» AT&T

AT&T issues apology to iPad users after security breach

George Marks — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:29:58 +0000

The second largest cellular provider in the United States, AT&T, issued an apology to users of the Apple iPad whose email addresses were leaked last week during a security breach. Hackers were able to discover the email addresses of nearly 114,000 iPad 3G users through a program on AT&T’s website. Among the email addresses uncovered by hackers were those belonging to members of the U.S. military as well as executives at media, technology and finance companies.

New York Times Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s email addresses were among those discovered by hackers. The group that uncovered the email addresses compiled them into a list to be sold in order to benefit their own publicity. Gawker Media’s Valleywag website was among a handful of places that received the hacked list of emails.

Goatse Security, which helps Web firms with security issues, discovered the gap in security on AT&T’s website. The company found the problem in a matter of an hour and publicized their results in the interest of iPad users’ safety. Dorothy Attwood, AT&T’s chief privacy officer, sent an e-mail on Sunday to the affected iPad accounts expressing the company’s regret and “apologizing for the incident and any inconvenience it may have caused.” The company insured those affected that no other information was obtained by the hackers.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an inquiry into the matter and has asked groups, such as Gawker Media, who received the hacked email lists to save any documents they received so they could be used in the investigation.

Motorola Debuts it’s New Phone “Backflip”

George Marks — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:34:03 +0000

At a press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Motorola lifted the wraps and debuted their new wireless handset, the Backflip, which has both a touch-screen and keypad similar to the popular Droid handset that went on sale at Verizon Communications Inc. in November.

The difference on this device from the Droid is that the Backflip has its keypad in the back, which folds out rather than sliding out.

The smart phone also features the Motorola’s, MotoBlur software, a platform that is designed to integrate social networking and other communications features easily for the user. MotoBlur is featured on the Cliq but not on the Droid.

Motorola’s co-CEO, Sanjay Jha who leads the handset business, said the company plans to launch the device in the first quarter of this year, but could not give a specific launch date, carrier partner or price on the device.

AT&T had press conference earlier in the day, and said it planned to launch new Android phones this year, and had a picture of the Backflip.

AT&T unveils new 7.2 Mbps LaptopConnect

Alyssa Duval — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:46:05 +0000

We all know that LTE is coming to AT&T and other mobile carriers in the late 2010 and early 2011 time frame. The catch for AT&T is to give customers enough speed to keep them until LTE debuts in the face of increasing roll outs of WiMax from Sprint and Clearwire.

To help keep customers AT&T is set to roll out its 7.2 Mbps HSPA service. Before users can enjoy the faster data speeds, they will need a new modem to support the speed and AT&T has announced just that. The new AT&T LaptopConnect Lightning USB modem has been introduced.

The modem is set to ship on November 22 nationwide. The modem is a USB device that has a swiveling adapter that allows it to be used in vertical or horizontal orientation. The modem is preloaded with the AT&T ACM 7.0 software to help users manage their connections. The software will also connect the modem to AT&T wireless hotspots for free automatically. The modem will sell for $99.99 with a $100 mail-in rebate. Data plans will start at $35 per month for 200MB.