Twitter briefly blocked by hackers

NEW YORK — Hackers briefly blocked access to the popular Internet messaging service Twitter, steering traffic to another Web site where a group reportedly calling itself the “Iranian Cyber Army” claimed responsibility.

Users trying to reach Twitter early Friday were redirected to a Web page that CNN reported had a picture of a green flag and a message that said, “This site has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army.”

There was no evidence the hackers are actually linked to Iran. Web sites like Twitter and Facebook helped bring attention to the Iranian opposition during the country’s crackdown after its June elections, with users posting minute-by-minute updates and amateur video.

Twitter later Friday posted a message on its blog that said its Domain Name Systems’ records “were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed.” The site says it will update with more details “once we’ve investigated more fully.”

© 2009, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Big in Japan: Burger King Sells Windows 7 Whopper

 

Things always seem over the top in Japan, from the cartoons to camcorders and cell phones. It’s almost no surprise that Microsoft has partnered with Burger King to sell a gigantic hamburger there.

The Windows 7 Whopper consist of seven stacked beef patties that measure over 5 inches in height, and the whole thing costs an appropriate ¥777 (or $8.55). It’s available for seven days only, completing the run of sevens.

Microsoft is hoping for a fresh start with Windows 7, after a poor reception for the Vista, the previous version of the software that runs most of the world’s personal computers.

Microsoft has a reputation for quirky ad campaigns, most recently a strange series featuring Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. This particular ad may leave a bad taste in your mouth, as well: After all, the company has been criticized for releasing top-heavy, bloated operating systems. A blog on the Computerworld website theorizes that “this could be one of its worst promotional ideas ever.”

The site notes that the Windows 7 Whopper weighs in with about 1,000 calories, and likely packs enough cholesterol to require immediate surgery for anyone foolhardy enough to try eating one.

Review: Windows 7 Is Vast Improvement Over Vista

 

NEW YORK — 

Microsoft Windows 7 is a slick, much improved operating system that should go a long way toward erasing the bad impression left by its previous effort, Vista.

If you’ve been holding off on buying a new computer, Microsoft Windows 7 will be a good excuse to get back into the game. And if you’ve been weighing a Mac versus a Windows PC, then you should know that “7″ pushes the scales on the Windows side. Windows is now easier to use and better looking than it was before, while maintaining its core advantage of cheaper, more diverse hardware.

However, most PC users should not take the release of Windows 7 as a call to action, or feel that they have to run out and buy the software for use on a computer they’re planning on keeping. The upgrade will most likely not be worth the time or money, much less the effort of hosting a Windows 7 “launch party” as Microsoft suggests.

Windows 7 will come in several versions. The one aimed at U.S. consumers is Home Premium, which will cost $120 if bought as an upgrade to XP or Vista. You can buy it as a download or on a disc. Beginning on Oct. 22, it will come installed on new PCs.

Here are some of its highlights:

— The taskbar — the strip of icons usually found at the bottom of the screen — now does more than show which programs are running. You can also stick icons for your favorite programs on it, to launch them quickly. It’s fast and convenient, combining the best features of the old Windows taskbar and Apple’s Dock.

— File folders can now be organized into “libraries.” You can have a photo library, for instance, that gives you quick access to pictures in folders spread out over your hard drive, or even several hard drives. This is great because many applications don’t automatically put files into Microsoft’s My Documents and My Photos folders, and tend to deposit content in their own folders. The new arrangement also makes for easy backups.

— Like Vista, Windows 7 will ask you twice if you really want to make changes to your settings or install programs, for the sake of security. But Windows 7 does it less often, and the prompts can be turned off.

— Windows 7 can sense if you use more than one finger on your touch pad or touch screen, allowing for neat tricks such as spreading your fingers to zoom into a picture, just like on the iPhone. This is isn’t revolutionary per se — computer manufacturers have bolted multitouch sensing on previous versions of Windows. But it does make it easier for them to include advanced touch capabilities, and many of them are planning to do so. That is what could really revolutionize how we use computers. I’ve tried laptops and desktops with touch screens, and found it nice to be able to directly tap links and buttons, bypassing the touch pad and mouse.

— For a lot of users, the step up to Windows 7 will also mark a transition to a 64-bit operating system. That means computers will now be able to use a lot more Random Access Memory, or RAM, for better performance in demanding applications such as video editing. Vista and XP came in 64-bit versions in addition to the regular 32-bit versions, but the XP version was never popular, and the Vista version became mainstream only last year. But 64 bits will be standard on Windows 7, installed on nearly all new computers.

