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Lost iPhone just one headache for Apple security

SAN FRANCISCO – Wanted: experienced security professional. Must have plan to thwart Chinese counterfeiters, protect secret blueprints from spies and keep workers from leaving super-secret unreleased smartphones behind in bars.


A day after a recent report surfaced that an Apple employee had lost a prototype for a new but unreleased iPhone at a Northern California watering hole, two job listings appeared on Apple's website for managers of "new product security."
Such workers would join a team at the $350 billion company that has included ex-FBI agents and other highly trained pros with backgrounds in intelligence and law enforcement.
While a private security force might not seem in keeping with its user-friendly image, Apple and other companies in its league need the best protection they can buy, corporate security experts say. And lost iPhones likely don't come near the top of the list of anxieties.
"Corporate espionage, that's big money. Billion-dollar money. The paranoia is justified," said Jim Stickley, co-founder of corporate security consulting firm TraceSecurity "Whatever they're trying to do, their competitors want to know. Everybody wants to know."
Apple declined to discuss its security operations in detail with The Associated Press, in keeping with the company's longstanding reputation for secrecy. Nor has the company confirmed the existence of the iPhone 5, the rumored latest model, much less a lost prototype.
But San Francisco police have said that four officers recently went to a home in the city's Bernal Heights neighborhood with two Apple employees, who met with the resident and searched the home for an iPhone prototype.
Apple watchers say the company is known for creating many test versions of its new devices before they're released to see how they work in the real world. The reportedly lost iPhone likely would have been far from the only one in circulation.
Losing just one such device is perhaps more of a marketing headache than a serious security breach, as was the case for Apple last year when the tech blog Gizmodo posted photos of what turned out to be the then-unreleased iPhone 4 lost by an employee at a San Francisco Bay area beer garden.
Once a new device has reached the point where employees are field-testing it, a competitor who obtained one wouldn't have enough time to analyze it and do anything to take advantage of that insider knowledge, Stickley said.
Even so, sheriff's deputies seized Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen's computers as part of an investigation into whether the blog's $5,000 payment to acquire the lost phone amounted to a crime. No charges were filed.
Such tactics might seem heavy-handed. But for Apple and other tech companies the issue amounts not just to a publicity problem but a fiduciary obligation to shareholders to secure the company's valuable assets, said longtime Apple analyst Tim Bajarin.
Companies also have an obligation to try to prevent such a loss from happening again, he said: "If they fail, it's the system that failed as much as the individual."
Despite the blogosphere frenzy surrounding the lost iPhone prototypes, experts say the security threats to tech companies are far more serious in China, where thousands of workers labor to manufacture Apple's products.
According to a 2008 diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, Apple had only a modest security presence in China until March of that year, when the company hired a team from Pfizer that led a crusade against fake Viagra.
Under the leadership of Donald Shruhan, whose LinkedIn profile lists him as a Hong Kong-based senior regional director for Apple in security and investigations, the company began taking steps to reign in the country's trade in counterfeit iPhones, iPods and MacBooks.
"Early evidence suggests nearly 100 percent of Apple products in unauthorized mainland markets are knockoffs," according to the unclassified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
The job of keeping such counterfeits off the shelves, to keep blueprints for new products from leaking and to otherwise secure vital trade secrets falls under the field of information assurance.
For information assurance professionals, securing computer networks is only part of the job. They also make sure companies remember to lock their actual doors.
"Social engineering" also remains a constant threat in the tech industry, said Gary Kessler, director of the information assurance program at Norwich University, a private military college in Vermont that has trained security personnel at Apple and other high-profile companies. From e-mail scams seeking sensitive personal information to Cold War-style cloak-and-dagger subterfuge, human weakness can be easier to exploit and harder to protect against than digital vulnerabilities.
"This stuff has been going on for decades, just in a different guise," Kessler said. "The Internet has just given us a new vector for attack."
And in the end, he said, even the best-trained security team in the world can only do so much to protect against someone in a bar who may have been drinking and may have been showing off the most sought-after secret product in the world.
Said Kessler: "I'm guessing that Apple probably did everything that anybody could do, and they probably did it right."

