Apple May Soon Face Ban Over Its Default Apps But This Is How The Company Hopes To Respond

While there isn’t a whole lot of progress being made with the current American antitrust legislation, there is a constant threat looming on Apple's shoulders.

Apple does fear that if things don’t work out in its favor, it could soon be seeing default apps banned.

Hence, its fate actually lies in the Senate so we just need to wait and watch what happens next in terms of what bills are passed in this regard. But Apple isn’t waiting for the last moment. Yes, the tech giant already has a backup plan in store.

So worst-case scenario, the ban does happen to take place and that means Apple wouldn’t be able to install its own company’s stock applications. Therefore, the only way out is to offer customers a wide array of core applications.

Thanks to 9to5Mac, we get to witness a possible graphic illustration of what a possible way out could look like by Apple or in other words, what its immediate plan of response could be.

Users would witness a list of basic apps while they set up their iPhones initially. They can pick their favorites but obviously, Apple’s own apps would be at the top of the list.

US lawmakers have been noticing for a while how so many leading tech giants are exerting their dominance in the market, restricting others from getting a chance to survive and possibly excel. For this reason, the US Congress says it’s trying to do everything in its power to tackle the matter.

While the rest are under development, there are two that could soon be passed and that’s why Apple, among others, are losing sleep over the decision as one of them will be more threatening for the firm than the other.

It would enlist huge changes in the company’s App Store and overall systems, as well as causing a great deal of uprising among third-party derived app stores.

But the biggest worry again is linked to the company not being able to favor its own stock apps. How will users gain benefits from the classic iPhone systems when they remove it out of the box?

Bloomberg revealed that one way is to ask users to do their own setup by guiding them on how they’ll now need to select a browser, and other functionalities themselves.

Another way is to allow for third-party in-app purchases to become a norm which the company has been against for obvious reasons, since day one.

Hence, we might just be seeing the tech giant play a strategic move and establish warning messages against third-party apps, adding a level of fear to users so they stick solely to Apple’s apps.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Microsoft and Facebook Top Most Popular In A Report Regarding Impersonation Phishing Scams

Scams and phishing attacks are growing day by day, especially brand impersonation phishing scams are found to be the fastest spreading scams on the internet. The people behind these scams impersonate a big tech corporation and ask users to enter their login issues to solve a problem with their account. Their main goal is to get the person’s financial information and private data to either steal or blackmail them.

In the latest report done by Vade, researchers say that Facebook and Microsoft were the most impersonated tech corporations when it comes to phishing scams done in the prior half 2022. Approximately 11,000 fake links were created for Microsoft and a similar 10,000 fake URLs with Facebook.

Results also indicate that Microsoft ranking top of the list is related to the 288% increase in its number of fake phishing URLs.

But these scams aren’t just limited to tech brands, instead big corporations offering financial services are the ones most affected. This makes sense as the main target of these scams is to steal money from the victims' bank accounts.

Moreover, the report shows that among all internet services, financial service companies were the most popular among impersonation scams. Among top 25 brands, eight of them were offering financial service. Among these eight brands, there were popular brands such as PayPal, MTB, and Credit Agricole which were the most popular when it comes to the greatest number of phishing URLs.

This was oddly reminiscent of Facebook and Microsoft’s huge increase in fake links overall. Similarly, Credit Agricole saw 203% phishing emails than usual, and MTB saw an astronomical 332% increase. Lastly, PayPal saw an increase in such URLs of up to 305%. This was in the first quarter of 2022 which has led to the numbers we’re seeing in the overall first half of 2022.

Even then, the cloud service apps and companies such as Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe, Google, Sharefile and Docusign. It was also brought to attention that phishing attacks were most devastating on the days of Tuesday and Wednesday. More specifically, the timings of 2 PM and 6 PM were observed to be the most popular hours for scammers. This is true as most people are stressed out from working all day and wouldn’t bother checking anything suspicious on these emails.