Windows XP users have a lot more to gain by going to Windows 7. Vista introduced some great features, such as fast searches of the entire hard drive, that of course are present in 7 as well. Unfortunately, upgrading an existing PC from XP to 7 is not easy.

After upgrading, users will have to reinstall all their programs and find their files in the folder where Windows 7 tucks them away.

They may also have hardware problems. I found an old HP laser printer no longer worked with Windows 7. This isn’t really Microsoft’s fault or, specifically, a problem with the new operating system — HP just doesn’t provide a 64-bit driver for that printer. A driver is a program that tells a piece of hardware how to work with an operating system.

If you do upgrade, I would still recommend tackling that transition head-on by installing the 64-bit version of Windows 7, which doesn’t cost more. Microsoft recommends a minimum of 2 gigabytes of RAM to run it.

If your computer runs Windows Vista, I think it’s hard to justify spending $120 for an upgrade. The new features are nice but hardly must-haves. For daily e-mail and Web surfing, they won’t make much of a difference. Vista was much maligned when it arrived in early 2007 for being slow, buggy and annoying. Now, it really isn’t that bad, because updates have fixed a lot of the problems.

However, if you bought a Vista-based computer after June 25, you should be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7 from the manufacturer, and I suggest taking advantage of it. Your computer likely already is running 64-bit software, so there should be no problems with drivers, and the upgrade is much easier than one from XP. Windows 7 can keep your installed programs and your files in their old folders.

In weeks of testing the final version of Windows 7 on five computers, I encountered only one serious glitch. The backup function simply didn’t work on one computer. The error message was obscure as always, and troubleshooting on Microsoft’s Web site provided no solution. I ended up using third-party backup software. Given that regular backups are essential for a home computer, one can only hope that this will be an unusual problem that gets fixed promptly.

Another disappointment is that Windows 7 doesn’t seem to improve boot-up times. In my tests, it took slightly longer to get going on Windows 7 than with XP or Vista on the same computer. I don’t think this should be a major issue, though — instead of shutting your computer down, use “sleep mode” instead. This function has improved a lot since XP, and most computers take about 10 seconds to wake up.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Windows 7 is that it’s inspiring computer manufacturers to try new things, and reviving old ideas like touch-enabled “tablet” PCs. It’s breathing new life into the computer market. It just won’t do much for old clunkers.

Celebrities abandon Twitter

witter continues to lose some of its most-followed music celebs. Days after teen star Miley Cyrus removed her account, perpetual ranter Courtney Love has disappeared from the social-networking service. Love’s Twitter disappeared without warning, but its removal came soon after Love’s teenage daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, laid into young Ali Lohan.

Cyrus, however, isn’t disappearing so quietly.

With rumors that she left Twitter at the behest of supposed love interest Liam Hemsworth, the tween star and their friends channeled all their non-tweeting free time into a short, cheesy rap. “I stopped living for moments and started living for people,” Cyrus sings, adding, “Everything that I type and everything I do / All those lame gossip sites take it and they make it news.”

Cyrus admits to some withdrawals, as well as missing Dane Cook’s latest updates, but promises no more “fake feuds” with Demi Lovato.

Cyrus was leaving Twitter while she was on top. According to data from BigChampagne, Cyrus had the third-most Twitter followers among musicians as of Oct. 6, with more than 2.2 million users tracking her updates. Only Britney Spears and John Mayer had more.

But Cyrus and Love aren’t the only high-profile musicians to disappear from the site. British singer Lily Allen, who ranks No. 9 among active Twitter musicians, hasn’t updated since Sept. 28, going quiet after taking heat for her views on Internt file-sharing. Earlier this year, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor stopped updating his account, declaring July 17 that “flesh and reality are calling.”

In May, rapper Kanye West ranted against the service, writing in his “Caps Lock” glory, “I’M TOO BUSY ACTUALLY BUSY BEING CREATIVE MOST OF THE TIME AND IF I’M NOT AND I’M JUST LAYING ON A BEACH I WOULDN’T TELL THE WORLD. EVERYTHING THAT TWITTER OFFERS I NEED LESS OF.”

Although she wasn’t nearly as blunt, it appears Cyrus would agree.

