Apple pulls out of proposed Black Hat talk

Though I'm far too dumb to understand what they're talking about, I like the Black Hat hacker guys. Most of the Internet is all "New Vegas" now; all (supposedly) family friendly and glamorous and glitzy. But those guys are back on Fremont Street, gambling with everything they've got and shoulder to shoulder with the dregs of society.

Unfortunately, Apple's marketing department doesn't share my feelings. Computerworld says they've put the kibosh on a speaking engagement they were supposed to have at the conference next week in Sin City. In fact, they can't even say they were asked to pass -- everyone involved in organizing the panel, which was set up early last month and "abruptly canceled" late last month, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Which is a shame -- organizers of the conference say the panel was supposed to be all about how serious security is at Apple and how they're committed to keeping users secure. And it wasn't even supposed to be a Q&A, which is why the organizers thought it would easily be approved by marketing.

That, however, wasn't the case -- while the panel wasn't yet approved by the conference folks, the request to have the panel was pulled. We're sure the Black Hat guys will still have fun (it is Vegas, after all), but it's a shame we couldn't get that look inside Apple's security team.

Consumer Reports pans Safari's lack of phishing protection [ MacOS ]

Consumer Reports, in its annual internet security survey, recommended that Mac users avoid Safari because of its lack of phishing protection. Instead, they recommend users install Firefox 3 or Opera 9.5 as their default browsers, since both will warn users before displaying the contents of sites known to be source of scams and personal information theft.

Jeff Fox, technology editor at Consumer Reports, noted that "e-mail is the weak vector on the Mac," meaning that most successful phishing attacks on Mac users arrive via email.

"Windows users are used to being paranoid about not clicking [links in phishing emails]," he said. "Mac users aren't, even though they say, 'Antivirus software, who needs it?'"

As we've mentioned before, 1Password does a great job of adding phishing protection to Safari. Also, always be extra-wary of clicking links in emails from people you don't know.