Looking at the EXIF data attached to the photographs, where it's available, and the structure of the filenames I can see that only some of them came from iPhones/iCloud. I can also see photographs from Android phones (Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy 5s) likely acquired via Google Drive, other photographs clearly taken from Dropbox accounts (the dumps include default dropbox files), and many clearly taken from Twitter and Facebook private messages (filenames are a dead giveaway). Some of the filenames look like those you would get from a recovery or backup programme rather than an auto generated one, which chimes with what victims have said on Twitter regarding deleting the images months or even years ago. In any case there are clearly multiple sources and as usual Apple Derangement Syndrome is in full swing. Likely as not this was related to the heartbleed bug. Large amounts of passwords were acquired around that time, and were probably being used on multiple services. It's equally possible that this wasn't a breach at Apple et al but a breach of Amazon Web Services or Microsoft's Azure as those services are used to backup data from iCloud, Google Drive, and many others. What's worse for some of the celebs is that the pictures contain GPS data that could compromise their homes.

A brute-force program to hack AppleID passwords was recently uploaded to the software-hosting GitHub. The program, appropriately called iBrute, is designed to flood AppleID logons with possible password combinations. The assumption is that the hacker would know the username, often derived from an email address.

Shortly before the stolen images were announced, the owner of iBrute announced the vulnerability — Find My iPhone did not deny access to brute force methods of figuring out a password. Early this morning, the same iBrute owner announced that the vulnerability has been closed, although there has not yet been confirmation from Apple.

iBrute is now reportedly locked out. But there is also speculation that the Find My iPhone hack was not solely to blame for all the apparently stolen files. For instance, someone could trick a celebrity user — or the celebrity’s assistant — into revealing enough information to gain access to iCloud backups. Additionally, it’s possible other online services were involved, since some of the images reportedly show celebrities using Android mobile devices.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/09...

...the problem, this is not only totally feasible, it is also absolutely necessary.

I prototyped a video recording device that started recording the second it was popped out of its charging/data cradle and kept going for thirty six hours straight during longevity testing - on a cellphone battery, through a HD (720p) sensor, at 30fps, with audio, onto a 64GB memory card.

Hardware can be had for less than £75 per unit. That includes the memory card.

POLICE LIE. THEY BULLSHIT THEIR WAY THROUGH COURT CASES TO SECURE A CONVICTION, AND THEY FABRICATE EVIDENCE AND FORCE CONFESSIONS. So called "public oversight" is nothing of the sort. IA are POLICE. In England, we now have Police Commissioners, who are themselves serving police officers. We are in the process of winding down the IPCC (the Independent Police Complaints Commission) which is also staffed by serving police officers. They all piss in the same fucking pot!

And get off your privacy high horse, per Judge Munby in the Stafford case: PUBLIC SERVANTS IN THE COURSE OF THEIR DUTIES HAVE NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY. If you have a compact camera, keep the battery charged and carry it with you! RECORD every interaction you have or observe with police officers. I guarantee you, you will record evidence particularly when they "order" you to delete the file! (that's called "spoliation" and the mere mention of requiring someone else to do it is a criminal offence).

I'm not sure about that. I mean, they released the footage of Brown robbing a convenience store for cigars and shoving around the clerk, which happened just before the shooting, but a lot of people in Ferguson still regard him as some sort of hero or martyr.

>>For the purposes of the study, science-literate is a new term which means tops in those criteria studied.

Actually I work in education. Scientific literacy is a concept that has been around for a long time, and is generally defined to mean scientific concepts that everyone should understand.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_literacy

>For the matter of however it correlates to whatever way you define literacy is not the author's problem. They collected the data and Canada is at the top in the data they collected. Science-literacy is not laid out, well defined term so you go

It is, actually.

So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

GitHub has become a facebook.com alternative for the 1337 haxxor set and alot of people use it for free hosting to put up a personal site

that's my experience anyway...the idea is great, a website that hosts code for coding projects...but the whole abstraction layer of calling it a 'Git' still irks me...it's not a 'git' it's a computer file that contains code...

any frequent uses of GitHub care to comment? what does /. think?

Not all of the code on GitHub is open source, but the majority is -- handy, when that means an account is free as in beer, too.

I'm not privy to any details of GitHub's finances or business model, but most likely it's a good thing that there are non-open-source projects using GitHub, because that's probably what's paying for the free open source use. I've recommended to several clients developing proprietary software the use of GitHub rather than running their own in-house repositories, because the interface is easier for them to use and they don't need as much in-house expertise to manage things. Because Git is distributed, they could of course do both, or easily transition away from GitHub later, and that's a selling point.

"[O]nly 25% of Canadians surveyed agreed with the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith", as opposed to 55% in the U.S. and 38% in the E.U."

Seriously? I was expecting a survey of scientific literacy to be about, you know, scientific literacy, not asking people the relative merits, as it were, between science and religion.

I'm not sure how this proves, quote, "Canada is a nation of science geeks." It's a complete non-sequitor. It doesn't even match the data, in which 58% of Canadians couldn't understand basic science concepts from newspaper stories, and in which Canada ranks 19th out of 29th in science degrees (by percentage).

Contrawise, Americans, sure, value religion probably more highly than other countries, and might even think that we could use more religion, but that is not a question of scientific literacy or attitudes towards science in and of itself. It seems to presuppose the long-discredited Conflict Thesis, which states that religion and science are inherently always in conflict.

The clincher for me - which indisputably shows the authors' bias - is that Canada ranks #1 in people protesting GMOs and nuclear power, and the authors consider this a good sign that their population is scientifically literate!

The authors should get back to ...

euphorically sniffing their own armpits, and stop pretending to be scientists. Or whatever you call the people that work at science museums.

It is sad to see that Mr. Pendleton had an experience similar to my own. I was laid off the year I turned 48. Unlike him, however, I stayed in management despite hating it and still became unemployed. I hope Mr. Pendleton finds success and happiness in whatever he chooses.

I think the reason there's no job security in programming is because basically, nobody's really doing any "programming" these days.

Modern programmers know less about machines and languages than they do APIs and UIs. Everything is so object-oriented and encapsulated, and there are so many square pegs developers are asked to fit into round holes, they're not really designing stuff as much as working on an assembly line sticking various parts-pieces together with no real sense of oversight of the big picture.

If anonymity with a cell phone was important you'd be spending that subscription fee on a new burner every week.

I can teach you: pay people smaller salaries. Compare average income in India and The West to see why cost of building stuff is different. The cost of a potato is the income of the person who grew it.

FTFY. In short, that post says that they'd lose a lot if they made a pdf instead of their magazine app, and thus they only make it for the iPad because... well, just because. Personally, I'm going to assume they chose to use some platform specific toolset(s) and either lack the time or expertise to port to other platforms or do cross platform development... of a magazine.

The interactive features they'd lose is the ability to click on a title and have it go directly to the app store on your device and have you playing with minimal interruption (according to their post). I don't see why that'd be lost. Just have different links in each platform specific version and leave the content the same, so the iPad version links to the app store; the windows version links to the homepage; the android version links to the google play store; etc etc.

Whatever. It's their business decision. No real reason they don't support other platforms.