Players trip on tweeting’s fine line

Terrell Owens, Marcus Fitzgerald, Nick Barnett and Robert Henson … come on down!

	Redskins linebacker Robert Henson probably hadn’t been sought by the media for a quote this season until his misguided tweet earlier this week.

You’re all the next contestants on “Football Players Forgetting their Tweets Can Spread Like Wildfire!”

Here’s the latest list, which, mind you, all happened Sunday: Buffalo Bills receiver Owens retweeted a knock on Tony Romo. Shortly after he realized what he’d done, (retweeting another’s thoughts is viewed as agreeing with, or saying it yourself if you don’t add commentary) Owens tweeted he wasn’t going to rip anyone on the Cowboys. Except he already had.

Marcus Fitzgerald, brother to Arizona Cardinals wideout Larry and a receiver for the California Redwoods in the United Football League, took to Twitter during the Cardinals game to tell another user “my brother just texted me during halftime pissed off.” In that same tweet, he also ripped Kurt Warner, leading many to believe Larry was not happy with Warner. Marcus continued to rip on Warner throughout the game, only adding wood to that fire.

These tweets have since been deleted. Marcus later tweeted he was just frustrated his brother wasn’t getting the ball enough. OK then.

Packers linebacker Barnett told everyone to “KISS MY ASS” if they booed him after he celebrated a tackle in the backfield of Cedric Benson in their loss to the Bengals. Not always the wisest decision. He’s since quit Twitter, saying he’s “an emotional person” and sometimes he forgets that “everything is public.”

Last, and perhaps most egregious, Henson, a Redskins rookie linebacker who’s yet to see an NFL snap, went after fans on Twitter who booed the team in Washington’s victory over St. Louis, calling them “dim wits” and saying they worked “9 to 5 at McDonalds.” Yeesh.

He has deleted his account, quit Twitter and apologized.

Phew. All done.

As I’ve written before, there’s been no shortage of controversy on Twitter since athletes flocked to the service earlier this year. So what gives? Do these guys not realize that anything they say on Twitter often carries the same weight as what they’d say to a reporter? With so many of these incidents happening, it’s clear that some athletes just don’t get it.

But you know what? I’m going to cut them some slack. And here’s why: When an athlete is in a press room or locker room, they know to act right. Does this mean they’re always going to say the right thing? Of course not. We’ve seen plenty of locker room and news conference blowups. But in that forum, there’s more thought behind it: When several microphones are in an athlete’s face in a traditional news conference or locker room setting, athletes think before they speak. It’s a formal setting. But Twitter — though certainly still a public forum — isn’t like that. It’s the very definition of informal. It just feels different.

If the press room is athletes’ classroom, Twitter is their playground. And in the playground your guard is down, you feel more off-the-record.

Take the Fitzgerald case. He was having a conversation with another Twitter user via UberTwitter, which is a BlackBerry application, when he tweeted about his brother being “pissed off.” So, in his mind, he’s in the heat of the moment watching his brother, and he’s essentially texting a quick line to one person. Texting is the very definition of informal communication. Except when you step back and look at it in a larger context, his conversation with one specific user is out there for the world to see.

For the common folk, social media has done plenty to connect us, but it’s also led to the dreaded “overshare” — saying stuff in a public forum online we’d never say to a stranger (and oftentimes even to friends), even though plenty of strangers will be reading it.

Social media begs us to tell it what we’re doing at all hours of the day every day. Sometimes that’s just not necessary.

So in the case of athletes, the examples above are their oversharing. This is stuff they’d likely never say in a more formal setting — especially a guy such as Henson, who likely didn’t get one question in the locker room after the game — but Twitter’s informal nature almost tempts them to let it out.

Now, this doesn’t absolve these four guys of their transgressions. But it certainly sheds some light on why this stuff continues to happen.

Yet, remember: There’s still plenty of utility to the service, enough that not every athlete is going to run away screaming. And not every athlete is having difficulty with the public versus private issue. In fact, the majority have figured it out, for the most part.

Even though it feels different, the main takeaway here is it’s not. Athletes need to recognize this, and think before they tweet. Twitter, no matter what you’re doing on it, is no different than traditional media.

It is media — self media.

Ryan Corazza is a freelance writer and Web designer based in Chicago.

