iPod virus advisory lacked information - anti-virus analyst

By Erwin Oliva
INQ7.net

Apple's recent advisory on the reported iPod virus lacked information that can help users, a senior anti-virus analyst at Trend Micro told INQ7.net.

"A cursory analysis of the advisory shows a lack of really helpful information for users and looks more of a cheap shot at Microsoft's expense," said Jaime Lyndon "Jamz" Yaneza, senior threat researcher and analyst at the Security and Intelligence Group of Trend Micro Inc.

He said the advisory should at least mention the manufacturing serial number or batch of iPods affected.

The advisory did mention that less than 1 percent of the Video iPods shipped after September 12, 2006 carried the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. The advisory also noted that it had seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem.

"This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up-to-date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus-free," the Apple advisory added.

The Apple advisory also did not determine the specific iPod models affected; does not mention preventive steps in further manufacturing processes; had no detailed characteristic information of what the virus really does; leaves the search work up to the user; and was unable to pinpoint affected regions where affected product was shipped, said Yaneza.

Yaneza's initial online sleuthing indicated that the affected product is the updated 5.5G iPod 30 gigabyte model.

He also found that the infected iPods were shipped in Dallas, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; and Madison, Wisconsin based on feedbacks on Amazon.com.

"It's just the latest manufacturing mistake much like the numerous other reported instances from other companies. This isn't the first time we've seen hardware devices and media accidentally shipped with malware," Yaneza said.

In 1999, IBM alerts customers to the CIH virus in a small number of Aptiva PCs. In 1998, the MGM Interactive distributes a promotional game "WarGames" with the Marburg virus in gaming magazines. In 2005, Creative Labs shipped its new Zen MP3 player with "Wukill" virus. Also in the same year, I-O Data Devices shipped a worm on portable hard disk drives.

"Luckily the shipped malware were old, in which case any up-to-date anti-virus program should prevent infection. This demonstrates the need for manufacturers to ensure that any computers in their production environments (regardless of operating system) have regularly updated security and antivirus products/services installed," he said.

Yaneza said that Apple's manufacturing plant was not likely running any antivirus product or it has not been updated since mid-year 2006.

"The sage advice that consumers should keep their security and anti-virus products/services updated is still the best particularly since (just like this case for Apple) a lot of outsourcing is being done and sometimes the ability to monitor the quality of released products is unreliable," he suggested.

Apple now advises users to various free virus removers from Microsoft and a number of anti-virus companies.

Copyright 2006 INQ7.net. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

How did we ever live without the iPod?

A Newsweek writer considers how Apple's digital music player stole consumer hearts and shuffled the music industry.
By Clayton Collins

At the moment when my 10-year-old thought her Huey was lost, a look of panic crossed her face that I immediately understood. Huey, soon found under the car seat, is not a pet mouse or a little brother but her Nano - a slim permutation of the iPod digital music player that in the past five years has sped from inception to ubiquity.

It wasn't just that she knew that the device, a gift, would be costly to replace. Among an iPod owner's first acts is to assign to his palm-size pal a moniker more friendly than the one given by default with registration, a your-name-here possessive.

After that, it's love.

Intuitive to use, in true Apple fashion (sweet, thumb-able wheel!), an iPod also quickly makes itself indispensable, standing ready like a tiny concierge with vast personal playlists, easily uploaded and summarily sorted into soundtracks for every mood.

Yes, it has detractors. An iPod can be isolating if its white-earbuds-wearing user allows it to be. Cranked too loud it can hurt the ears. Like any material object it can be fetishized to unhealthy heights.

But as cool tool and technological Meisterwerk, iPod deserves a biography on its fifth birthday. It gets a deep and richly written one in Steven Levy's The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness

Levy is a fan without reservation. He is, for example, so taken with the iPod's shuffle function - the device jumbles the listening library and presents songs in random order - that he persuaded the publisher to let him mimic it.

Chapters appear as modular, stand-alone treatments of different facets of the phenomenon - "Origin," "Download," "Identity," and so on - and a reader might pick up any of four shuffled versions of the book. (The approach mostly works, even if it calls for the occasional brief reintroduction of a point already made.)

His treatment of shuffle also highlights Levy's remarkable depth of access. Recounting one of many private encounters with unrelenting visionary Steve Jobs, Apple's chief, the author describes a heady chat about the "randomizing algorithm" of shuffle.

Levy has noticed what he thinks is a disproportionate representation of Steely Dan songs in the playlist his iPod concocts from his deep, varied collection. On the spot, Jobs has an aide call Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., and the three of them parse the cryptography involved in the selection process.

