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Microsoft should join Apple in the exclusive $3 trillion club by early 2024 – analyst

tigaman webdesign — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 21:15:54 +0000

Apple hit a new all-time high on June 30 of $192 per share, enough of a boost for the company to once again breach a $3 trillion market cap, but the company should get some company in the exclusive club by early next year, Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives believes.

Ian Krietzberg for TheStreet:

Apple seems like the clear leader among its tech giant peers, Wedbush’s Dan Ives thinks there will soon be a second company around to breathe that rarified $3 trillion air: Microsoft.

“We estimate for every $100 of cloud Azure spend with there is an incremental $35-$40 of AI spend that now is on the table which changes the game,” Ives tweeted. “We believe on a sum-of-the-parts valuation that Microsoft should join Apple in the exclusive $3 trillion club by early 2024.”

Ives, predicting last week that Apple will be worth $4 trillion by 2025, believes that “the new bull market in tech has begun. We see tech stocks up another 15% second half of the year.”

MacDailyNews Take: Apple leads. Microsoft follows. As usual.

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Apple Supplier TSMC Suffers Data Breach, Hackers Demand $70M

tigaman webdesign — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 18:15:09 +0000

Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company today confirmed to TechCrunch that it recently suffered a data breach. TSMC is responsible for creating all of the A-series and M-series chips used in Apple devices.

A TSMC spokesperson said that a “cybersecurity incident” caused data “pertinent to server initial setup and configuration” to leak, but TSMC customer information was not impacted.

“Upon review, this incident has not affected TSMC’s business operations, nor did it compromise any TSMC’s customer information. After the incident, TSMC has immediately terminated its data exchange with this concerned supplier in accordance with the Company’s security protocols and standard operating procedures.”

Data from TSMC was listed on the LockBit ransomware gang’s website on Thursday, with LockBit demanding $70 million to prevent it from publishing the stolen data. LockBit has attacked pharmaceutical companies, the UK’s Royal Mail, U.S. government websites, and more.

LockBit says that if TSMC does not pay up, it will also publish passwords and logins. The data was stolen from Kinmax Technology, a company that provides IT services like networking, cloud computing, storage, and database management. Kinmax was working with TSMC, and on Thursday, told TSMC that its “internal specific testing environment was attacked,” leading to the leak of “system installation preparation.”

Other Kinmax partners include Microsoft, Cisco, and VMware, and it is not known if those companies were also impacted.

Tag: TSMC

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TSMC & hack group differ on whose data got stolen

tigaman webdesign — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 16:42:06 +0000

Ransomware gang LockBit claims it has breached Apple chip supplier TSMC — but TSMC says no, the group only got into a minor supplier’s systems and nothing of the processor firm’s was taken.

LockBit has recently been targeting Apple Silicon in its ransomware attacks. Now it claims to have successfully gone after TSMC, the manufacturer that makes Apple Silicon processors.According to TechCrunch, TSMC confirmed the data breach after the LockBit group publicized that its hack. The ransom demanded to prevent the stolen data being published is $70 million — but TSMC says the Russian-linked gang did not succeed in getting any of its data.

Apple supplier TSMC hit by data breach, ransomware group demanding $70 million payment

tigaman webdesign — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 16:00:09 +0000

Apple’s chipmaker partner TSMC has confirmed that it was impacted by a data breach on one of its third-party suppliers. As reported by TechCrunch, the ransomware group LockBit claimed responsibility for the breach and is demanding a ransom payment of $70 million not to leak the stolen data.

more…

The post Apple supplier TSMC hit by data breach, ransomware group demanding $70 million payment appeared first on 9to5Mac.

Plex hit with layoffs as ad-supported streaming service fails to deliver profits for media server company

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 15:19:11 +0000

It’s been a tough week at Plex where the company has decided to let go of 20% of its workforce. Plex CEO Keith Valory blamed an unpredictable advertising market for the need to downsize.

more…

The post Plex hit with layoffs as ad-supported streaming service fails to deliver profits for media server company appeared first on 9to5Mac.

Apple to argue against EU antitrust charge at hearing triggered by Spotify

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 12:51:21 +0000

Apple will argue against a revised EU antitrust charge and a possible fine on Friday. The charge alleges that Apple prevents music streaming companies like Spotify from telling users about other ways to buy subscriptions outside of Apple’s App Store. The company will present its case to senior European Commission officials and their counterparts at national competition agencies at a closed hearing in Brussels.

Foo Yun Chee for Reuters:

EU antitrust enforcers earlier this year boosted their case against the company’s so-called anti-steering obligations, but dropped an earlier charge against Apple’s requirement that developers use its in-app payment system.