Instant Twitter reviews rattle Hollywood

BY MICHAEL SRAGOW The Baltimore Sun
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Although word of mouth could always make or break a movie, it usually took days to affect the box office. But the rise of social networking tools such as Twitter might be narrowing that time frame to hours. And that has Hollywood on edge.

This summer, movies such as “Bruno” and “G.I. Joe” have had unexpected tumbles at the box office — just within their opening weekends — while “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” survived blistering critical reaction to become a blockbuster.

Box-office watchers say the dramatic swings might be caused by Twitter and other social networking sites that can blast instant raves — or pans — to hundreds of people just minutes after the credits roll.

“Almost every time after I go out (to a movie), I’ll tweet about it,” says Lindsay Wailes, a cook and barista from Westminster, Md. “I tweeted about ‘G.I. Joe’ as soon as I left the theater.”

Her take: “If you like science or plot, this isn’t a movie for you; if you like explosions for no reason, you’ll love it.”

She also listens to what others have to say: She turned her back on “Bruno” because of downbeat Twitter reviews. Studios are trying to gauge the impact of an avalanche of tweets and how it affects the staying power of a movie. Was the 39 percent box-office drop of “Bruno” from Friday to Saturday a case of disappointed moviegoers tweeting from theater lobbies? Or did a limited fan base for “Bruno” exhaust itself on that first day?

“I think Twitter can’t be stopped,” says Stephen Bruno, the Weinstein Co.’s senior director of marketing. “Now you have to see it as an addition to the campaign of any movie. People want real-time news, and suddenly a studio can give it to them in a first-person way.”

Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, says studios are worrying about a time when “people will be Twittering during the opening credits — and leaving when they don’t like them.” But he also warns, “the next step (for the Twitter Effect) is for studio marketing to manipulate it.”

The Weinstein Co. has done that big-time for the Friday release of the Quentin Tarantino-Brad Pitt World War II epic “Inglourious Basterds.”

The company packed a screening at San Diego’s Comic-Con with people who won access via Twitter. It also staged “the first ever Red Carpet Twitter meet-up” during the movie’s premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, generating celebrity tweets including Sarah Silverman’s “just made me smile forever” and Tony Hawk’s “another Tarantino classic.”

Twitter has broadened the reach of bloggers and other aspiring opinionmakers.

“Just two years ago, if I saw a movie I loved or I hated, I’d be able to tell a dozen friends, tops,” says John Singh, who works for the movie and social networking Web site Flixster. “Now I can be walking out of a theater as the credits are rolling and immediately tell 500 people what I thought. … It’s never been this easy to be this influential.”

Take “The Proposal,” a film that had little buzz yet has become one of the summer’s most profitable productions. (It cost $40 million and is grossing upward of $159 million.) Flixster, which runs the Movies application for iPhones, worked with Disney/Touchstone to promote the Sandra Bullock-Ryan Reynolds romantic farce. Singh credits the campaign with increasing the film’s opening-weekend haul by 30 percent.

Positive reviews from her Twitter friends can persuade Wailes to attend a film if she’s “undecided.” If it “gets raves from people I network with, since I know I have something in common with these people, I figure there must be something in the movie that I might want to see.”

Gregg Kilday, film editor of The Hollywood Reporter, notes that it’s impossible to separate the factors that would explain a film’s drop or rise in box office.

“Even if you don’t have Twitter, a lot of people, especially kids, have long had the ability to text each other, sometimes from within the theater,” he says. “And for a lot of the mass-market movies, the potential audience will go whether friends tell them they’re good or not.”

Brandon Gray, president and founder of boxofficemojo.com, notes that the hit teen-romance vampire film “Twilight” dropped 41 percent from Friday to Saturday without any discussion of the Twitter Effect.

“There have been many indications through the years that films targeting teens and young adults will have a huge Friday and a more front-loaded weekend,” Gray says. “That’s just kind of how it goes.”

Movietickets.com recently ran a poll in which 88 percent of the voting sample said Twitter had no effect on them. Joel Cohen, the company’s executive vice president and general manager, thinks “we may be putting too much weight onto the Twitter Effect. But you can see Twitter’s benefits as a communications tool that spreads the word about a film, and the negatives have yet to be proven.”

Bowles, who distributed the documentary “Food, Inc.,” acknowledges that “we did some Twitter-specific things, including a Twitter-cast with the movie’s director, Robby Kenner.”

But he’s cautious when it comes to describing Twitter as a “revolutionary” force.

