I’ve only had my Fuji X10 for a couple of months and it’s an excellent bit of kit but it’s not without its flaws. Aside from the known issue with white discs (blooming) in highlight areas and slow boot times if you don’t format the card in the camera I’ve now got a bigger and much more annoying problem dust inside my lens.

I checked the camera thoroughly when I received it and there were definitely no dust traces inside the lens when it was new. The other day I was cleaning it with my trusty Lens Pen 2 and noticed there were some stubborn spots of dirt I couldn’t shift. On closer inspection I was shocked to find there is what I consider to be a large number of dust particles clinging to the inside of the front lens element and also to one of the inner lens elements.

It seems that this is quite a common problem with many other Fuji X10 users reporting the same. It is, however, reassuring to know that Fuji have been cleaning dust from inside the lens for other users free of charge under warranty. I will be getting this done but since Fuji have announced there is a new sensor replacement program on the horizon this month (May 2012) to combat the white orb sensor issue, I think I’ll wait until I send it off for the sensor swap and ask them to clean inside the lens at the same time.
Read more…

Filed under: Photography, blooming, blow, clean, design, dirt, discs, dust, dusty, element, fault, flaw, free, fuji, fuji x10, glass, grit, help, inside, lens, marks, orbs, remove, replacement, specks, suck, warranty, x10, x100 | Post a comment

Summary

This post details the step-by-step method required to extract a plist/OAuth token from a standard (non encrypted) iTunes backup of any iOS device (iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad) and then copy this onto another device to automatically log in using those creditials.

NOTE: The process outlined below will not work if you have iTunes set to encrypt your iOS backups. This method was confirmed as working as of 10th April 2012 using the latest iOS xxx and current Facebook (v.4110.0), Dropbox (v1.4.6) and LinkedIn (v35) iOS apps. You do not need to have a jailbroken iPhone or iPad for this to work. I do not condone using the methods below to gain access to anybody’s accounts without their prior permission, I hold no responsibility if using the information in this post lands you in trouble with your ex partner,  current partner, your boss, the police, your kids, etc.

Background

In case you weren’t aware a security flaw was found by Gareth Wright earlier this week that allows your Facebook login key to be copied form one iOS device to another and essentially allow a 3rd party access to your account without needing to know your account email address or password. The same vulnerability has also been found in Dropbox, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Vimeo and 1Password. At the time of writing this post, Dropbox have said they are going to address the problem and 1Password have gone one step further and rewritten the way the user details are stored so this exploit cannot be used anymore and have submitted the update to Apple for approval before it’s released. Facebook appear to dismiss the security vulnerability saying it is only really an issue if your device is jailbroken or you use a 3rd party app to access the files on your iOS device. WRONG! If you have ever connected your iOS device to iTunes via USB and iTunes has taken a backup of your device then you are at risk (unless you tick the box to encrypt your backups, in which case rest easy and don’t worry about anything written below). The plist file that is the centre of this whole security flaw is copied to your computer via iTunes backup, no third party app here extracting files as Facebook suggests. Granted you need a third party app to access the file and place it onto another iOS device but crucially, the insecure file is copied to your computer during a normal iTunes backup.

What does this mean to most end users then? Probably not a lot to be honest. If you only ever connect your iPhone or iPad to your own personal computer then there’s nothing to worry about since the insecure file, locked away in the backup of your device, resides on your personal machine and nobody else can get to it easily. But in today’s modern and social society, the likelihood is that you have a computer you share with your wife, girlfriend, housemates, family or you have been at a friends house with a low battery and connected your iPhone to give it a little extra juice. This is where things become a little more vulnerable, if the computer you connected your device to made a backup of your device (remember a backup is always made when you are updating the iOS via iTunes) then the crucial plist file with your OAuth key in for apps such as Facebook, Dropbox, LinkedIn and more now reside on that computer in that backup.

So if you currently share a computer with your partner and want to log into Facebook as them, you can if you follow the steps below. Likewise, if your ex-partner used to connect their iPhone or iPad to your computer but left you several months ago for somebody hotter, then you too can dip into their old backup on your computer and log into Facebook and other apps as them. [Again I re-iterate the moral/legal implications of such actions]

Step by Step Guide

Ok so how can you hack into somebody else’s Facebook using a file from their iOS backup? You’ll need two pieces of sofware:
1 – to read the backup files an extract the plist file
2 – to allow you to drag and drop plist files onto your current iOS device

Let us pretend you want to gain access to your ex-girlfriend’s Facebook account and you know that she used to connect her iPhone or iPad to your computer. The first thing to do is open up iTunes and go to Preferences and select the Devices icon along the top which lists all device names that are backed up on your machine along with date of the backup.

