Synchronica Evades iPhone Corporate E-Mail Barrier
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Synchronica has updated its Mobile Gateway 3.0 middleware to let iPhone users synchronize email with Microsoft Exchange.
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(InfoWorld) - What a world. We have to fight off viruses, zombies, bots, phishing, and on and on. Can you believe how many just plain evil people there are in the world? And what is their point? Simple thievery? To prove they are smarter than the rest of us? And think of all the money that's spent on defending, as best we can, against these miscreants or in cleaning up the mess when they get the better of us? Indeed, what a waste. While viruses have appeared on mobile devices, they are, thankfully, few and far between. Part of the reason for this has been a lack of standardization of software environments on handsets, and part is due to the minimal functionality that is typical on these products. It's hard for the socially challenged to overwrite boot sectors, corrupt data, or otherwise run amok on most cell phones today. Apple's decision to limit local software execution on the iPhone is undoubtedly due, at least in part, to a fundamental fear of hackers. While the Macintosh hasn't been much of a target for the hacker community, the iPhone could be a lot more tempting. There will be far more iPhones than Macs in the world in just a few years. Plus, Apple partner AT&T doesn't need the support headaches that come with having a large number of users jamming its 800 numbers with reports of bizarre symptoms on their iPhones. Regardless, being a Web services guy, I absolutely applaud Apple for moving the Web services art forward a notch or two with a very capable platform that might indeed replace PCs for many of us over the next decade or so. We don't need to run a lot of local code to have a meaningful IT experience while on the go. Of course, the iPhone will be hacked over time, requiring updates and fixes, just as is the case with the PC. There are already reports of hackers working diligently to unlock the phone so that non-AT&T SIM cards can be used, and to avoid cellular activation so that the device would be used only Wi-Fi networks -- with VoFi services, of course. Any programmable device runs this kind of risk, and defending against unauthorized code will remain a challenge for some time to come. Which brings me to a really obscure but very important, shall we say, "opportunity" for hackers. Last year, I wrote about one of the most exciting technology developments in wireless, software-defined radio (SDR). Basically, SDR simplifies radio hardware design by replacing specialized circuitry with software. Among the many benefits of SDR are over-the-air bug fixes, the ability to add new features on demand, and dynamic reprogrammability -- turning, for example, a GSM phone into a CDMA phone or even Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or UWB or whatever on the fly. With so much software at play here, the question has to be asked: Could an SDR get hacked? Suppose someone figures out how to build a virus that quickly spreads to SDR-based handsets, disabling them or using them as jammers or worse? What if those handsets are being used for public-safety applications? This is not to say that hacking is the only vector for wireless disruptions. After all, anyone can use a jammer to disable communications in a local area, and any moron with a reasonable shortwave transmitter can pretend to be an air traffic controller. That fact that we still use an unencrypted, unauthenticated communications protocol for such a critical service boggles my mind. The FCC is rightfully concerned about SDR hacking and has issued new regulations for SDRs that mostly attempt to deal with open source software in SDR applications. There is significant concern that open source software creates specific vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. I don't think this is very likely for two reasons. First, open source isn't the same as open architectures. Each product vendor would of necessity keep certain elements of their implementation secret, locking out all but the most determined hackers. But secondly, and more importantly, the real issue is how to protect individual phones from ever loading harmful software. We already have pretty good techniques for this from the PC world, and there are many effective approaches to solving this particular security concern. It could even be argued that the technical scrutiny that comes with open source actually enhances security and integrity; the real issue is controlling what software, open source or not, gets onto the mobile device. As I noted in my last column, the big issue with SDR isn't hackers or security: It is the need to lower the power demands of SDR implementations so that they have a prayer of running on batteries. The road to SDR-based handsets isn't at all paved yet, but open source is a relatively minor concern.
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New software from Ribbit could make it easier to stay in touch.
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Launched in public beta on Wednesday, HyperOffice's enterprise communications tools will enable Apple iPhone users to synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, since the iPhone doesn't support Microsoft Exchange.
