iPhone celebrates fifth birthday -- How has it changed?

(WIRED) -- Gadget fans may be focused on the CES trade show this week, but there's something else notable going on today: It's the iPhone's fifth birthday.
Five years ago today, Apple unveiled the original iPhone to the world. It wasn't a tightly kept secret, shrouded in mystery and speculation like more recent Apple announcements, but it was arguably the world's most anticipated gadget launch.
Although its form factor -- a capacitive touchscreen candy bar -- hasn't dramatically changed over the years, each iteration of the iPhone has yielded important improvements. Let's take a look back at how the iPhone revolutionized what we thought a phone could be.

The iPhone Is Revealed

"An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator," Jobs said when preparing to introduce the iPhone in January 2007. "An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator.... These are not three separate devices!"

The original iPhone launched on AT&T with a handful of Apple-created apps. It had a 320×480 resolution, 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen and 2-megapixel camera, and ran iOS 1.0. Inside, it featured a 412MHz ARM 11 processor, a proximity sensor, and an accelerometer.

Priced at $499 and $599 for 4GB and 8GB models, the iPhone didn't actually go on sale to eager hordes of consumers (hundreds of whom waited outside Apple Stores) until June 29.

"As a device, it's a genre-bender," former Gadget Lab editor Dylan Tweney said in his review of the landmark device. "Never before have American consumers had access to a phone that is simultaneously so powerful, so elegant, and that performs so many functions."

iPhone 3G, the App Store and iOS 2.0

Apple's second generation iPhone debuted in the summer of 2008. Internally, it was largely identical to its predecessor: same processor, same type of display, same 2.0 megapixel camera, same amount of memory. But the iPhone 3G, as the name implied, now supported 3G network operability, as well as GPS.

More importantly, though, the launch of the 3G was accompanied by iOS version 2.0, which included an industry-altering addition: the App Store. The App Store finally let independent, third-party developers legally create apps for the device with a 70/30 revenue split weighted toward Apple.

The App Store has been an incredible success story for Apple and developers alike. It houses more than half-a-million apps, and there's been more than 18 billion downloads to date. Pretty much every mobile platform has its own app market now, and most are modeled similarly to Apple's.

iPhone 3GS Takes Photography Seriously

The iPhone 3GS was primarily an incremental improvement over the 3G, but it included some notable hardware improvements that would continue through later iterations of the phone.
First, the 3GS included a camera upgrade: a 3-megapixel, autofocusing camera that shot decent video that could be edited and easily sent to YouTube or other destinations. Photography would become an increasingly important feature for iPhone users. The processor was upgraded to a 600MHz Samsung chip, and the display was upped to 480×320 pixels. The 3GS also added a compass, a tool that would prove incredibly useful in apps like Google Maps.

On the software side, the 3GS also added Voice Control, and iOS, now at version 3.0, finally added a cut/copy/paste functionality to the system.

iPhone 4: Prototype Leak, 'Antennagate' and Verizon

The iPhone 4 stunned the world with its radically redesigned look, which Gizmodo revealed early after getting its hands on a prototype.

A 3.5-inch Retina Display put pretty much every other smartphone display to shame: At 960×640 and bearing a 326ppi pixel density, it offered pixels smaller than the human eye could detect. The iPhone 4 was also encased front and back by slim slabs of glass, and ringed by an aluminum rim. The visual conceit was slick, and Apple received kudos for its smart industrial design refresh.

Unfortunately, that aluminum rim became the source of a debacle known as "Antennagate": Because of the external antenna design of the phone, if users held it a particular way, they would experience a drop in signal strength.

The iPhone 4 debuted in June 2010, still on AT&T like its predecessors, but in January 2011, Apple expanded availability to Verizon.

iPhone 4S Delivers Siri

Expecting an entirely differently designed iPhone 5, some Apple fans were disappointed by the announcement of merely an "iPhone 4S." However, pre-sale numbers and opening weekend sales numbers proved the 4S to be the most successful iPhone launch in Apple's history.

A major reason for the success of the 4S was its new voice-controlled virtual assistant, Siri. Hackers attempting to port Siri to other iOS devices have almost succeeded, but the solution just isn't available for the masses. Others though, are more interested in hacking Siri to control other gadgets in their lives like thermostats or a rotary dial phone.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/09/tech/mobile/iphone-fifth-birthday/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

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Five predictions for security in 2012

This was an exciting/anxious year in the Internet security community, with big tech firms like Sony and RSA getting hacked, putting consumer data and corporate networks at risk, and with reports of attacks on utilities.
Scary things that go bump in the night are actually happening to computer systems that matter and it's only going to get worse. Here's what I think will happen in 2012.

Malicious Android apps will increase

As a target for malicious software, Android is the Microsoft of the mobile platform. Android has more than 50 percent of the smartphone market, eclipsing all others, so it's the most attractive platform for scammers to target. While iPhone apps get vetted by Apple, Google's open apps store model, which lacks code signing and a review process, makes it easy to distribute malware in apps.