The Commission said the anti-steering obligations breach EU rules against unfair trading conditions, a relatively novel legal argument in an antitrust case.

Apple has said there is no merit in the case triggered by a Spotify complaint in 2019, pointing to the Swedish music streaming service’s dominant market share in Europe, where Apple Music trails in third or fourth place in most EU countries.

Its other argument is that it has revised rules to allow reader apps such as Spotify and Netflix to include links to their website for sign-ups and user payments, allowing app developers to bypass its controversial 30% App Store fee.

MacDailyNews Take: Spotify can’t compete, so they litigate.

It’s easier to litigate than to compete. Spotify is a lazy company. – MacDailyNews, June 25, 2019

Spotify wants all of the benefits of Apple’s App Store for free.

Whiners forever. Spotify’ll be bleating like sheep as they disappear into the ether. – MacDailyNews, September 16, 2020

See also: Apple: We collect fees on less than 1% of Spotify users – June 25, 2019

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Apple to argue against EU antitrust charge at hearing triggered by Spotify

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 12:51:21 +0000

Foo Yun Chee for Reuters:

EU antitrust enforcers earlier this year boosted their case against the company’s so-called anti-steering obligations, but dropped an earlier charge against Apple’s requirement that developers use its in-app payment system.

The Commission said the anti-steering obligations breach EU rules against unfair trading conditions, a relatively novel legal argument in an antitrust case.

Apple has said there is no merit in the case triggered by a Spotify complaint in 2019, pointing to the Swedish music streaming service’s dominant market share in Europe, where Apple Music trails in third or fourth place in most EU countries.

Its other argument is that it has revised rules to allow reader apps such as Spotify and Netflix to include links to their website for sign-ups and user payments, allowing app developers to bypass its controversial 30% App Store fee.

MacDailyNews Take: Spotify can’t compete, so they litigate.

It’s easier to litigate than to compete. Spotify is a lazy company. – MacDailyNews, June 25, 2019

Spotify wants all of the benefits of Apple’s App Store for free.

Whiners forever. Spotify’ll be bleating like sheep as they disappear into the ether. – MacDailyNews, September 16, 2020

See also: Apple: We collect fees on less than 1% of Spotify users – June 25, 2019

Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!

Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.

The post Apple to argue against EU antitrust charge at hearing triggered by Spotify appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Apple opposes UK bill that could mandate backdoor scanning in iMessage

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 17:24:46 +0000

Apple is the Online Safety Bill as it could be used to force encrypted messaging tools like iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal and other to scan messages for, ostensibly, child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Apple’s opposition comes as 80 organizations and tech experts have written to UK Technology Minister Chloe Smith urging a rethink.

Chris Vallance for The Beeb:

Apple told the BBC the bill should be amended to protect encryption.

Police, the government and some high-profile child protection charities maintain the tech – used in apps such as WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage – prevents law enforcement and the firms themselves from identifying the sharing of child sexual abuse material.

But in a statement Apple said: “End-to-end encryption is a critical capability that protects the privacy of journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats.
“It also helps everyday citizens defend themselves from surveillance, identity theft, fraud, and data breaches. The Online Safety Bill poses a serious threat to this protection, and could put UK citizens at greater risk.

“Apple urges the government to amend the bill to protect strong end-to-end encryption for the benefit of all.”

Several messaging platforms, including Signal and WhatsApp, have previously told the BBC they will refuse to weaken the privacy of their encrypted messaging systems if directed to do so.

Signal said in February that it would “walk” from the UK if forced to weaken the privacy of its encrypted messaging app.

Apple’s statement now means that some of the most widely used encrypted apps oppose this part of the bill.

In 2021 Apple announced plans to scan photographs on people’s iPhones for abusive content before they were uploaded to iCloud but these were abandoned after a backlash. It has now clearly signalled its opposition to any measure that weakens the privacy of end-to-end encryption.

MacDailyNews Take: As Apple should. (Here’s why.)

The open letter signed by over 80 civil society organizations calls on the UK government to protect digital security and private communications by removing provisions from the Online Safety Bill that would require communications service providers to add “backdoors” to encrypted messaging services, undermining safety for all. Here it is, verbatim:

To: Chloe Smith, Secretary of State,

Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

cc: Tom Tugendhat, Minister of State for Security, Home Office Paul Scully, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay

Dear Ms Smith,

Online Safety Bill: Civil society organisations urge UK to protect global digital security and safeguard private communication.