“Revolutionize moviegoing? No,” he said. “But all the tiny little bits together (Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and others) can add up to something meaningful.”

Sue Facebook for sharing your info? Seriously?

Turns out, Facebook is not your secret diary. If you put your stuff online and invite other people to look at it, other people might do just that. Still, don’t let that stop you from seeking damages.

It certainly isn’t slowing the five plaintiffs in yet another privacy lawsuit filed against the social networking giant. Filed earlier this week in California, this lawsuit demands a jury trial and money for a bunch of privacy-related complaints.

The plaintiffs range from an 11-year-old (whose parents are totally freaked over possible abuse of the kid’s “swine flu. Pray for me” status) to an actress whose career may be in peril over Facebook’s wanton dissemination of her digital images.

Technology news blog TechCrunch, so kind to post the entire wacky 40-page complaint, pointed to the incongruity of engaging in social networking, then bellyaching about violated privacy and other assumed “rights.” (And you know what happens when we assume!)

“It’s sort of like jumping into a pool and then complaining that you’re wet,” wrote TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid. Arguably, an understatement.

Frankly kids, suing Facebook for violating your privacy is like going to a kegger at the Devil’s house, then waking up on the front lawn the next day hung over, naked, missing your soul …and surprised.

“Facebook has a long and tortured history of attempting highly targeted advertising by mining data and usage habits from users,” wrote Bob Sullivan in his msnbc.com blog Red Tape Chronicles.

What, you didn’t know that?

This Mulligan’s Stew of a lawsuit is just the latest legal lump tossed at Facebook regarding its use of user information, and the tie-in to questionable marketing deals.

Perhaps you’re one of the many who jumped on the non-boycott bandwagon earlier and joined a Facebook petition group to protest the unannounced changes to its Terms of Service regarding what Facebook felt entitled to do with your stuff.

If you’re a Facebook user who also happens to be an elephant, perhaps you’ll recall the Beacon debacle of 2007 in which Facebook tracked your purchases on partnered sites and shared those purchases with your Facebook friends via your newsfeed.

What’s more, Facebook’s “tortured history” referenced above comes from Sullivan’s recent Red Tape about a husband surprised to see his wife’s photo offered up via a third-party Facebook ad as an example of one of the “Hot singles waiting for you!”

Sullivan followed up with the company and got some blather about a rogue third-party company blah, blah, blah … but the facts are these: You have to actually opt in to your privacy settings if you want to limit this sort of nonsense from happening. (Though to be fair, that particular incident is pretty funny.)

That’s right, you are responsible for where you choose to put your personal information.

Not that it’s easy. Even if you do figure out how to toggle that hard-to-find privacy switch, try navigating the legalese doublespeak and figure out just how and when your stuff is going to get used. We’ll wait.

Actually, no we won’t. We’re bored. While studies say Americans care about Internet privacy, when’s the last time you read the Terms of Service agreement on anything … on a social network, Amazon or eHarmony? Most people just don’t. For all those online groups demanding Facebook privacy rights last year, how many actually quit using the site out of protest? It’s not like we all hit up LinkedIn to form our Facebook petition groups.

Instead of suing, the good-natured wife in Sullivan’s post — the one pimped out to her own husband as a hot single — called it the price of participating in “free” Internet sites. Picture-perfect wife, who works in social media herself, may be a bit more realistic (i.e. sane) than the five plaintiffs. Most notably, she’s not looking to sue.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit against Facebook is so bold as to declare that the company “has created a business model and apparatus designed to harvest as much personal and private information as possible in (the) easiest, quickest, and most innocuous-looking manner possible.”

To read the 40-page complaint, one might be drawn to conclude that countless users are fiendlishly tricked daily — if not hourly — into updating their Facebook profiles, allowing who knows who access to the most intimate 25 random things people don’t know about them and more.

“What?!” you demand. “When I posted my five favorite albums of all time, I wasn’t expecting other people to see my Five Favorite Albums of All Time. I would have NEVER admitted to enjoying Glass Tiger, had I known all my friends to know …”

Hey, I feel you.

Had I known that I’d score less than stellar on that “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” trivia quiz, and that my alleged BFF Ree Hines would see my humbling score that I posted on my Facebook Wall and then go on to take it herself, after which she would lord her own perfect grade over me, again on my own Facebook Wall, where all my other friends would see my shame, I would’ve contracted a lawyer ages ago.