8:38 AM | Filed under | Read More »

NASA: Satellite pieces to hit Earth in a week

WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. space officials say they expect a dead satellite to fall to Earth in about a week.


NASA has been watching the 6-ton satellite closely. On Friday officials moved up their prediction for its arrival to Sept. 23, give or take a day.
NASA scientists have calculated the satellite will break into 26 pieces as it gets closer to Earth. The odds of it hitting someone anywhere on the planet are 1 in 3,200. The heaviest piece to hit the ground will be about 350 pounds, but no one has ever been hit by falling space junk in the past.

NASA expects to give the public more detailed information early next week. For now, all continents except Antarctica could be hit by satellite debris.

8:34 AM | Filed under | Read More »

Strong quake hits India, Nepal; 30 dead


GAUHATI, India (AP) – The death toll from a strong earthquake that shook a Himalayan region straddling India, Nepal and China climbed to 30 on Monday as authorities tried to reach remote, mountain communities to assess the full extent of damage.

The 6.9-magnitude quake Sunday evening triggered landslides, damaged buildings and sent people rushing into the streets. The epicenter was in India's Sikkim state near borders with Nepal and China's Tibet region, but the shaking was felt across northern and eastern India and to the south in Bangladesh.
The quake killed at least seven people in India's Sikkim state and injured more than 50, said the state's top official, Chief Secretary Karma Gyatso. The north Indian state of West Bengal reported six deaths, and Bihar state reported three.
In China, at least seven people were confirmed dead and 22 hurt in southern Tibet, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It did not immediately give any details.
Nepal's government said seven people died there, including two men and a child who were killed when a brick wall toppled outside the British Embassy in the capital, Katmandu. Nearly 70 people were injured, some of them seriously, and were in hospitals across the city.
Much of the damage was not immediately known because the region is sparsely populated, with many people living in remote areas now cut off by mudslides triggered by the quake, Sikkim state police Chief Jasbir Singh told The Associated Press.
TV broadcasters showed footage of buildings buckled, sidewalks cracked and two major roads collapsed in Sikkim's state capital of Gangtok, 42 miles (68 kilometers) southeast of the quake's epicenter near the border with Nepal. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police said two of its buildings had collapsed in Gangtok.
Small army columns fanned out across the city of some 50,000 overnight to search for anyone pinned under fallen debris.
"We have sounded a high alert. Police are on the streets in Gangtok and other major towns," Gyatso said.
Electricity and some phone service was interrupted in the area.
Gyatso said paramilitary soldiers worked through the night Sunday trying to clear the national highway blocked at two places due to landslides.
Power lines snapped in the West Bengal cities of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, which "are now in total darkness," state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, according to Press Trust of India.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned the National Disaster Management Authority for an emergency meeting.
The region has been hit by major earthquakes in the past, including in 1950 and 1897.
In neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh, the quake Sunday night sent residents rushing out of their homes, offices and shopping centers.
In Katmandu, members of Parliament who were debating the national budget ran out of the assembly hall into a parking area. They returned 15 minutes later and resumed their session.
The quake was also felt as far as the Indian capital, with New Delhi residents also rushing out of shaking buildings. The quake caused some houses in China's Himalayan region of Tibet to collapse and disrupted a border county's telecommunications services, Xinhua said.
There were at least two aftershocks of magnitude 6.1 and 5.3, Indian seismology official R.S. Dattatreyan said. He warned more aftershocks were possible.

8:23 AM | Filed under | Read More »

NTSB: Plane doing maneuver before W.Va. crash

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (AP) – The pilot of a 1950s-era plane that crashed during an airshow was climbing and amid an acrobatic roll when the aircraft suddenly began its deadly descent, the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday.

