Opinions
Find out all about the iPhone at our iPhone Centre. News, reviews, how-tos and video - all in one location.- +
Locked iPhones can be unlocked without a password 28/08/2008 10:13:00
Private information stored in Apple's iPhone and protected by a lock code can be accessed by anyone with just a few button presses.Private information stored in Apple's iPhone and protected by a lock code can be accessed by anyone with just a few button presses. - +
Apple forgets to fix iPhone passcode bug 28/08/2008 08:04:00
An iPhone bug that Apple patched last January to stop unauthorized users from bypassing the password-protected locking feature has resurfaced in newer versions of the phone's software. - +
Twenty08 MobileChat 3 27/08/2008 14:15:00
Until now, Palringo has been the only legitimate cross-service instant messaging program for the iPhone. We didn’t dislike the app, but in a lucrative market like mobile instant messaging it was unlikely to go unchallenged. Twenty08’s MobileChat 3 allows users to connect to up to six different IM protocols and chat using a telco's 3G network or a local Wi-Fi network. The program provides some useful features, but poor implementation and numerous bugs make it a poor competitor to the free alternative offered by Palringo.
Zones provide focussed content from PC World and leading technology partners.The Open Relay Data Base (ORDB) was started in 2001 as a means of combating spam. The database did what its name implies - it listed open relays on the Internet that could be used by spammers to send their stuff. However, the ORDB became increasingly less relevant over time as spammers migrated to using other techniques, most notably botnets, and as work on maintaining the ORDB waned. The ORDB was taken offline in December 2006.
However, on March 25 the ORDB began returning false positives for every IP address in its database - the change was made so that people who still had this blocklist in their database would update their configurations and remove it. The problem was easily addressed by updating the configuration to remove the call to the ORDB, but many users had their e-mail bounced until the problem was fixed.
There are some important lessons that can be learned from this experience:
However, more telling was a notice on the ORDB, explaining why development of the ORDB did not continue - it read, "Our volunteer staff has been pre-occupied with other aspects of their lives." If the ORDB had charged even modest fees, such as Spamhaus does, then it might have continued as an important tool in stopping spam. After all, if someone will pay you to provide a valuable service, you're more likely to continue maintaining and updating that service.
This is not a knock on those in the open-source community who provide valuable tools like Ubuntu, OpenOffice and a host of other great software. Instead, it's merely an acknowledgment that people will spend more time on projects that make them lots of money and less time on projects that don't.
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