Alas, I fear the statute of limitations has long since passed.

Harvest Helen A.S. Popkin’s personal and private information on Facebook … or follow the abridged version Twitter.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32467318/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

iPhone Apps for the Lawbreaker in You

You’re driving along the highway, maybe exceeding the speed limit, when your iPhone calls out to you: “Police often hide here.”

Glancing at the phone, you see a road map that pinpoints your exact location and, very close to it, an icon of a police car. It’s time to ease the pedal from the metal.

This is why you’ve downloaded “Trapster,” one of several “apps” — programs available for the Apple iPhone — that can help users get a leg up on the law.

If you’re a blackjack player, there’s an iPhone app you can use to count cards — a neat little trick that will help you beat the odds in a casino.

One added feature is that it can also can help you obtain a room in a Nevada prison and stay free for six years. (It isn’t illegal to count cards, but it’s illegal in Nevada to use a device to count cards.)

If you’re a marijuana smoker, yet another app will show you where you can find it and buy it — with a doctor’s prescription, of course.

The most popular of these apps is “Trapster,” with 1.5 million users. The free program uses the GPS receiver built into new iPhones to track a driver’s location and warn of nearby speed traps and red light cameras. It’s also available for phones running Google Android and some BlackBerries.

Drivers can add new locations to the app by hitting buttons to mark speed traps and red light cameras for other drivers. Users can also rate the accuracy of speed trap reports, which helps weed out fake inputs.

The app potentially can help users speed or run lights more often. Nonetheless, police are largely supportive of Trapster, because they hope it will get users to slow down.

“Anything that gets people to slow down on the highway, or drive in a more responsible manner, is a good thing,” said Corinne Geller, public relations manager for the Virginia State Police.

She said the state itself uses that logic to announce some red light cameras and speed-limit enforcement areas.

“We don’t hide,” Geller said.

Radar detectors are illegal in many states, but the iPhone app is perfectly legal because it doesn’t actually detect a radar signal. It simply relies on user input to pinpoint spots where police often hide to catch speeders.

In Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier was quoted earlier this month in the Washington Examiner saying that using Trapster was a “cowardly tactic” to avoid police.

But a D.C. police spokeswoman says the chief was misquoted, and the department has no opinion on the application.

She also noted that a list of the District’s red-light cameras is publicly available on its Web site: http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1240,q,548257,mpdcNav_GID,1552,mpdcNav,|31885|.asp

Trapster’s creator, Pete Tenereillo, says that he hopes the application will get drivers to slow down.

“It’s a possibility that someone would use it to try to speed up between speed traps,” he said. “But honestly, this is user-generated content, and I don’t know how many people would be that confident that the only speed traps are the ones that are marked in Trapster. I would love it if they were.”

If you can avoid running through red lights and getting stopped for speeding, you can drive to your local casino and fire up another iPhone app — “A Black Jack Card Counter,” a $4.99 program that has gaming institutions on edge.

The app allows users to record the cards played and includes a “stealth mode” that turns the screen off while allowing users to continue hitting the buttons to record cards.

It has the potential to make users a lot of money.

“If you stick to the basic strategy for blackjack, the house has a small advantage,” the program’s creator, Travis Yates, writes in the program’s description. “But if you can keep count of the number of high and low ranked cards in the pack, you can gain a small advantage…. This small advantage, around 1%, over a long period of time can result in huge wins.”

But there is a downside.

“I would not recommend using this app in a casino as you could get into a lot of trouble,” Yates writes.

In Nevada, for instance, using an electronic device to keep track of cards played in a casino is a category B felony with a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine, as outlined here: http://leg.state.nv.us/nrs/NRS-465.html#NRS465Sec088

The Nevada Gaming Control Board sent a letter earlier this year warning casinos in the state of the app’s existence.

Jerry Markling, chief of the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s enforcement division, told FOXNews.com that nobody has been prosecuted for using the app.

He added that the program’s stealth mode “certainly makes one wonder what the real intent is,” but he said that he would not fault Apple for allowing the program, given that it could have uses outside of a casino.

Other iPhone applications called “Cannabis” and “iPot” help users find medical marijuana dispensaries.

The Cannabis program also lists local advocacy groups and lawyers — a feature that could come in handy since all marijuana, even in states that allow its use for medical purposes, is illegal under federal law.

But it’s easy to violate, as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says he has no plans to prosecute marijuana dispensaries operating legally under state laws.

