Gmail Bug A Good Lesson In Preparedness

Expect the unexpected... even if you are Google. Sometimes as software developers, regardless of how much you've done to mitigate risk, code goes out the door that has unexpected results. 

Over the weekend Google's Gmail team "...released a storage software update that introduced the unexpected bug, which caused 0.02% of Gmail users to temporarily lose access to their email." The trouble is that even with all of the redundancy built into their data centers, the bug deleted all online copies of the affected users data, which meant that the team was forced to restore from backup tapes. This is a time consuming process, especially when dealing with 0.02% of mail held by Gmail.

While those of us who have had to deal with these hair pulling ordeals can understand and sympathize with the development team, most users will not. Rest assured that the backup and recovery strategy has accomplished what it was intended to do. If anything, this is a valuable lesson in backing up data. What's your strategy? If your laptop took a tumble would you be able to recover?  

iPhone Let You Down In 2011?

It seems as though the iPhone has had another clock related issue resulting in non-recurring alarms not functioning after the stroke of midnight on January 1st 2011. Many Apple related message boards and twitter posts are showing frustration amongst iPhone owners. The following is a post from a thread on Apple's own support forum:

Hi, 

I'm really quite annoyed Right now with apple, my iPhone alarm didn't go off meaning I was late for everthing, what the heck is the matter with it?

I understand there is some sort of glitch due to the new year 2011? Does anyone know how to fix this as I need my phone to wake me up,

Thanks in advanced, 

Sam. 

It doesn't appear as though Apple officials have posted a response to this however one user suggests:

It will be fine tomorrow, or set a recurring alarm instead.

Don't you have a regular alarm clock?  

My Android device is working just fine thanks :)

Patch Tuesday Features USB / Shortcut Bug Fix

When I logged into my pc this morning I received the typical Windows update message and thought little of it. This update however addresses a critical issue publicized in mid July that has been dubbed the USB or Shortcut Bug. The bug was initially being exploited through the use of USB thumb drives and was thought to be limited in scope but, according to this BBC report, has been gathering steam since details of the exploit were published on July 17th. More disturbingly the target of the attacks appears to have been "aimed at the software control systems for critical infrastructure such as power stations."

If you do not have automatic updates turned on it is advisable to visit Microsoft and download this update. While I'm pretty sure you are not running a power station, the flaw in Windows would allow unauthorized access and control of your pc should you acquire the bug. Aaron Heibert at Tom's Hardware offers some friendly advice regarding how to protect yourself from this and other such attacks.

Let's be careful out there...

Consumer Reports Says No To iPhone 4

Influential publication, Consumer Reports, says that it can't give the iPhone 4 a recommendation because of the faulty antenna issue. "When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side — an easy thing, especially for lefties — the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can't recommend the iPhone 4."

Consumer Reports says that it consistently reproduced the issue on 3 separate iPhone 4 test devices and that it had also tried unsuccessfully to replicate the issue on older iPhone models, the Palm Pre, and other AT&T devices.

"Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4's signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that 'mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength,'" the site said. "The tests also indicate that AT&T's network might not be the primary suspect in the iPhone 4's much-reported signal woes."

Hmmmm! So much for the "all phones suffer from this" defense! Maybe Apple is not perfect after all?

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/12/consumer-reports-apple-iphone.html?ref=rss#ixzz0tYgereYk

Twitter Bug Uncovered Quite By Accident

In a twist of irony, news of a bug that allowed Twitter users to cause other users to unknowingly follow them was quickly spread across the internet via social sites and popular blogs. The NYTimes Bits blog explains the discovery "The bug was first revealed by a Turkish man who wanted to tell his friends on Twitter about a band called “Accept” that he enjoyed listening too. When the man typed “Accept pwns” into the update box on Twitter he noticed that a user by the name of @pwns was now following him on the site."

Twitter had this brief message on it's official blog: "We identified and resolved a bug that permitted a user to “force” other users to follow them. We’re now working to rollback all abuse of the bug that took place. Follower/following numbers are currently at 0; we’re aware and this too should shortly be resolved."

Huh, sounds more like an Easter egg or developer backdoor than a bug...

Sony Urges PlayStation 3 Owners Not To Play Online

Owners of the older generation PlayStation 3 game systems are being warned by Sony not to play online until a coding error in the clock functionality of the system, similar to the Y2K bug, is fixed. Errors began being reported recently that resulted in the system date being reset to Jan. 1, 2000. Using the systems online could cause errors, make it impossible to record gaming achievements or restoring some data, cause an error message saying the user has been logged out of the online game network, and result in game trophies to disappear. The error does not occur in the newer slim version of the PlayStation 3 that began shipping in September '09.

Source: CBC 

Wired Exposes MySpace Flaw

According to a Wired.com blog post, MySpace has had a serious security flaw since at least October that was being exploited openly without reaction from the site until the news went mainstream. The bug allowed "voyeurs, hackers, entrepreneurs and lechers" to view private photo galleries and profiles to be viewed without permission. It was so well known in fact that websites such as MySpacePrivateProfile.com emerged that took advantage of the flaw and made it easy to peer inside the private postings of thousands of MySpace users. In a Threat Level Blog post, Kevin Poulsen writes "Barely 24 hours after my story hit the front door of Wired.com, MySpace has, without comment, closed the backdoor, and the websites that were exploiting it are no longer delivering private photos." The question then becomes did MySpace know about the bug all along? If this flaw was so well known that websites have been exploiting it for months why didn't MySpace fix it? Are the that oblivious to what was going on or where they quietly enjoying the extra page views? This will be interesting to follow.