Hacker Uses “Rick Roll” to Hack Jailbroken iPhones: Most of us have been a victim to the YouTube phenomen starring Rick Astley and a very outdated 80’s song. It’s always been the same deal, you think you’re going to watch a video or visit a site that you want, and then all of a sudden, those electric 80’s drums, followed by the synth’s notes hit your ears.

Image Via Memecat

But what happens when an innocent prank gets used for something more malicious? That’s exactly what a 21 year old Australian programmer used his iPhone worm for. Some jailbroken iPhone users were greeted to Rick Astley replacing their current wallpaper. It may have looked harmless, but the wallpaper was just a decoy for the worm. Contact information, emails, calender entries, and other data on the iPhone were easily hijacked from jailbroken iPhones.

The hacker’s reasoning for doing this in the first place was to show owners with jailbroken iPhones that they had reduced the security for their phones. Because the default password to access iPhones are usually not changed, the worm made it easy to bypass the password and access the iPhone’s contents.

If you have a jailbroken iPhone, then go to Cydia and download the “Mobile Terminal” application. When you start it up, type in “su”. It will prompt you for a password, which will be “alpine”. After you enter the password, type in “passwd” and you will be prompted to enter a new password. Once you enter a new password and confirm it, your iPhone will have better protection against this worm and other possible threats.

Convicted Murder Sues Wikipedia: (Note: For fear of having myself sued, I will not mention the man’s name, seeing as how he does not want it to be mentioned.)

A German man is suing Wikipedia in an attempt to get his name removed from the site where he is referenced to killing a Bavarian actor in 1990. The man’s lawyers claim that German court rulings state that his name and likeness can no longer be used in any publications that refer to the Bavarian actor’s death.

German media has already removed the convicted murderer’s name from stories involving the attack. Wikipedia, based in San Francisco, CA, is protected by the First Amendment in the United States Constitution, and an act like this is merely an expression of censorship. However, the German man will be suing Wikipedia in a Hamburg court in Germany in order to have Wikipedia comply with the German law.

Microsoft Employee Says Windows 7 Purposely Copied Mac OS X:

Image Via InfoWorld

Oh, Microsoft. How I wish that you could keep better tabs on your employees and what they say. Simon Aldous, a group manager at Microsoft, sat down at an interview and talked about Windows 7. Aldous happened to let this quote slip out of his mouth:

One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very graphical and easy to use. What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it’s traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics.

Ouch. To add more fuel to the fire, Aldous spoke about how Mac OS X was not as stable as the core technology used to build Windows 7. The man is saying that Windows 7 is just a straight up copy of Apple’s OS, but better tweaked. Not exactly the type of interview Microsoft would want to put out.

And after that performance, Microsoft went on to say that Mr. Aldous was “not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7″. Interesting. Guess we can just discard that interview, and Aldous’s hopes of getting another one. He probably let those “I’m a PC, and Windows 7 was my idea” commercials get to his head.

Motorola’s Droid Already Picking Up Business: For those of you hesitant on buying the Droid, it looks as though 100,000 units were on the move during its opening weekend. The Droid may soon become a popular option for those looking for a smart phone that isn’t Apple’s iPhone. Motorola hopes to sell a million Droids by the end of 2009, and hoping to reach the 10 million mark in 2010.

If consumers continue the rate at which they are purchasing Droids, it may become the best selling Android phone. With the extra features the Droid comes with, it wouldn’t be a surprise if potential and current iPhone users switched over to the Droid. Along with Verizon’s commericals attacking AT&T’s 3G coverage, Verizon and Droid seem to have potential to dominate in the smart phone wars. We will always be unsure of what the future holds, but for now, the Droid seems to have a promising future for Motorola and Verizon.

Question to the Readers: Do you think it is fair for Wikipedia to be tried in a German court, despite the fact that it is entitled to the rights the US Goverment grants them? Should there be a trial in the US and Germany, or should the trial take place somewhere neutral?

Links to the Stories:

Rick Rolling to the Extreme

Murder Sues Wikipedia

Microsoft Employee Says Windows 7 Purposely Looks Like Mac OS X

Motorola Hopes to Sell 10 Million Droids by 2010

-RJ