These scams and the people behind them are getting smarter and more efficient day by day. So double check any links and emails that you find suspicious.

Read next: Creators voice their concerns about being paid late, incorrectly, or not at all in a survey

by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Twitter tests Delegate to substitute a former feature of the dying Twitter Deck

For the past 6 months, Twitter has been working on a new feature on Twitter Delegate to replace the Team feature originally present on Twitter Deck.

Back in December, a researcher found out that Twitter is working on this new feature and predicted it to launch soon. Six months later, the discoverer, Nima Owji is back with some news. He claims that this time around, the feature has two different sections to it.

The sections are more like user profiles. One is the Contributor while the other is Admin. Both the roles have different powers. A Contributor can send Direct Messages, post Tweets, and lastly, form lists. They can also view all of these activities on the account. It is all the basic things a Twitter user can do.

However, an Admin has more power than that. While the admin can perform all of these tasks, that is sending Direct Messages, publishing Tweets, and making lists, they can also control the Contributors. An Admin's greatest power will be to decide which Contributor to invite or remove. They can also view the account's analytics.

You'll be able to invite someone as a “Contributor” or an “Admin”! pic.twitter.com/14sb2tbB5j

— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) July 26, 2022

What Owji was unable to inform us, or discover, is how Twitter will look once the Delegate feature has been enabled. Since it is a work still under process, we have no way of knowing it. We do suspect that it might look like what Tweet Deck looked like. But we can't be sure until we see any more updates.

Another thing we’re not sure about is how many people will be able to use a Twitter account at once. Once accepted or invited by the Admin a contributor will be able to make tweets however the number of team members is still unknown.

This has been an active year for Twitter and we expect even more new features from the platform. But since most of these new features, and a few of the old ones, have been confined to the US only, we would like to see some regional diversity.

For now, we are impatiently waiting for Twitter Delegate to launch, and we are sure you are too.

Read next: Twitter Launches New ‘Discovery Hashtags’ For Communities That Link Users To Relevant Tweets
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Phishing Attacks Take LinkedIn By Storm, And Affect Facebook Business Accounts In The Process

A series of phishing attacks are cornering LinkedIn users, attempting to single out Facebook Business accounts for hacking and exploiting them.

Phishing attacks continue to rise at alarming levels and continue to infect social media platforms like ghouls haunting abandoned houses or, well, a virus. At any rate, social media platforms have their work cut out as well, considering how vast their user bases are. A few thousand individuals are manageable with a large enough team. Over 100,000 monthly users, and we’ve suddenly gotten ourselves the recipe for certain cybersecurity disasters. It’s why the likes of Facebook and Twitter had such difficulty in monitoring misinformation spreads across their platforms during the 2020 pandemic and lockdown period.

Social media platforms have also evolved to the point where they’re no longer just elaborate chatrooms with the occasional special feature. They’re comprehensive databases that harbor a metric ton worth of private user information. Phishing actors often conduct deep dives across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to gleam phone numbers, addresses, and credit card numbers off of specific accounts. Telegram even had entire private groups dedicated to black markets being set up where such information would be sold.

So, what’s the current phishing nightmare that social media sites are attempting to deal with? It all starts with an adorably named phishing campaign by the moniker of “Ducktail”. Doesn’t that just remind you of the popular Disney series starring Huey, Dewey, and Louie instead of, well, real-life criminals? The campaign is being conducted by either a singular threat actor or an entire troupe of them, originating from Vietnam. This information was compiled by and commented upon by cybersecurity firm WithSecure; the platform even states that these attacks have been ongoing since at least the end of 2021 December.

With an approach that seems sober and innocuous enough for LinkedIn, the phishing attack was carried out via a PDF file that contained hidden malware. Downloading the file opened the floodgates to informational exposure; threat actors could harvest 2FA codes, IP addresses, addresses, birthdays, numbers, and user IDs. Associated Facebook Business accounts were also exposed in the process, leaving users vulnerable on multiple fronts.