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But global roaming still some way off Hackers have succeeded in (partially) unlocking the iPhone so Apple's much-hyped device can be used on at least one network other than AT&amp;T.â¦
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A hacker group has released what it says is a one-click way to install unauthorized third-party applications on an iPhone or iPod Touch. You still can't switch the iPhone to another wireless carrier.
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The wireless airwaves may get a bit more crowded next year following the announcement that Intellisync'sÂ  goAnywhere technology, unveiled this week, will give users of low-cost feature phones the same push e-mail capability that is now only available on pricier smart phones.
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(InfoWorld) - No one ever said Apple marketers weren't clever. So if they wanted to start a firestorm of ISVs developing applications for the iPhone, how better to do that than to make development as simple as possible with the least barriers? Nevertheless, until we hear more details from Apple about the way in which applications are handled on the iPhone, we won't know how clever Apple really is. At WWDC07, Jobs promised that there will be a "new way to create applications for the iPhone" due mainly to the fact that it uses the full Safari browser engine. But a lot of developers are disappointed with what Apple is offering. "Web-based apps are cool for a lot of things. But what people were looking forward to was to to let them develop native applications," said Anthony MeadowÂ , president of Bear River AssociatesÂ , an ISV for mobile applications Without native access to facilities, you don't have storage or sharing of information between applications, or reading and writing from address book and iCal. "There is not any easy way to do that with a Web-based application," said Meadow. Overall, Meadow was not impressed. Although he admitted it is really not very clear what Apple intends. But, he added, "If they don't intend to have access, they should just tell us." Ken Dulaney, the senior mobile analyst with Gartner says Apple's Web 2.0 solution is likely to be similar to what RIM does now. "It avoids having to put code down on the device," Says Dulaney, which in turn protects it from crashing due to outside influences. On RIM devices, the application is rendered on the server side, and the cache in the browser reformats it and pushes it down to the device. "The code is only resident briefly on the device," Dulaney said. Similar technology is also used by device manufacturers using mobile Linux from MontaVista. Now resident on tens of millions of cell phones, the MontaVista design uses a "computing peer" design, Linux on the server and on the phone, giving developers the flexibility of partitioning an application on the client side and server side. An ISV can put a heavy load on the phone or a light one, says Jim Ready, CTO and founder of MontaVista. "Linux on the phone is every bit as capable as Linux on the server," said Ready. Certainly this supports similar statements from Jobs about Safari on the desktop and Safari on the iPhone. However, like Meadow at Bear River, Ready has some reservations about the future capabilities or the richness of applications running on the iPhone. When applications are developed solely using an "abstracted" development environment that doesn't talk to the lower layers of the device, such as the hardware and middleware, there is a dividing line in terms of the capabilities of the application. "Take video frame rates. The reason you back out of an abstracted environment is because you pay for the abstraction in performance. It is a tradeoff," said Ready. And not only for performance -- developers also need to write native applications that get down closer to access the hardware and the middleware for size and control reasons, as well, although Meadow doesn't see access to hardware as a major problem. "There is a handful of people that care about writing to the chips. It is possibly useful for really high performance graphic drivers and low level networking code," he says. So where does that leave gamers and business users whose need for rich network applications might be problematic on the iPhone? Unfortunately, until the full story is known, it is hard to tell what the software limitations of the iPhone will be. Certainly, if Apple wants the device to be a great mobile gaming system for use by millions of road warriors during those long waits at the airport, it will have to address the issue of how to get developers to write applications native to both the hardware and middleware. In business as well, cell phones are currently being used with customized software, such as bar code and RFID readers. "You can't do that with a browser interface," says Jerry Panagrossi, vice present of U.S. Operations for Symbian. "You need something more in-depth that can talk to IBM or Oracle middleware using native APIs for a richer experience." Jim Ready at MontaVista sums it up when he says keeping the development environment as simple as possible will facilitate the largest amount of applications. As far as the capabilities of those applications Ready says, "There are limits, but sometimes it's okay that there are limits."