We are over 80 national and international civil society organisations, academics and cyber- experts. We represent a wide range of perspectives including digital human rights and technology. We are writing to you to raise our concerns about the serious threat to the security of private and encrypted messaging posed by the UK’s proposed Online Safety Bill (OSB).

The Online Safety Bill is a deeply troubling legislative proposal. If passed in its present form, the UK could become the first liberal democracy to require the routine scanning of people’s private chat messages, including chats that are secured by end-to-end encryption. As over 40 million UK citizens and 2 billion people worldwide rely on these services, this poses a significant risk to the security of digital communication services not only in the UK, but also internationally.

End-to-end encryption ensures the security of communications for everyone on a network.

It is designed so that no-one, including the platform provider, can read or alter the messages. The confidentiality between sender and recipient is completely preserved. That’s why the United Nations, several human rights groups, and anti-human trafficking organisations alike have emphasised that encryption is a vital human rights tool. [i]

In order to comply with the Online Safety Bill, platform providers would have to break that protection either by removing it or by developing work-arounds. Any form of work-around risks compromising the security of the messaging platform, creating back-doors, and other dangerous ways and means for malicious actors and hostile states to corrupt the system. [ii] This would put all users in danger.

The UK government has indicated its intention for providers to use a technology that would scan chats on people’s phone and devices – known as client-side scanning. The UK government’s assertion that client-side scanning will not compromise the privacy of messages contradicts the significant evidence of cyber-security experts around the world. This software intercepts chat messages before they are encrypted, and as the user is uploading their images or text, and therefore confidentiality of messages cannot be guaranteed. It would most likely breach human rights law in the UK and internationally. [iii]

Serious concerns have also been raised about similar provisions in the EU’s proposed ‘Child Sexual Abuse Regulation’, which an independent expert study warns is in contradiction to human rights rules. [iv] French, Irish and Austrian parliamentarians have all also warned of severe threats to human rights and of undermining encryption. [v]

Moreover, the scanning software would have to be pre-installed on people’s phones, without their permission or full awareness of the severe privacy and security implications. The underlying databases can be corrupted by hostile actors, meaning that individual phones would become vulnerable to attack. The breadth of the measures proposed in the Online Safety Bill – which would infringe the rights to privacy to the same extent for the internet’s majority of legitimate law-abiding users as it would for potential criminals – means that the measures cannot be considered either necessary or proportionate. [vi]

The inconvenient truth is that it is not possible to scan messages for bad things without infringing on the privacy of lawful messages. It is not possible to create a backdoor that only works for “good people” and that cannot be exploited by “bad people”.

Privacy and free expression rights are vital for all citizens everywhere, in every country, to do their jobs, raise their voices, and hold power to account without arbitrary intrusion, persecution or repression. End-to-end encryption provides vital security that allows them to do that without arbitrary interference. People in conflict zones who rely on secure encrypted communications to be able to speak safely to friends and family as well as for national security. Journalists around the world who rely on the confidential channels of encrypted chat, can communicate to sources and upload their stories in safety.

Children, too, need these rights, as emphasised by UNICEF based on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.vii Child safety and privacy are not mutually exclusive; they are mutually reinforcing. Indeed, children are less safe without encrypted communications, as they equally rely on secure digital experiences free from their data being harvested or conversations intercepted. Online content scanning alone cannot hope to find out the serious cases of exploitation, which require a whole-of-society approach. The UK government must invest in education, judicial reform, social services, law enforcement and other critical resources to prevent abuse before it can reach the point of online dissemination, thereby prioritising harm prevention over retrospective scanning. [viii]

As an international community, we are deeply concerned that the UK will become the weak link in the global system. The security risk will not be confined within UK borders. It is difficult to envisage how such a destructive step for the security of billions of users could be justified. [ix]

The UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has said that the UK will maintain freedom, peace and security around the world. With that in mind, we urge you to ensure that end-to-end encrypted services will be removed from the scope of the Bill and that the privacy of people’s confidential communications will be upheld.