There were no signs of trouble in the moments before pilot John "Jack" Mangan of Concord, N.C., plunged to his death Saturday, a spokesman for the NTSB said.
"There's no indication from the other pilots there was a problem with the aircraft," said Peter Knudson, who summarized the initial findings of Tim Monville, an air safety investigator who arrived on the scene on Sunday.
Mangan's death came a day after an air race crash in Reno killed nine people, including the pilot of a vintage World War II P-51 Mustang fighter plane.
Mangan, a decorated retired Air Force pilot, was performing with the T-28 Warbird Aerobatic Formation Demonstration Team when he and another pilot began a maneuver in which both planes fly directly at each other at 300 feet above ground, ascend and then roll their aircraft, Knudson said.
Mangan began his climb at approximately 275 mph but did not complete his roll.
Knudson said the investigation was challenging because of the damage to aircraft from the fiery crash. A preliminary report is expected with 10 days, he said.
Friends and family described Mangan, 54, as successful businessman and a passionate pilot who stressed safety.
Nine minutes into a 15-minute routine, Mangan's T-28 crashed and burst into flames before hundreds of stunned spectators. He had flown with the demonstration team for five years.
The Federal Aviation Administration was assisting the NTSB by checking Mangan's pilot records, medical certification and any documents related to the T-28, spokesman Jim Peters said.
The Journal of Martinsburg reported the aircraft crashed on a runway near hangers at the airfield. None of the spectators was injured when the aircraft crashed, authorities said. Many in the crowd embraced each other and wept after the crash.
The guard unit that sponsored the air show urged spectators to seek support if they were traumatically affected.
"We understand that you are mourning with us," Col. Roger L. Nye, commander of the 167 Airlift Wing, said in a statement. "In this difficult time we all need to take care of each other."
Unit leadership has contacted area schools to ensure that children who witnessed the crash have access to grief counseling when they return to classes Monday.
Mangan, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, was married and had two other children. He was the president of RMG, a Kingsport, Tenn., company with a chain of more than 80 fast-food restaurants in Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"Jack was a beloved leader in our company, and his untimely passing is a blow to us all," RMG said on its website.
Sean Mangan, 27, said his father instructed him to fly and he always stressed attention to detail, preparation and safety.
"He was the best pilot I know," Sean Mangan said. "Flying was his passion. He was a great pilot and a wonderful parent and husband."
As an Air Force fighter pilot, Jack Mangan flew F-4s and F-15s and was an instructor and mission commander in the U.S. during Operation Desert Storm, said Rick Rountree, a spokesman for RMG. He received three meritorious service medals and was fighter pilot of the year in 1984, he said.
The North American T-28 Trojan that he flew in the air show was a basic trainer that was used by the U.S Navy, including for carrier operation, according to The Boeing Co.'s website. Its first flight was in 1949 and it was designed to transition pilots to jet aircraft.
"This was his hobby, to fly these T-28s," Rountree said. "He loved doing it, and he actually flew a lot in his job."
Mangan and RMG also supported The Patriot Foundation, created to provide support to the families of soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg.
"He was very positive and upbeat and one of those natural born leaders," Rountree said. "He was clearly the guy who RMG on a day-to-day basis, operationally, and he was an extremely popular leader with his employees."
Mangan's team was mindful of the Reno tragedy before they performed.
"Our hearts are hurting for all those involved in Reno, but now is the time for us to focus on our job," the team said on its Facebook page before the West Virginia crash. "We are professionals and we take safety very seriously. Thunder over the Blue Ridge will go on today entertaining thousands of spectators SAFELY."
The acrobatic team performs in air shows across such as the Thunder Over the Blue Ridge show organized over the weekend at an airport near Martinsburg, according to Gen. James Hoyer, West Virginia Air National Guard adjutant. The show is put on by the Air National Guard.
The rest of the air show, including Sunday's planned performances, were canceled.

8:14 AM | Filed under | Read More »

Police: Trucker killed 3 prostitutes across South

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Long-haul trucker John Boyer's gray beard and round face give him a grandfatherly appearance, but when he opens his mouth, he seethes with anger toward women.