The easy methods of avoiding such attacks would be to carefully download sent files, and also keep scanning new files with malware detectors and whatnot.

Via: FreePik
Read next: The Google Play Store Is Harboring Malware-Containing Android Applications That Have Been Downloaded Thousands Of Times
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Google Gives Law Enforcement Agencies The Green Light To See Users’ Video Without Any Warrant

Following in the footsteps of Amazon, Google has reportedly granted full permission to respective law enforcement agencies to view users’ videos without any warrant.

The news comes as we saw a number of tech giants come forward and confirm to CNET how they would not be granting permission to authorities for the same purpose. Common names included the likes of Arlo, Anker, Eufy, and Apple.

The companies felt it was a huge violation of users’ privacy to grant footage belonging to users’ smart home devices, unless and until a specific warrant was provided in this regard or in the case that an order was granted by the court of law.

But despite the announcement being made public, Google and Amazon continue to defy people’s reservations and continue to behave in the exact opposite direction. So that means the police can show up without any warrant and take the data, in the case of an emergency situation.

It’s actually really very interesting to note how Amazon, which is the main leading organization behind most smart home hardware devices like doorbells, cameras, and even security systems managed to get the police involved with warrantless actions.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, it has got Google on board in terms of following in its footsteps with a similar privacy policy getting generated for law enforcement agencies who can get their required details via the firm’s Nest goods and services or in reality, any other place on Google without permission.

Meanwhile, the policies do mention how they would, in most cases, be liable to present legal orders or warrants, whenever they choose to hand the date over further. And in case they don’t, they would be subject to penalization as it would be against the law.

Like any other policy, some exceptions are made like those pertaining to an emergency situation. But surprisingly, Google, which promises to behave with great transparency, is yet to include any form of a clause that delineates an emergency request.

When asked to comment on the matter, the search engine giant revealed how it would never think twice before acting in a matter that involved a person’s life and death. Hence, in such exceptional scenarios, they were ready to give data to respective government agencies.

It even specified the situations to include those shootings, bombings, missing victims, and kidnappings among others.

On the other hand, one unnamed spokesperson from Google was seen shedding light on how the firm does its level best to try and inform users beforehand about their data being used in certain cases but again, no sign of emergency cases being outlined. Meanwhile, Amazon failed to respond to any comment related to such situations so we feel Google at least is doing a better job at that.

As far as things are concerned from a legal perspective, the firm is given full permission to share the types of data with the police, in case an emergency arises. But after carrying out thorough research on the prevailing laws in the system, there is no mandate that forces anyone to share.

Some tech companies against the policy argue that if the case is so urgent then getting a court order or a relevant arrest warrant shouldn’t take too much time either and hence that needs to be mandated into policy.

Another interesting twist in the story is how leading companies like Anker that are actually protesting against such policies have actually gone on to share user data in other ways with law enforcement agencies. And the same stands true for Meta as well.

Yes, they might not be giving your video access but they’re still guilty of the practice through other means.

Read next: Alphabet’s 2022 Q2 Earnings Report Shows Success With $69.7 Billion In Revenue
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

YouTube Introduces New Changes On The App For Creators Including A Safety Center And New Shopping Tab

For starters, YouTube (via its Creator Insider channel) provided an update for those recipients who applied for YouTube’s Shorts Fund in June. According to them, any creator who fulfilled the eligibility criteria was sent out notifications last week.

Next up, YouTube gave an update in regard to the launch of its Creator Safety Center Site. YouTube acknowledge how big of a risk it is for creators in today’s day and age, thanks to their very public presence.

Therefore, the platform plans on going the extra mile to make sure creators are well aware of proactive tools and steps required to combat any issues that they may be facing. Hence, to guarantee better safety online, the app launched a new online resource called Creator Safety.