Levy, a senior editor and chief technology writer for Newsweek, handily lays out the landscape from which iPod - deliverer of "portable alternative reality" - dramatically emerged. (And keeps emerging. After a sales surge in 2004, Apple sold 42 million iPods by the end of 2005 and blew past 50 million units soon after.)

He breezily covers the history of transistor technology and the sweeping evolution of the "personal audio experience" as both technology and business battleground, from the crude forerunners of Sony's Walkman to the advent of the MP3 format and its early players to the daggers-out days of Napster and the file-sharing firms that followed.

The rise of legal online music store iTunes is cast as only a matter of time. As Jobs told Levy in 2004: "The Internet was built to deliver music." Jobs's triumph: leveraging Apple's smallness in the world of personal computing to win the race and revolutionize the method and the machinery.

Levy laces the book with telling company lore: The English judge who heard a case involving a Beatles lawsuit over Apple's entry into the music business (the name Apple is also a Beatles trademark) began proceedings by confessing that he was an avid iPod user.

At a late-'90s event unveiling the iMac, Jobs - though well-versed in intellectual-property law - boldly insisted on using a cartoon video clip from "The Jetsons" even when he learned at the last minute that permission had not yet been formally granted. (The paperwork went though after the fact.)

Levy assigns Jobs a few warts, if hesitantly. Apple workers are described as being frustrated at times by their boss's legendary stubbornness and stung by his occasionally dismissive critiques. And Levy describes an exchange Jobs had with Casey Neistat, whose much-downloaded film "The iPod's Dirty Secret," detailed Mr. Neistat's 2003 experience with Apple support staff. When his battery died prematurely, Neistat was told that for what a new battery would cost, he might as well buy a new iPod.

Apple's replacement policy was soon rewritten (the company said a change had already been planned). But Neistat later wrote to Jobs asking whether he thought the initial policy had been a mistake. "Nope," Jobs wrote back in full, according to Levy. "I don't think Apple made a mistake. Steve."

Jobs gives little ground. Asked by Levy how he finds the viewing experience on the video iPod's tiny screen, Jobs replies "fine," faint praise, Levy points out, from someone prone to hurl such adjectives as "insanely great."

But both Apple and Jobs, Levy persuades, continue to emit brilliance, navigating the rocks of digital rights management, morphing the product, winning over fans from rock stars to college kids to preteen girls.

"When companies ... think of improvements to their products, they figure out how to put more capacity in them, extend battery life, make more colors, add FM radios," Levy writes. "But they don't make iPods, and people know it."

• Clay Collins, a Monitor staff writer, lives in a four-iPod household.

Nike+iPod Kit: Grantwood Shoe Pouch

Grantwood Technology has announced its Shoe Pouch that holds the sensor for Apple's Nike+iPod Sport Kit for the iPod nano. The case mounts securely through the runner's shoelaces, allowing the Sport Kit sensor to be used with most footwear beyond the intended Nike+ shoes, says Grantwood. The pouch also serves alternate uses such as holding the transmitter itself after exercise or a set of small keys, says the company.

Nike + iPod Sport Kit by Apple and others | $9.95..29.99

Five Years of iPod

The iPod celebrates its 5th birthday as it shifts toward the next generation of consumer with video and the Nano.

It's been five years that we have had the iPod, one of the first portable music players. Oh, yes we did have the mini cassette player but that was limited to usually 60 minutes of music and getting music onto it was not an easy trick. And yes, we did have the transistor radio before that with it's static and antique monophone earpiece. But the iPod started a wave of people being able to download their music from their CDs to their computer then to their portable music device.

The iPod gave us the ability to take our music with us and not just a few songs buy full libraries of songs, and the sound is perfected so that when you plug in and put on the right headphones, you receive music quality as if you were in concert at the time. Now we see the emergence of the iPod Nano and the Video iPods. The video is really for today's generation allowing users to carry music and video with them. Now I don't know many who would want to watch a full-length feature film on that ultra-small screen but it is great for music videos.

But the iPod Nano really is for today as it now comes in a variety of colors and styles. The silver Nano for example comes in 2 and 4 GB models and the black one even comes in 8 GB. And sinve the weight of the Nano makes it even more portable, (about 40 grams), you are now able to take your music everywhere. How many times have we seen someone taking their music with them while jogging or during other solo activities? It's the right gadget for the job. And with a battery life of about 90 minutes makes it work for just about any of these activities.

Either way you go, there is more music and video to-go and more of us on the go, this is a great tool to keep up entertained while on the go. But now we are seeing other companies like Microsoft's Zune start edging into the business. Will the iPod keep it's crown? Only time will tell. I for one hope that competition keeps Apple's iPod on its toes and that we more choice of where to get our music and videos other than only on iTunes.