Read more…

Filed under: Apple, iPad, iPhone, Security, Technology, backup, break into, bypass, dropbox, facebook, flaw, guide, hack, hacking, hole, how to, instrucitons, ios, iPad, iPhone, itunes, linkedin, OAuth, security, tumblr, vimeo, vulnerability | 5 Comments

Is your iPhone speaker not loud enough for you? Don’t want to lug around a hefty set of portable speakers? Then look no further than the PocketBoom portable surface vibration device which turns almost any surface you can think of into a speaker.

It’s pretty simple, all you do is unwrap the vibration head from the main battery unit and stick it to a large surface. The other end goes into the headphone socket on your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or any other generic MP3 player or device with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

If you turn the PocketBoom on without it being attached to any surface you will still hear your music being played but it will sound very quiet and tinny. If you touch the white sticky pad on the vibration head you’ll feel it moving up and down much like any normal speaker cone would do. The fun begins when you stick it to a random surface like a cardboard box or plastic tub….suddenly the music is massively amplified and you effectively turn the random item into a speaker! Read more…

Filed under: iPhone, Reviews, Technology, backpack, boom, camping, cheap, easy, fun, iPad, iPhone, ipod, light weight, loud, pocket, pocketboom, portable, simple, small, speaker, surface, travelling, vibration | Post a comment

Following the recent findings by Gareth Wright about Facebook iOS app storing authentication keys in a plain text file that is easily accessible even on non-jailbroken devices (allowing it to simply be copied to another device to grant access to that account) we have just discovered the same security flaw is also present in the latest version of LinkedIn iPhone app and you can also easily extract these plist files from iTunes backups.

Using a free app (in this case iExplorer) to browse the contents of your iPhone if you navigate to Apps/LinkedIn/Library/Preferences you will find a file named com.linkedin.LinkedIn.plist and this is the file in question.

Simply copying the com.linkedin.LinkedIn.plist file from one device to another and then relaunching the LinkedIn app will automatically log the user is using the account details from the cloned plist file.

I “nabbed” a copy of Gareth Wright’s LinkedIn plist (he emailed it to me) and dropped it onto my own non-jailbroken iPhone and relaunched LinkedIn.

I was instantly into Gareth’s LinkedIn Profile, I could browse all his personal messages, invitations, contacts, edit his profile and even sent myself an invite to join his network!

Here was my LinkedIn screen prior to copying the plist file over

and here it was after copying the plist and relaunching the app. At no point did it prompt me to re-enter my password or authenticate

I was able to navigate his LinkedIn profile without any issues, view all his messages, invitations, connections and even created an invitation and sent it to myself.

and here is the invitation I received

Filed under: Apple, iPhone, Technology, encrypted, flaw, hash, hole, in, linked, linkedin, plist, security, vulnerability, weak | 5 Comments

I bought the first generation iPad on UK launch day way back in 28 May 2010 and since then have upgraded to the iPad 2, again on launch day and have the new iPad (aka iPad 3) pre-ordered for delivery this Friday 16th March. I love the iPad, it filled a gap between my iPhone and MacBook Air that I didn’t know was there. In a similar way, the KeyCase iPad 2 Folio Deluxe case with built in bluetooth keyboard fills a gap for an iPad  case that I didn’t know was there.

Whilst this review relates to my iPad 2 paired to a bluetooth keyboard case, the majority of the benefits I discuss in this article would equally apply to a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 case with built in bluetooth keyboard or a Kindle Fire case with built in keyboard (if such a thing exists).

I’ve never had a problem using the iPad or iPad 2 onscreen keyboard, it’s fast and responsive and the keys are a decent size (in landscape mode at least) but I would never dream of using the iPad on screen keyboard for anything other than quick email replies, form filling, brief note taking etc. For anything that needed more than 5 minutes of keyboard time I’d bring out the MacBook Air which is far easier to speed touch type on and get a lengthy email, proposal, blog post or report typed up.

Read more…

Filed under: Apple, iPad, Reviews, Technology, blueooth, case, cheap, folio, iPad, iPad 2, ipad 3, keyboard, keyboard case, keycase, new ipad, review, rubber, type | Post a comment