Archive for July 4, 2019

BREAKING: Apple iCloud Is Down For Many [UPDATED x7]

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 4, 2019 by itnerd

Apple is not having a good 4th of July as Apple’s system status page is noting the downtime across almost all of its iCloud services. That includes Apple Pay, Screen Time, Find My Friends, Find My iPhone among other services. And it’s trending on Twitter which is never a good thing for a company who is suffering an outage.

What’s worse is that if you want to buy something at an Apple Store, apparently you can’t:

https://twitter.com/ElliottCantor/status/1146825513975111680

There doesn’t seem to be any ETA for resolution. But you can be sure that Apple is trying to get things working as fast as possible as this has to be embarrassing for them.

UPDATE: About the same time that the iCloud outage happened, this happened:

UPDATE #2: Apple Pay and Apple Cash issues appear to be resolved as per the Apple Status Page.

apple pay

UPDATE #3: GameCenter issues appear to be resolved.

gamecenter

UPDATE #4: iCloud Mail issues have been resolved.

icloud mail

UPDATE #5: iCloud services are coming back online. This is the current state of play.

Staus

UPDATE #6: iCloud Reminders and iCloud Calendar are the only things that are not working. All other iCloud services have been restored.

UPDATE #7: The outage is over as all services have been restored.

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DLink Must Submit To FTC Scrutiny To Make Their Legal Issues Go Away

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 4, 2019 by itnerd

It was a while ago that the news broke about the FTC taking DLink to court because the company made gear that was insecure. Fast forward to the present and a settlement order on the US antitrust body’s website which you can find here [Warning:PDF] details the fact that DLink has agreed to settle said lawsuit and they have pledged to maintain a “comprehensive software security program” for the next 20 years which designed to make its IP cameras and routers safe for consumers. On top of that DLink has to submit to a decade of product security audits by an agency appointed by the FTC to make sure that they are doing what they say they will do in terms of making their products secure.

Interestingly, DLink won’t have to admit to any wrongdoing. Which is interesting because by the time you agree to what I have written above, you’ve likely screwed up in some way. But I suppose that this is better than the alternative which is getting pummeled by the feds. And I suppose that this will not only make DLink gear safer, but it will send a message to gear makers everywhere that if you don’t make you gear safe, the feds will be on your doorstep. Thus in theory consumers are the big winners. Right?

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So Is The Huawei Ban Lifted Or Not? It Depends On Who You Ask

Posted in Commentary with tags on July 4, 2019 by itnerd

Over the weekend, I wrote about the fact that President Trump folded up like a cheap suit and said that the ban on everybody’s favorite telco gear maker Huawei would be lifted. But that seems to be in doubt now based on this report from Reuters which cites sources within the DOC who say staff members have been told by leadership that US companies are still prohibited from selling stuff to Huawei:

In an email to enforcement staff on Monday that was seen by Reuters, John Sonderman, Deputy Director of the Office of Export Enforcement, in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), sought to clarify how agents should approach license requests by firms seeking approval to sell to Huawei.

All such applications should be considered on merit and flagged with language noting that “This party is on the Entity List. Evaluate the associated license review policy under part 744,” he wrote, citing regulations that include the Entity List and the “presumption of denial” licensing policy that is applied to blacklisted companies.

He added that any further guidance from BIS should also be taken into account when evaluating Huawei-related license applications.

So you have to wonder if Trump was just making stuff up as he is known to do, or he doesn’t know how things work in Washington, or maybe both at the same time. All to placate the Chinese who he crossed paths with at the G20 summit. Whatever the deal is, this is clearly a grade A gong show with no clear path to resolution or clarity.

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