaps John McCain picked a running mate for VP as technically inept as he is.

Disclosure: I think Sarah Palin sucks for a VP pick.

Update: The suspect who allegedly hacked Sarah Palin’s email is University of Tennessee student David Kernell. His father is democratic state representative Mike Kernell. Interesting…

Apple has become notorious for removing applications from the iPhone app store, generating huge amounts of controversy as each application is removed. This post aims to aggregate the controversy into a single page, for reference.

The infamous I am Rich application sold 8 copies of the above glowing jewel for $999 a pop. The author, Armin Heinrich, said “I am sure a lot more people would like to buy it, but currently can’t do so,” Heinrich said. “The App is a work of Art and included a secret mantra; that’s all.” The application was pulled from the iTunes store on August 7th after reviews like

“I saw this app with a few friends and we jokingly clicked ‘buy’ thinking it was a joke, to see what would happen. … THIS IS NO JOKE…DO NOT BUY THIS APP AND APPLE PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM THE APP STORE”

began to appear for the application. There is still no official comment from Apple as to why they removed the expensive, artsy application. According to the L.A. Times, Heinrich is also baffled: “I have no idea why they did it and am not aware of any violation of the rules to sell software on the App Store.”

Slasher, an iPhone app which “displays a common kitchen knife on the screen and plays a horror sound when you make a stabbing motion” was pulled from the App Store for violating section 3.3.12 of the iPhone SDK agreement covering objectionable content:

3.3.12 Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.

The Author is still trying to get clarification about what this means and get his application back into the App store. However, it sets an unfortunate precedent that any application (think about Religious apps, bound to offend other Religions…) can be pulled simply because someone, somewhere claims to be offended.

Carling Brewery’s iPint application was removed from the Apple store after a mistake in classification caused the enormously popular application to be listed internationally, instead of in the local UK market. iPint is still available for UK iTunes users.

Erica Sadun’s light-making application apparently made the iPhone’s LCD brighter than the default brightness. Somehow this was a violation of Apple SDK, and the App has vanished from the App Store. If you know more about “Light”, please leave a comment. I can find little on it.

PhoneSaber was an iPhone application to emulate swinging a Star Wars lightsaber around. As you swing your phone, it would emit various sound effects. According to this post, Mac Box took down the app voluntarily after a THQ rep communicated that they violated Lucasfilm’s mobile licensing.

As you all know, Netshare, the innovative app that let you use your edge or 3G cellular as a local wifi router, essentially tethering for the iPhone, was pulled by Apple after AT&T leaned on them. Nullriver notes that “we’ve received no communication from Apple thus far. NetShare did not violate any of the Developer or AppStore agreements.”