The numbers bear this out. In the last six months, the number of malicious Android apps has doubled to 1,000, a report from mobile security firm Lookout says. Granted the vast majority of the malware--often disguised as legitimate apps--is found on third-party sites. But some malicious apps have made it to the Android Market. Google yanked about two dozen apps containing malware in May and nearly 60 malicious apps in March. (That's not counting the nearly 30 apps pulled in December that appeared to be designed for fraud.)

Google moves quickly when problems are reported, but removing apps after-the-fact means there may be users who have downloaded them already. To be fair, the likelihood that the average Android user will encounter malware is very, very slim because most people avoid third-party sites where they are required to allow apps from unknown sources to be downloaded, and are thus assuming the risk. The hot apps market, in general, is problematic because mobile developers typically don't have experience creating secure software. So keep your eye on this space.

A(nother) utility will get hacked

Hacking of corporate and government networks happens all the time. Now that SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems used in utilities and other critical infrastructure environments are being connected to the Internet, without the built-in security that traditional information technology networks have, it should come as no surprise that hackers will make their way in to areas where they conceivably could cause real harm to the environment and people.

The first wake-up call for the industry was the Stuxnet malware that emerged last year that appeared to have been designed to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. Then a leaked report in November appeared to be the first acknowledgement of a cyberattack on a U.S. critical infrastructure system, but the Department of Homeland Security denied that there had been an attack and ultimately it turned out to have been a false alarm.

However, an unnamed hacker claimed to have remotely breached a system at a Texas water plant, as well as systems in Europe. That investigation was pending. It's clear hackers are targeting these sensitive and critical systems, for whatever reason. Given how easy it is to find SCADA equipment with just a Google search, all the holes the SCADA systems seem to have, and that researchers say it is relatively easy to exploit the weaknesses, you can expect more attacks on critical infrastructure systems in the coming year. Whether they will make it to the news or be kept a secret, is another thing.

E-voting machines will have security hiccups

We're heading into an election year so that means get ready for the quadrennial voting snafus. Previous national elections have seen their share of problems with e-voting machines--votes not being recorded accurately and not allowing for adequate auditing, among other problems.
Even in the last election in 2008, a security flaw deleted votes from a computer database in one county in California, and there were reports of machine malfunctions in Pennsylvania and Virginia and mis-recorded votes in Ohio. Despite the problems , the machines may not be all that much improved by this coming election. Researchers warned in September that it is still possible for fraudsters to sneak hardware into an e-voting system that could be used to remotely change votes after they have been cast. If that fails, there's always the Supreme Court.

People will continue over-sharing despite the privacy ramifications

This next prediction is a no-brainer, but it touches so many of our lives that to ignore it would be silly. We have become a society of sharing to the detriment of our personal privacy.

Social media provides a way for me to share every aspect of my life with people, from where I went to school to what restaurant I'm dining at tonight to who my friends are and what my pet looks like. The ego prompts us to accept all the friend requests and seek more followers, and to bombard them with more details of our lives than anyone needs to know. We also are unknowingly revealing sensitive information, such as when we post photos containing GPS coordinates without realizing that the shot of my home can easily lead strangers' to my doorstep.

Companies like Facebook are offering increased integration so that my activities on the site and elsewhere are automatically shared with others. So now I can see what music my friends are listening to and what articles they are reading right now. But advertisers are privy to more information about us collectively, and me individually as well. Many people don't care if they see ads targeted to their tastes and lifestyle, but I doubt most of them really want to be blasting their commuting route, work hours, and up-to-the-minute whereabouts to the world.

Companies need to better explain the privacy implications of the new features they offer, but consumers need to be asking themselves questions before they push "post," such as "Do I care if people I don't know or enemies are able to see this?"

Hacktivists will form a new 99 Percent Party

There's no doubt that 2011 can be called the Year of the Hackers. The Anonymous movement and its offshoots, notably LulzSec, gained fame and notoriety for their denial-of-service attacks and data breaches on a host of targets. From Sony and the CIA to bankers, police officers, and Fox News, the attacks were a daily occurrence for months. With the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street protests, Anonymous actions became more organized and focused on a cause--political protest of financial inequality and corporate influence--and inclusive, online and offline.

The faceless hacktivists in Anonymous joined scores of everyday people to demonstrate in squares throughout the world and put a face, many faces, on the crisis of poverty and economic injustice. The Anons, as they call themselves, have ownership in the larger political movement and could provide the technical skills and online organization needed to create a new party that appeals not just to the tech-savvy Gen Y-ers, but to their parents and grandparents who are struggling to make ends meet.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-57347329-245/five-predictions-for-security-in-2012/?tag=TOCcarouselMain.0

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