This center can be seen as a webpage that’s centered around topics, information, and all sorts of resources that generally talk about safety online. However, they are specifically for those creators and content makers on the app.

Common topics that have been stressed include how users can protect themselves from online abuse, and how to combat issues like channel hijacking, and impersonations. Similarly, a list of proactive steps was also provided to help users protect their privacy online and which help organizations can be reached out to, in case there is any major crisis.

For the time being, YouTube says the new and helpful functionality is only available for content creators in the English language. However, it does have plans on expanding to other languages in the near future too.

Similarly, the platform does hope to collaborate with other regional organizations that are designed to help tackle such matters so YouTube can be a safe platform for all around the globe.

To gain access, creators can simply log into YouTube.com and click on the Creator Safety tab.

Last but not least, YouTube shared with its users an exciting launch pertaining to the renaming of its Merchandise under Monetization, in the Studio where users can click on the respective Shopping tab.

This new tab is being looked upon as the app as a new hub for all types of shopping features on YouTube. Therefore, all channels that have fulfilled the eligibility criteria in the past would be allowed to take part as before.

YouTube is asking its creators in particular, for feedback on the updates so it can better their user performance on the app in the near future.




Read next: Alphabet’s 2022 Q2 Earnings Report Shows Success With $69.7 Billion In Revenue
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

New Map Pinpoints Where Starlink Satellites Re-Enter Earth’s Atmosphere For Their Disposal

Have you ever wondered where Starlink's satellites burn on earth? Well, to many people's surprise, it's all across the atmosphere.

An astronomer by the name of Jonathan McDowell has recently launched a map that features the exact locations where Starlink satellites burn up across the earth’s atmosphere. And contrary to many people’s thinking, it takes place all across the planet.

The astronomer gained viral fame when he announced how diligently he was going to be tracking the exact locations pertaining to SpaceX’s satellite deathbed. And this exclusive report is providing so many of us with a clearer understanding of the unknown.

For a while now, the devices were seen burning up at different destinations in the atmosphere as confirmed by the constellations’ latest pathway.

The map was tweeted by the famed astronomer on Sunday and it featured the plotting of several re-entry locations from a whopping 100 different satellites. These were seen de-orbiting and then falling back into the earth.

McDowell was seen explaining how the locations are very random but go in line with the simple knowledge that the last week of orbital decaying and entering back to the atmosphere is not uncontrolled.

Their locations are vastly spaced out and very random with no fixed pathway being followed, he confirmed.

A lot of people were definitely concerned about the news as they feared that such incidents could result in various types of debris slamming into buildings or striking humans on earth.

But there is not a lot to worry about in that respect as SpaceX claims satellites can immediately break down when they make an entry back into the earth’s atmosphere. That is the specific way in which they have been designed by a firm that takes great pride in the safety of its devices.

SpaceX had also spoken about how the falling of satellites is such a quick and intense process because the atmospheric drag and the build-up of heat could result in small things falling apart immediately by burning up.

Speaking to media outlets, the astronomer says he never intended to make a post that would cause the public to worry unnecessarily.

In fact, he only wished to share the news to debunk myths about satellites falling at a specific location or following a specific path. All in all, it’s a great effort we believe, and one that’s gaining applause from those interesting in such astonishing findings.

When we look at stats from last December until now, around 110 satellites belonging to SpaceX have fallen back, as confirmed by the FCC. But the firm says that it makes sure there is zero risk to humans on the ground because it believes in following nothing but conservative techniques while satellites de-orbit.

Today, figures show how there are nearly 3,000 different satellites belonging to Starlink. And within their due time, of five years, we should see them burn up in the air, followed by the immediate introduction of next-generation devices as their replacements.

But the SpaceX company says this is just the beginning. It hopes to launch thousands more to help give users the best and fastest internet service around the world.

Read next: Are Big Tech Companies Biased In Their Hiring Toward More Prestigious Universities? New Study Reveals It All
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World