Syria without iPhone

A branch of the Syrian Finance Ministry has officially banned using iPhones in the country. The motivation behind of the decision is to avoid sharing videos and news of the massive protests, ongoing in the country. The ban has occurred as soon as the Syrian government was increasingly isolated by the West and its Arab neighbors.

Customs Department of the Syrian Finance Ministry affirmed: "The use of the iPhone must be prohibited due to the forbidden features that have been banned by the general telecommunications company. (…) This is a legal ruling and iPhones will be seized."

Journalists and not only they used the device to spread visuals of a violent crackdown of antigovernment protesters. Syria has barred foreign media from the country but visual information has spread easily. The situation is very serious because while rebellion 4.000 people have died since March.

In November the activists launched an application for iPhone and iPad. The application is called Souria Wa Bas and it means “Syria that is all.” With the application’s help, its users could share news, photos, videos; they could locate places of opposition hot spots too. The application was intensively used for jokes about Assad also.

Consider that Steve Jobs’s father is Syrian and we can affirm that his great invention is banned in his own country. As for his father, he has come out against the government and said: "I am in solidarity with the Syrian people; I reject the brutality and killing that the Syrian authorities are committing against the unarmed Syrian people. And because silence is participation in this crime, I declare my participation in the Syrian sit-in on YouTube."

Social network is used while rebellion as well. Some protests were organized with Facebook’s and Twitter’s help. It was used for spreading some confidential information too. Maybe banning the social networks is next step in Syrian Government’s time-table.

Your iPhone without Carrier IQ

Did you know that your telephone tracks you with Carrier IQ? Or you do not even know what Carrier IQ is?

Never mind, most people did know neither one , nor second until this week.

Carrier IQ is a service which helps manufacturers to collect information about how you use their products in real world. It serves the information up. With this information manufacturers study performance, make business decisions and improve products. The software is installed by your carrier or your phone manufacturer; it is not part of any Operating System. However, most people did not know about that.

Carrier IQ is an "embedded analytics company" and it says that its software is installed on over 140 million devices.

This week a hacker chpwn has tweeted that he had found Carrier IQ software in iOS3. It has been confirmed that these references actually exists in iOS5 also and it has different name:

/usr/bin/awd_ice2.

However it seems that it is more limited for iOS than for Android. The hack says on his blog: "...it does not appear the daemon has any access or communication with the UI layer, where text entry is done." If this is true, it means that iOS has no connection with your passwords, emails, SMS texts, etc. and most important, Carrier IQ only kicks in when your phone is in Diagnostic Mode.

In a word, no one sure knows what is being logged and sent off but the fact is that people do not like this, they feel like someone is controlling them and that is comprehensible.

“We stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so” – affirmed apple on Thursday. You know the company usually considers complaints of its users,(for example, the recent survey proved that iPhone 4S has a satisfaction rate above 90%) will you believe it or not, it is up to you.

Use Bluetooth without tapping anything

To use Bluetooth or other Settings with only your voice is not very difficult. Here is a tip given by a hack.

All you have to do is to create a contact and then in the Web site field put the code for the system preference. 

Example: Contact name is Bluetooth and the Web address is prefs:root=General&path=Bluetooth

After this, activate Siri and say “Bluetooth.” the contact Card will open a clickable link right to the Bluetooth settings.

See other common settings: 

Sounds: prefs:root=Sounds

Brightness: prefs:root=Brightness

Airplane Mode: prefs:root=Airplane_Mode

Wallpapers: prefs:root=Wallpaper

With using the same procedure, you can create contacts to launch applications as well.

Hope you are not too lazy to turn the settings off manually… until hackers discover a way to turn them off with SIRI’s help.

Is not this useful for you? Enjoy with your phone and do not disturb your hands. 

via tipb.