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• U.S. government issues alert about Apple iOS "Masque Attack" threat | Network World
  Four days after security company FireEye warned of an iOS threat dubbed "Masque Attack", the U.S. government has issued a warning of its own about this new risk by malicious third-party apps to Apple iOS devices. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned that: This attack works by luring users to install an app from a source other than the iOS App Store or their organizations’ provisioning system. In order for the attack to succeed, a user must install an untrusted app, such as one delivered through a phishing link.  This technique takes advantage of a security weakness that allows an untrusted app—with the same “bundle identifier” as that of a legitimate app—to replace the legitimate app on an affected device, while keeping all of the user’s data. This vulnerability exists because iOS does not enforce matching certificates for apps with the same bundle identifier. Apple’s own iOS platform apps, such as Mobile Safari, are not vulnerable. So you probably have nothing to worry about.
• Reddit Chief Executive Resigns as Company Shuffles Top Ranks - NYTimes.com
  Reddit announced on Thursday that Yishan Wong, Reddit’s chief executive, resigned from his position after two and a half years of service. Ellen Pao, Reddit’s business and partnerships strategist, will serve as interim chief executive, the company said in a statement. Alexis Ohanian, one of Reddit’s co-founders, will return to the company full time as its executive chairman. Sam Altman, one of Reddit's advisors, attributed Wong's resignation to a dispute over the location and lease of a new office for the company. Wong also recently had a public argument with a former employee of the site in which he laid out the terms of his former employee’s termination in excruciating detail. That incident, according to people close to the company, made some of Reddit’s current employees uncomfortable. Sounds like he got downvoted.
• Typewriters are back, and we have Edward Snowden to thank. - The Washington Post
  Typewriters are making a big comeback, thanks to Edward Snowden's revelations of U.S. mass surveillance. Earlier this year, German politician Patrick Sensburg announced that Germany’s government officials might start using typewriters, as they are seen as being an “unhackable” technology. Following last year’s NSA leaks, the Russian government is also set to return to typewriters in an effort to avoid hacking. Nikolai Kovalev, former head of the Federal Security Service, said in 2013: “From the point of view of keeping secrets, the most primitive method is preferred: a human hand with a pen or a typewriter.” In 2009, the New York Police Department spent nearly $1 million on manual and electric typewriters. This year, ‘The Times in London’ erected a speaker to produce the sound of typewriters in an effort to boost staff energy levels, which “coincides with a revival of interest in the typewriter.” Ron Swanson will be very pleased.
• The US Marshals are scanning millions of American phones with fly-by cell towers | The Verge
  The U.S. Marshals service has been scooping up Americans' cell phone information by planting fake cell tower devices on board small airplanes. The device, known as an IMSI catcher, sorts through the collected data in search of a specific target's unique ID, pointing the Marshals to his exact location. The program has been running since 2007. Agents get a court order for each search, but it is still unclear whether the orders specify the means by which the resulting search is conducted. Following a single suspect would mean picking up signals from possibly tens of thousands of phones, which means it's likely that millions of Americans have been affected during the seven years the program has been operational. Maybe that typewriter thing is a good idea.
• Facebook Tries to Explain Its Privacy Settings but Advertising Still Rules - NYTimes.com
  A year after Facebook last changed its privacy policies, the company is proposing another round of changes to its rules.This time, the focus is on explaining how the service works in simpler, clearer language, including a new animated dashboard that attempts to answer common questions like how to delete a post or who can see the comments you make on someone else’s post. But as with previous moves by the company on privacy, there is an unstated business goal: to sell more advertising based on the vast quantities of personal data that the social network has on its 1.35 billion users, both from their activities on Facebook and increasingly, their wanderings on the web and inside other mobile applications. In pursuit of that goal, every bit of personal information is a valuable data point that the company is eager to exploit, and Facebook plans to ask users in a much broader swath of the world to share details of their interests in order to better target the ads that are shown to them. Man, I really gotta get me one of those typewriters.
• BBC News - Five-year-old passes Microsoft exam
  Ayan Qureshi is now a Microsoft Certified Professional after passing the tech giant's exam when he was just five years old.Ayan, now six, whose father is an IT consultant, has set up his own computer network at home.He told the BBC he found the exam difficult but enjoyable, and hopes to set up a UK-based tech hub one day."There were multiple choice questions, drag and drop questions, hotspot questions and scenario-based questions," he told the BBC Asian Network."The hardest challenge was explaining the language of the test to a five-year-old. But he seemed to pick it up and has a very good memory," explained Ayan's father Asim.