Signatories

Access Now
ARTICLE 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression
Asociația pentru Tehnologie și Internet (ApTI)
Associação Portuguesa para
a Promoção da Segurança da Informação (AP2SI)
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
Big Brother Watch
Centre for Democracy and Technology
Chaos Computer Club (CCC)
Citizen D / Državljan D
Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)
Community NeHUBs Africa
cyberstorm.mu
Defend Digital Me
CASM at Demos
Digitalcourage
Digitale Gesellschaft
DNS Africa Media and Communications
Electronic Frontier Finland
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Electronic Frontier Norway
Epicenter.works
European Center for Not-for-Profit Law
European Digital Rights (EDRi)
European Sex Workers Rights Association (ESWA)
Fair Vote
Fight for the Future
Foundation for Information Policy Research
Fundación Cibervoluntarios
Global Partners Digital
Granitt
Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights
Homo Digitalis
Ikigai Innovation Initiative
Internet Society
Interpeer gUG
ISOC Brazil – Brazilian Chapter of the Internet Society
ISOC Ghana
ISOC India Hyderabad Chapter
ISOC Venezuela
IT-Pol
JCA-Net (Japan)
Kijiji Yeetu
La Quadrature du Net
Liberty
McEvedys Solicitors and Attorneys Ltd
Open Rights Group
OpenMedia
OPTF
Privacy and Access Council of Canada
Privacy International
Ranking Digital Rights
Statewatch
SUPERRR Lab
Tech for Good Asia
UBUNTEAM
Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia UK
Professor Paul Bernal
Nicholas Bohm
Dr Duncan Campbell
Alan Cox
Ray Corrigan
Professor Angela Daly
Dr Erin Ferguson
Wendy M. Grossman
Dr Edina Harbinja
Dr Julian Huppert
Steve Karmeinsky
Dr Konstantinos Komaitis
Professor Douwe Korff
Petr Kučera
Mark A. Lane
Christian de Larrinaga
Mark Lizar
Dr Brenda McPhail
Alec Muffett
Riana Pferfferkorn
Simon Phipps
Dr Birgit Schippers
Peter Wells
Professor Alan Woodward

Notes

[i] Human rights, encryption and anonymity in a digital age: report of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression: www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2015/06/human-rights-encryption-and-anonymity-digital-age
Encryption: a matter of human rights, Amnesty International: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol40/3682/2016/en/ Quotes from Polaris anti-trafficking project in news article: www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/wickr-amazon-aws-child-messaging-app-sex-abuse-problem-rcna20674
[ii] Bugs in Our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning: arxiv.org/abs/2110.07450
[iii] Internet Society, Client-side scanning: What it is and why it threatens trustworthy, private communication, May 2023, staging.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Client-side-Scanning-Fact-Sheet-EN.pdf
Open Letter from Public Interest Technologists in relation to the European Commission’s proposed Regulation on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA): www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/10/Experts-letter-encryption-CSA.pdf
Safety Tech Challenge Fund Evaluation Report, see comments on human rights compliance p2: bpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/ blogs.bristol.ac.uk/dist/1/670/files/2023/02/Safety-Tech-Challenge-Fund-evaluation-framework-report.pdf
[iv] Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament and European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), Complementary Impact Assessment to the proposed EU Regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse: www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2023/740248/EPRS_STU(2023)740248_EN.pdf
[v] Irish and French parliamentarians sound the alarm about EU’s CSA Regulation: edri.org/our-work/irish-and-french- parliamentarians-sound-the-alarm-about-eus-csa-regulation/
Binding Resolution of the Austrian Parliament against the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation: epicenter.works/document/4393 vi Index on Censorship, Opinion from Matthew Ryder KC. Surveilled and Exposed: How the Online Safety Bill Creates Insecurity:
www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Surveilled-Exposed-Index-on-Censorship-report-Nov-2022.pdf
[vii] Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF: www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-text-childrens-version
[viii] CRIN: Privacy and Protection: A children’s rights approach to encryption: home.crin.org/readlistenwatch/stories/privacy-and-protection; and Ross Anderson: Chat Control of Child Protection: www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2022/10/13/chatcontrol-or-child-protection/
[ix] Rishi Sunak, Statement 14 March 2023: www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-at-aukus-trilateral-press-conference

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New mysterious macOS malware infiltrates crypto exchange

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:56:31 +0000

A new and strange macOS malware called “JokerSpy” has been identified, with its first known backdoor creation hitting a crypto exchange.

While Mac threats are relatively rare compared to Windows, the number of instances where macOS is the target has continued to grow. In a new discovery, it seems there’s one more backdoor-creating malware to add to the list of potential threats.Initially reported by researchers by Bitdefender with independent research also carried out by Elastic Security Labs, the malware known as JokerSpy is still relatively unknown, in part due to a lack of samples. So far, BitDefender is working on four samples in total, while Eastic focused on the breach of a “prominent Japanese cryptocurrency exchange.”

New mysterious macOS malware infiltrates crypto exchange

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:56:31 +0000

A new and strange macOS malware called “JokerSpy” has been identified, with its first known backdoor creation hitting a crypto exchange.