This hatred had murderous results, authorities said, as he picked up prostitutes around the Southeast, killed them and dumped their bodies near interstate highways. He's accused of at least three slayings and is suspected in a fourth.
Boyer has pleaded guilty to killing a woman in North Carolina and faces murder charges in slayings in Tennessee and South Carolina. His most recent confession came last month. The similarities of the cases and the apparent lack of remorse from Boyer have investigators encouraging their counterparts along highways around the Southeast to review unsolved killings and missing person files. Even his own attorney in the North Carolina case felt uneasy around him and wondered what else he might have done.
"I think there are a lot more. There's no telling. This guy traveled all over the country. Hopefully we'll get more of these cases solved through DNA," said detective Scott Smith of the Hickman County, Tenn., sheriff's office.
In the case Smith investigated, Boyer picked up 25-year-old prostitute Jennifer Smith in April 2005 and brought her to an abandoned parking lot just off Interstate 40. The two argued over money, and Boyer strangled the victim with the seat belt of his truck, dumped her body from the cab, and drove off, the detective said.
Her body was found in 2005 by a highway worker, but it took two years for investigators to match DNA found on her body to a sample Boyer gave after pleading guilty in North Carolina. Boyer confessed to the killing after investigators cornered him with the evidence, but he also went on a tirade against women, said Smith, who's not related to the victim.
The investigator was chilled by the hatred toward women from a man who had never been married and lived with his mother near Augusta, Ga. A woman who answered the phone Friday at a listing for Boyer's mother denied knowing him.
Darlington County, S.C., Sheriff's Capt. Andy Locklair immediately got the same impression when he stepped into an interview room to question Boyer about a killing in that state. The first thing Boyer said to him was: "What b---- are you here about?"
Locklair confronted Boyer earlier this month about the death of 34-year-old Michelle Haggadone. Her body was found in April 2000 beneath pine straw at a parking area on Interstate 20 near Florence, about 30 miles from the truck stop where Boyer had picked her up.
Boyer immediately denied killing Haggadone, lashing out at Locklair and an investigator with him.
"He said he had slept with a lot of prostitutes and a lot of them were detectives' daughters or prosecutors' daughters," Locklair said. "He just tried to get the upper hand from the start."
The captain added: "I'm not a behavior science expert, but he has some deep, deep issues with women."
Haggadone was strangled with a wire or cord after the two argued over the price of her services, authorities said. Her body went unidentified for a decade, until a DNA sample from a relative matched a sample from her body.
Investigators had no DNA evidence to go on, but Locklair and another investigator realized several aspects of the crime, like what the victim was doing and where and how she was killed, matched the earlier slayings linked to Boyer. Without physical evidence to back him into a corner, Locklair decided he would try to draw a confession by gaining Boyer's trust. He told Boyer about his father, who also was a truck driver, then started trapping him in his lies.
Locklair's case and the one in Tennessee will take some time to resolve. Boyer will be taken to Tennessee to face a first-degree murder charge after his North Carolina sentence ends. He is going to face a murder charge in South Carolina, but Locklair isn't sure when he might end up in court because of the other two cases.
Boyer is serving a sentence of up to 12 years in a North Carolina prison after pleading guilty in 2007 to second-degree murder for killing Scarlett Wood in Wilmington four years earlier. Boyer said he was doing drugs with the 31-year-old prostitute when they had an argument, he pushed her, and she struck her head on furniture, authorities said. But an autopsy found Wood suffered broken ribs and facial bones, and her pelvic bones showed signs of a stabbing.
Boyer had been interviewed when Wood was still considered a missing person case because the two had been seen together at a party the night she disappeared. Authorities said detectives later got incriminating statements from Boyer when the case became a homicide investigation.
Boyer's attorney in the North Carolina case said he felt uneasy around his client.
"It wouldn't surprise me if there's other stuff out there," said H. Lawrence Shotwell. "I have absolutely nothing other than a gut instinct on that."
Boyer is a prime suspect in the death of 26-year-old Rose Marie Mallette, who was reported missing in 2001, said New Hanover County Sheriff's Det. Ken Murphy, a cold case investigator in Wilmington. The reported prostitute's remains were found wrapped in a blanket in an industrial area of the city a year later, the back of her skull crushed.
Boyer also seemed to target women who were especially small. For instance, Haggadone's family said she likely weighed less than 100 pounds when she was killed, while Boyer was 5-foot-7 and 293 pounds when he entered the North Carolina prison system in 2007.
Locklair said Boyer could be responsible for several more deaths because of his transient life as a trucker and his short temper when women disagree with him, a suspicion shared by a woman who searches for missing people.
Monica Caison, founder of Community United Effort Center for Missing Persons in Wilmington, said investigators need to look at three cases where women disappeared over five months in 1995 in Brunswick County, N.C., just west of Wilmington.
"We have a lot of unsolved missing persons in the general area where Mr. Boyer was known to frequent, live, and be. So, to me that alone warrants a second look," Caison said.
At least two of the unsolved cases involve woman who were small and slightly built, like Boyer's other alleged victims.
Cold case investigators in the area are aware of Caison's concerns and are checking their files for any links to Boyer.
Haggadone's family came back to South Carolina last week as authorities announced her identification and Boyer's confession. Her sister, Tuesday Miller, said she felt a cold presence when she went to the lonely parking area where she died.
"I am very overwhelmed. There are other people going through this same exact thing by this same exact guy," Miller said. "That's just sick. He's just evil."

