Apple accessory manufacturer DVForge has called off a virus-writing contest targeting OS X due to "legality issues." DVForge's CEO, Jack Campbell, says the contest was intended to disprove a report from Symantec suggesting that malware activity may soon increase on the Mac platform.
"The controversial Secure Flight passenger pre-screening system, or CAPPS III as some have dubbed it, is riddled with faults and should be shelved until it meets strict criteria laid out by Congress. That's according to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-California), members of the American Civil Liberties Union and computer security expert Bruce Schneier, who held a press call Thursday to bring attention to an upcoming report by the Government Accountability Office, which they hope will fault Secure Flight for failing to meet several criteria for its implementation required by Congress."
Apple finds itself locked in an arms race with notorious hacker Jon Lech Johansen, the young Norwegian reverse-engineering specialist who has successfully pitted himself against a number of DRM schemes. His "PyMusique" software allows users who buy songs through the iTunes Music Store to play that music on devices other than the iPod, and to re-download the music without paying for it again. PyMusique has already successfully adapted to one attempt from Apple to disable the hack.
The Commwarrior virus, now spreading among Symbian Series 60 platform phones, replicates itself through Bluetooth or through MMS. The virus appears Russian in origin.
Elliptic curve cryptography gets a boost with the NSA's "Suite B" specification, a collection of encryption algorithms recommended for securing sensitive data. Suite B includes Elliptic-Curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone and Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman for key agreement, along with the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm for digital signatures.