Users certainly have no trepidation about posting their comments on Apple’s forums.

“Works as promised,” an iPhone owner in the San Francisco area wrote about iPot. “Learned about a new dispensary in Bernal Heights.”

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on all of these applications.

Wireless Cybercriminals Target Clueless Vacationers

The newest trend in Internet fraud is “vacation hacking,” a sinister sort of tourist trap.

Cybercriminals are targeting travelers by creating phony Wi-Fi hot spots in airports, in hotels, and even aboard airliners.

Vacationers on their way to fun in the sun, or already there, think they’re using designated Wi-Fi access points. But instead, they’re signing on to fraudulent networks and hand-delivering everything on their laptops to the crooks.

“More and more people are traveling with Wi-Fi devices like smartphones and laptops,” says Marian Merritt, Internet safety advocate at the computer-security giant Symantec. “Airports and airlines and hotels are responding. They’re setting up free Wi-Fi networks to lure in customers. Now they’re luring in hackers as well.”

In 2008, Silicon Valley-based AirTight Networks, a wireless security company, sent a team of “white-hat” hackers — good guys who try to thwart “black hat” hackers — around the world on an international airport study.

They checked the Wi-Fi networks at 27 airports — 20 in the U.S., five in Asia and two in Europe — and the results were not good.

At John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the baggage-handling system was being run on an insecure network. At other airports, ticketing systems were similarly exposed.

And everywhere they looked, they found fake Wi-Fi hot spots set up by hackers phishing for suckers — and there were plenty of suckers to be had.

“We found a lot of people using insecure Wi-Fi,” says AirTight investigator Rick Farina, “and people engaged in all sort of dangerous activity — checking their e-mail, doing their banking, buying stock. These are not the kinds of thing you want to be doing on public Wi-Fi.”

A lot of the problem may be that people let their guard down when they’re on vacation.

“Much of the time, people just log in to the first robust network they see,” says AirTight spokeswoman Della Lowe. “When we did our airport study, we found only 3 percent of the people were using secure networks.”

And according to their study, even the “secure” networks weren’t all too safe.

Eighty percent of the private Wi-Fi networks at airports surveyed by Airtight were secured by the aging Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol, which was cracked back in 2001.

Almost as many — 77 percent — of the networks they surveyed were actually private, peer-to-peer networks, meaning they weren’t official hotspots. Instead, they were running off someone else’s computer.

In response to the rise in vacation hacking, some companies are beginning to tighten up security.

When AirTight’s Farina alerted American Airlines to vulnerabilities in its system earlier this year, the airline took action.

“I can’t tell you what they did,” says Farina, “but their Wi-Fi is safer.”

JetBlue also says it has taken appropriate steps.

“Phishing is a risk that exists anywhere there are wireless services available, which is pretty much everywhere these days,” says JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin.

“At our Terminal 5 at JFK, where we offer free Wi-Fi, we have measures in place to minimize risks for our customers,” he said. “We’d prefer not to go into detail about the specifics of those measures, because the details could be used by clever hackers against the defenses.”

A spokesman for the Marriott hotel chain would give only a terse statement:

“When it comes to online security, Marriott has worked diligently to protect our guests.”

One thing all security experts agree on: When it comes to hackers, the best defense is a good offense.

To this end, the folks at Symantec have created a list of five simple tips for thwarting most attacks.

— Pay attention to your surroundings. Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you’re not in public. Don’t look at important documents when sitting in a waiting area for a plane or a train — wait until you’re alone and in private for that.

— Beware of “Evil Twins.” Some Wi-Fi networks look legitimate but are actually dummy networks created by criminals. Even if they contain the name of your airport, airline or hotel, they will directly link your computer to the hacker’s. If you always use the official access keys provided by the establishment, then you should be safe.

— Always assume Wi-Fi connections are being eavesdropped on. Never enter sensitive data — Social Security numbers, bank account information, etc. — when browsing the Web via a Wi-Fi network.

— Set all Bluetooth devices to “hidden,” not to “discoverable.” Better yet, if you don’t use Bluetooth, just shut off the function altogether.

— Keep your security software current and active. Mobile PCs are just as vulnerable to viruses, worms and Trojan horses as are desktops, so make sure you have the latest protection installed.

“In short,” says Merritt, “if you don’t feel confident in the system security, then just don’t use it.”