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Hackers have found a way to use  Apple Inc's  iPhone on networks other than AT&T Inc's  , opening up the coveted device to rival carriers and  overseas customers, according to a Web report on Friday.
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Apple has released an update to iTunes that blocks users from creating free custom ringtones and then syncing them to an iPhone. Despite Apple&#8217;s best efforts to thwart users, a workaround has already been found and posted to the Internet.
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Alternative e-mail client will compete with Outlook Express and Eudora.
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Intrusion prevention capabilities in IOS can be circumvented by hackers, putting companies at risk of attack.
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(InfoWorld) - A company that unlocks cell phones in Europe said it is close to having an application that will allow customers to unlock their Apple iPhones so they can use SIM cards from carriers other than AT&T to activate the phones. In an interview this week in New York, John McLaughlin, founder of Belfast, U.K.-based Uniquephones, said he has engineers working around the clock in several countries who are close to cracking the complex security system Apple has set up to ensure customers can only use iPhones with AT&T Wireless service. The race by hackers to unlock iPhones has been on since the phone was released last Friday. Currently, AT&T Wireless has an exclusive deal with Apple to provide service for iPhones, and customers must agree to a two-year service plan with the company. However, customers have complained that the carrier's wireless service is slow, and according to McLaughlin, there has been tremendous interest in the ability to unlock the phone. By Sunday night, he said, more than 150,000 inquires had come in through the Web site he set up to request IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers from customer iPhones. While not everyone would volunteer their IMEI numbers, they still expressed interest in learning how to unlock their iPhones, McLaughlin said. When the site was set up, he thought it would be an easy case of supplying unlock codes from AT&T to unlock iPhones. But sometime over the weekend after iPhones went on sale, unlock codes from AT&T for about 6,000 iPhones disappeared from the carrier's database, and McLaughlin's team also realized it would be a more complex matter than simply providing an unlock code to release iPhones from AT&T's grip. There is at least a two-step process to unlocking an iPhone, McLaughlin said. His team has been able to unlock the activation process to the AT&T SIM card specific to an iPhone so another AT&T SIM card can work with the phone and be activated through iTunes. However, any attempt to change the firmware of an iPhone so it can support another carrier's SIM card breaks the phone, he said. The key to unlocking the phone is breaking the encryption process that protects the token sent through the iTunes activation process to an iPhone's firmware, McLaughlin believes. Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen, also known as "DVD John" because he cracked the DVD encryption scheme, claims he's been able to unlock the iPhone beyond the activation process that requires an AT&T account but said the device can't be used as a phone when that happens. Even after an iPhone were unlocked, it still could only work on carrier networks that support the GSM network, which is what AT&T's service is based on. In the U.S., T-Mobile is the only major carrier on a GSM network. And there is no guarantee Apple will not lock down the phones again in a future firmware update through the iPhone synchronization process or create a new way to unlock the next wave of iPhones they put on the market. That is, in fact, exactly what one analyst said will happen. "I assume that someone will succeed in unlocking the iPhone," said Avi Greengart, principal analyst, mobile devices at Current Analysis. "I also assume Apple will close whatever loophole is open the next time they synchronize [the software]." It's also likely there will be complications with special features of the phone that are designed to work only on AT&T's network, such as the visual voicemail feature, he said. Greengart said that he sympathizes with those that might want to use an iPhone with another carrier but "that's not the way the product was designed." "Exclusive agreements are not that unusual in this industry at all," he said. Aaron Santell, an iPhone user in New York, said that he would have preferred to use the service provider he has for his Blackberry device, Verizon Wireless, when he purchased an iPhone. But using AT&T's service is "a small price to pay" to use a device that provides such a rich user experience as the iPhone does, he said. As one might imagine, unlocking phones is a thorny issue with carriers, which certainly don't condone it. Carriers will give users unlock codes upon request for a fee, but they don't encourage the practice. In the U.K. and Europe, third parties have been unlocking handsets for several years, although there is no law that specifically protects them, McLaughlin said. However, in the U.S., it is legal to unlock mobile handsets under an amendment to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that was passed in November 2006. McLaughlin said that even though it's legal in the U.S. to unlock phones, he anticipates that if his team is successful, Apple may take legal action against them based on their tinkering with the firmware. "They'll probably come after us for copyright infringement," he said. Apple did not reply to requests for comment Thursday. McLaughlin plans to charge customers about $49.99 for software to unlock iPhones. Even if Uniquephones is not the first to offer unlocking capability, it won't be hard for them to replicate what others have done once the encryption is cracked, he added.
