When Apple introduced its Voice Memo feature as part of iOS, it gave iPhone users reason to rejoice. This was an easy-to-use dictation app that saved your memos on your phone as voicemail, and were backed up offline as MP3 or AAC files on iTunes.

Apple also introduced its “Shared Library” feature on iTunes a while ago. This allows users to share their iTunes library for legal listening purposes across a network. This can be great at workplaces with lots of creative types who have great music collections.

Just one small problem. Put these two features together and you have a potential security nightmare. And we don’t mean in the theoretical edge-case way. This is a very real possibility we have encountered “in the wild” more than once.

Here’s the issue. Once your library is shared across a network, so are your private voice memos. That may not be a big deal at home or if you work at a small company, but if you happen to be on a shared network like a coffeehouse or a hotel, or work with confidential data? Now you have a real problem.

Conversely, this could be a simple method for corporate espionage. Find out what hotel your competitor is staying at and log in to the WiFi. Granted, this assumes your competition uses iTunes at work (uncommon) and has sharing on (common).

Our advice: if you use the Voice Memo feature on your iPhone, turn off iTunes Library Sharing! It’s not worth the risk of others hearing—or worse, sharing— your private memos.

This came up at our discussion at ISSA on Thursday so I thought I’d mention it.  Gizmodo published a great article about the problems with passwords.  Couldn’t agree more.  They mention tools like 1Password which is a great app that stores passwords and gives people a shot at creating complex passwords.  I hope we’ll start to see better options for authentication at home.  If you know of some other tools, let us know.

About a month ago my daughter asked if she could sign up for facebook.  A couple of her friends had just done it and she wanted to be a part of the fun.  My reaction surprised me;  I didn’t immediately say no.  That took whole hours.  I started investigating it, looking at it as a parent first.  Of course the first message I sent was to Dave, asking for his opinion.  What follows are some observations and a lot more questions.

The first issue I discovered was that facebook has a policy that requires you to be over the age of 13 to use the service.  (My daughter is…not 13)  Of course kids lie and sign up with or without consent of their parents.  I began to realize that dealing with facebook with a kid is a tough problem:

• Letting an underage kid sign up means you’re agreeing to break rules with your kids
• Not getting them signed up soon enough may result in creating pressures that will encourage them to sign up without your knowledge
• Not letting them sign up wont allow them to build skills that will eventually be necessary

Beyond Facebook, some of the sites I looked at:

Webkinz (web site that accompanies the stuffed animals)

Togetherville (Most promising site in my opinion, links to Facebook for parents)

(I also looked at Kidswirl and Whyville and several others but wasn’t impressed.)

Other resources:

The Online Mom is a great website with a lot of articles that cover opinions on a wide range of ages.

This is still a work in progress and we’re interested in your thoughts.  How would you recommend approaching this issue?  What additional sites are you looking at for kids and what online resources have been helpful?

The Stuxnet worm has been followed by several security experts for weeks now, but only this week are the results coming in and they aren’t good. The worm is far more advanced than anyone suspected. In fact, Roel Schouwenberg, a senior anti-virus researcher at Kaspersky said of the worm, “These guys are absolutely top of the line in terms of sophistication.”

According to Symantec:

Stuxnet has the ability to take advantage of the programming software to also upload its own code to the PLC in an industrial control system that is typically monitored by SCADA systems. In addition, Stuxnet then hides these code blocks, so when a programmer using an infected machine tries to view all of the code blocks on a PLC, they will not see the code injected by Stuxnet. Thus, Stuxnet isn’t just a rootkit that hides itself on Windows, but is the first publicly known rootkit that is able to hide injected code located on a PLC.

Read more at Krebs.

Thought I’d take a minute and send out a reminder about an annoying but necessary topic:  Patching.  There are quite a few patches that have been released in the last few days.  Microsoft, Adobe and Apple are all addressing some serious security issues.  So…Please take some time to update your systems.  It will reduce the likelihood of identity theft and other horrors.

1:  Microsoft OS.  Use the Microsoft updates link in Internet Explorer or visit the Microsoft Update page.  There are approximately 34 updates that are required.  Grab a coffee and sit back.  It takes a while.

2:  Adobe Flash player.  Adobe has been experiencing some serious issues recently and there’s a new one out.  You can either check for the updates button within the adobe applications or visit their website here.

3:  iPhone.  This one is a large download too.  You can access this by connecting your iPhone to your system and in iTunes, select your iPhone.  In the summary page click on the “Check for Update” button.  Instructions are here.

Patching is something many people avoid or ignore.  Treat it like mowing your lawn:  Do it with a beer and it’ll seem like less of a chore.