Dutch Government Shutters Web Security Firm over Iran Hacking

Dutch prosecutors are investigating whether a US Internet security firm's Dutch affiliate was criminally negligent in a case involving Google and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Dutch-domiciled firm -- DigiNotar -- sells "certificates guaranteeing the security of websites," according to an AP story picked up by the San Jose Mercury News. In this case, the firm "had used weak passwords, failed to update software on its public servers and no antivirus protection on its internal servers." One consequence of this apparently sloppy oversight was that Iranian internal police could spy on its own citizens, using Google as a sort of Trojan Horse to enter into peoples' online communications and their computers.

The case came to light shortly after Google more or less outed DigiNotar and its troubling business claims.

DigiNotar is owned by Vasco, a Chicagoland-based Internet security enterprise. Major institutional investors in this NASDAQ-listed firm include Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street.

PS. The New York Times reported in its September 12, 2011 edition further details about this story, including information about a superhacker alleged to be the mastermind of the Iranian snooping.

Questions Swirl Around Vanished iPhone 5 Prototype, Apple Security Personnel's Alleged Illegal Search, and San Francisco Police Role In The Search

The long title (sorry about that) outlines a very disturbing incident which, if accurate, gets into the unsavory side of Apple, legitimate concerns regarding industrial espionage, and the occasional "partnership" between law enforcement and big-time corporate security officials.

The SF Weekly broke the story, which centers around the "disappearance" of an iPhone 5 prototype from a San Francisco bar. Apple, which had previously conducted a very high-profile hunt for an iPhone 4 prototype that appeared in gizmodo.com, apparently hit the corporate tilt button. That's where the story goes into streets that are darker than night, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler.

The Mercury News picked up the story, and added significant details to it.

A number of troubling issues emerge from the article:

1. Apple tracked the phone "electronically". That capability implies your phone, whether turned on or off, could be used as a tracking device. No law covers your right to privacy in that case. Gadget creators and social media drum beaters distinctly downplay this issue. Not so in Europe, where Google, Facebook, and the smartphone players are running afoul of European Union privacy laws.

2. Apple security apparently accompanied San Francisco police officers in a search of a private residence. It was unclear whether the Apple personnel identified themselves as law enforcement officials, or intimated that they were officially connected to the San Francisco Police Department. (The San Francisco police department statement on the incident is quoted in its entirety in this linked LA Times blog post on the affair.)

3. Apple's high-handed security tactics reflect a need for control that goes beyond rationality. This perspective starts at the top, with Steve Jobs and his well-documented micromanaging style. Since the recent deification of Jobs into a corporate saint, and Apple's position as a "success story," Apple has gotten more or less a free pass from the media. Its outsourcing of manufacturing to cheap, environmentally unconscious Asian facilities should be a source of concern in an era of high domestic unemployment. Even the suicides and industrial accidents at Foxconn's Chinese facilities, where many Apple products are put into tangible form, were largely brushed aside. While Apple is hardly alone in this shameful practice, it also has dodged any sort of moral leadership in this area. Instead, one hears bromides about "game-changing" technology, "innovative" design, etc., as if that's all that mattered.

Privacy counts, even if Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg thinks it's a quaint notion (with queasy overtones of Alberto Gonzalez's similar characterization of the Geneva Convention). Complying with the law, rather than acting as if the corporation is above legal inconveniencies, is important. These are issues larger than the sanctity of a gadget.

However, there is reasonable concern regarding industrial espionage. Silicon Valley firms, which stand to lose enormously if their prize projects slip into competitors' hands, work hard to control instances of intellectual property theft. There are many interested players in this especially dark corner of enterprise: rival firms, hostile or friendly nation states, small-time pirates, even James Bond-style criminal enterprises. It's a tough neighborhood. In the case of Apple and the missing iPhone 5 prototype, the biggest issue is how the device got out of a very secure corporate building in the first place. That's one question Apple is unlikely to publicly discuss. After all, that would bring the investigation home.

"Father of Java" James Gosling Says "Good-Bye Android, Hello Robots"

James Gosling (photo), widely respected for his key role in the development of the Java programming language, has left Google for the greener pastures of robot development. The detailed story about Gosling's departure appeared in today's Mercury News.

The robots are not tin men. According to the Mercury News story, they are seven-foot-long machines resembling surfboards, designed to collect and transmit data from the ocean. Liquid Robotics, the firm that manufactures the bots, makes about one-third of its money from selling the data mined from the robots. The balance of the firm's income is derived from selling the robots and from research and development.