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Remote PC access software company Orb has announced support for iPhone and iPod Touch, allowing users to stream their music, movies, and TV without being locked into iTunes.
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Navio, the company which soon plans on releasing songs in Apple's FairPlay format, powers Shockwave's new mobile video-game portal, but one key feature is missing thanks to cell carriers' restrictions. In Listening Post.
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There's a new way to send large movie, music and other files without worrying about whether the e-mail systems can handle large attachments.
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(InfoWorld) - NokiaÂ is aiming to boost the use of mobile e-mail in the enterprise with a new release of its Intellisync software and several new handsets aimed at business users. The new products, announced during the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, may help Nokia better compete with Microsoft, which introduced the latest version of its mobile phone software,Â Windows Mobile 6.0, at the conference. Windows Mobile 6.0 and Intellisync both enable mobile access to corporate e-mail. Nokia sees huge potential in the business user. "Soon, half the population of the world will use a mobile phone, yet the mobile phone is still considered a privilege if you're working in a company," said Antti Vasara, senior vice president of mobile devices in Nokia's enterprise solutions group. Fewer than 10 percent of employees in the enterprise use mobile e-mail, he said, leaving large potential for growth. Intellisync Mobile Suite 8.0, announced on Monday, could help drive that growth, Nokia said. The new release is designed to make it easier and more affordable to extend mobile e-mail beyond the executive suite and traveling sales staff, said Vasala. Nokia's Intellisync platform allows phone users to send and receive corporate e-mail on their phones and sync information like calendar and contacts with their enterprise data. It also helps administrators manage and secure mobile access. Users now have flexible options for deployment, including fully hosted or partially hosted service. In addition, an enterprise can choose to enable an entry-level service that lets users read, compose and delete e-mails and manage local folders. The professional service includes other features such as attachment handling and personal information synchronization. Intellisync is compatible with Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm and some lower-end Java-based phones. Nokia plans to make Intellisync compatible with Windows Vista, the newest version of Microsoft's PC operating system, but did not say when. In addition to the new release of Intellisync, Nokia introduced a few new phones aimed at business users. The E90 is the latest version of the Communicator, the phone that flips open to reveal a full keyboard and four-inch screen. The E90 will use Nokia's S60 software platform, unlike previous Communicator versions which used the S80 platform. It includes new capabilities such as an MP3 player, FM radio and a video player. It also includes a still camera, video camera, Wi-Fi and GPS (Global Positioning System). Nokia also announced the E61i, a new version of that phone that is thinner than before and features advanced e-mail attachment handling. The E65 is another new phone in Nokia's range of business handsets, with a slider to reveal the keyboard. Nokia also introduced a few phones for consumers, including the N77, a phone designed for watching mobile TV over DVB-H networks. The cost of DVB-H chips is expected to decline to around â¬7 (US$9) next year, making TV phones more affordable, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of Nokia said. He expects 5 million to 10 million such devices will be sold in 2008, increasing to 20 million by 2009. Nokia also announcedÂ an alliance with YouTube, where YouTube videos will become available through a new feature on some Nokia Nseries phones called the Nokia Video Center. The Video Center will offer a single place on the phone where users can find, view and store their video content. YouTube announced last week that Vodafone GroupÂ would begin offering mobile access to the site.