Hackers obtain email addresses of iPad 3G owners

WASHINGTON—A shadowy hacking group obtained the email addresses of over 114,000 owners of Apple iPads by exploiting a vulnerability at US telecom giant AT&T, a Silicon Valley website reported on Wednesday.

Valleywag, a property of Gawker Media, said the hackers turned over the email list and it contained the email addresses of a number of high-profile iPad users including US business leaders, politicians and military officials.

Valleywag published the names of some on the list but not their full email addresses. They included New York Times Co. chief executive Janet Robinson, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

The iPad owners whose email addresses were compromised were subscribers to AT&T's 3G plan which provides cellular connectivity to the touchscreen tablet computer from Apple.

Valleywag said the hackers, who go by the name of Goatse Security, obtained the numbers used to identify a subscriber on AT&T's network known as the ICC IDS, which stands for integrated circuit card identifier.

In a statement, AT&T acknowledged there had been a data breach and issued an apology to customers who had been affected.

"AT&T was informed by a business customer on Monday of the potential exposure of their iPad ICC IDS," AT&T said.

"The only information that can be derived from the ICC IDS is the email address attached to that device," it said.

"This issue was escalated to the highest levels of the company and was corrected by Tuesday; and we have essentially turned off the feature that provided the email addresses," AT&T said.

"We are continuing to investigate and will inform all customers whose email addresses and ICC IDS may have been obtained," AT&T said. "At this point, there is no evidence that any other customer information was shared."

Valleywag said Goatse Security has previously revealed vulnerabilities in the Firefox and Safari Web browsers.

It said the AT&T breach revealed the email addresses of iPad owners in companies such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley and staffers in the Pentagon, Senate, House of Representatives, Department of Justice, NASA and Department of Homeland Security.

Valleywag owner Gawker Media also runs the popular technology blog Gizmodo, which obtained a secret prototype of an Apple iPhone in April after it was lost in a California bar and published details and pictures of the device. (src: inquirer.net)

Palmistry: Reading your marriage life

I am unwinding myself with Facebook when I saw an application reading a person's life by reading the lines in the palm and such is called palmistry. All of the readings in the lines of my palm worked well except for my marriage life so I decided to do some research on reading my marriage life.

The Marriage Line is a small horizontal line on the edge of the palm between the base of the pinkie finger and the Love Line. Some people have more than one line. It is not significant how many lines there are, because all shallow lines can be ignored if there are one or two prominent lines.
If there are more than six shallow lines, and none is prominent, it indicates complicate and messy marriage situations. If there are two equally prominent lines, the person is prone to love-triangle situations.
The longer the Marriage Line is, the pickier the person is in selecting a mate, more demanding of his/her spouse, and has more pressure from the marriage. If the line ends below the ring finger and touches the Sun life, it indicates having good in-laws who will bring wealth and fame. However, if it is longer and it crosses the Sun Line, it has negative effect on wealth and fame.
If the line has split ends, it indicates split-up or devoice.
If there are circular creases on the line, it indicates separation during a relationship.
If the line curves upward at the end, it indicates lack of motivation to get married.

iphone4 review

I am not a fan of Apple but the latest iPhone4 consumed my interest as more and more people are looking forward to iPhone4 launching this June 24, 2010. I researched this Apple gadget and this is my iphone4 review.

iphone4 review: iphone4 Design

The iPhone 3GS only varies on the inside compared to its predecessor, but iPhone4 is a completely a new a different specie.

It's just a tiny bit thinner from its left to its right edge, because the flat edges mean effectively less casing around the sides of the screen.

Every accessory should come with a polishing cloth; we usually lose them within about 48 hours of acquisition, so get ready for some trouser-rubbing with the new iPhone.


The flat body is only 9.3 millimeters thin, 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS at its thickest. It feels great in the hand, and at the keynote Steve Jobs remarked, "Its closest kin is a beautiful old Leica camera."



It's 4.8 ounces, just 0.1 ounces heavier than the iPhone 3GS, an imperceptible difference. The SIM card slot has moved from the top to the side, and sadly it's now a micro SIM slot - meaning changing networks when you finish your contract will be trickier.

The camera on the back is paired with a bright LED flash that you can have on or off. The volume rocker switch has been replaced by round metal volume-up and -down buttons, but the Hold and Silence switches are pretty much the same.

A second microphone appears at the top of iPhone 4 to provide noise cancellation. The black lines visible at three places along the stainless steel edge are integrated antennas attached directly to the iPhone's stainless steel frame.

Apple modified its design so as to add strength and help improve call quality, one area where the iPhone has always been criticized, although we'll wait users do actual iphone4 review.