8:05 AM | Filed under | Read More »

5 bikers found dead in RV at Tenn. event

CLARKSVILLE, Tennessee (AP) – Five bikers were found dead Sunday in a recreational vehicle at a Tennessee speedway and a festival organizer said fumes from a generator were to blame.

Three men and two women were found in the RV at the Clarksville Speedway about noon and there was no sign of foul play, Clarksville police spokesman Jim Knoll said.
The head of Bikers Who Care, the charity that organized the event, said he heard someone shouting that all of the people in the trailer were dead. The event festivities came to an abrupt halt as ambulances arrived.
"This is a tragic accident," Bill Langford said. "It's horrible."
Langford said the bikers' group was like a close-knit family and he knew the people who had died. He identified them as a married couple who had 8-month-old twins. He was a truck driver, and she was a school teacher.
The others who died were another couple and a man who worked with one of the men. All were from the Clarksville area about 40 miles northwest of Nashville.
Two of the men worked security on Saturday night during the event's big party, which featured motorcycle drag races, live music and fireworks. Bikini and tattoo contests were scheduled and the charity's website said there was free beer.
By Sunday, the crowd of a couple of thousand people had mostly left and only a handful of people remained, sitting around campfires. None of them wanted to speak to an Associated Press reporter on the record. Nearby, a party tent was still up with a large American flag on top of it.
Langford said it appears a small storage hatch on the RV did not close properly, allowing fumes from the generator to leak inside the vehicle.
The bikers who found the bodies were taken to a hospital after feeling dizzy and light-headed, Langford said. They all had high amounts of carbon monoxide in their systems, he said.
Photos from the festival showed yellow police tape around the camper and tents that had been put up nearby.
Langford said the event collected toys for needy children and raised funds for Camp Rainbow, a summer camp for seriously ill children at Land Between the Lakes recreation area on the Kentucky-Tennessee border. They also help the Buddy Ball sports league for children with mental and physical disabilities.
It was the 30th year of the event. Knoll said group was very civic-minded and there had never been any problems at previous events at the speedway.
Before the bodies were found, Langford told The Leaf-Chronicle that it had been a wonderful success.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said, "the weather was beautiful, the temperature was perfect. We had a record crowd, not one incident …"
Police would not say whether they were investigating if carbon monoxide was the cause of the deaths. Knoll said the cause would have to be determined by a coroner.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

8:00 AM | Filed under | Read More »

Early peek at the Margaritaville Casino in Las Vegas

Heads up, Parrotheads!If you like to drink margaritas at all hours (because it's always 5 o'clock somewhere) , play the slots in a laid-back atmosphere, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Casino at the Flamingo Las Vegas casino resort is due to open Oct. 1. It's the first casino associated with the Wasting Away in Margaritaville star.
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The festivities keep pouring on with a street party Oct. 15 and 22; Buffett will be in Vegas to play concert dates Oct. 15 and 22.
The tropical-themed "5 O'Clock Somewhere" bar at the casino aims to capture the beach-party, good-time atmosphere that Parrotheads love. The bar's name, of course, comes from the hit song featuring a Buffett duet with Alan Jackson. Sing along:"Pour me somethin' tall an' strong,
Make it a Hurricane before I go insane.
It's only half-past twelve, but I don't care.
It's five o'clock somewhere."

7:29 AM | Filed under | Read More »