Hasta La Gadget!

Apple has never been entirely keen on the idea of people hacking in to their smartphones, and here in 2013 its becoming apparent that developers of games for iOS devices aren’t finding the situation to be entirely positive either. What this week has turned up is the creators of Dues Ex: The Fall have included a code which, if your iPhone is jailbroken, will result in your complete inability to fire guns. And that’s important.

When you’re playing a game like Dues Ex: The Fall, you’ll find it rather difficult to get anywhere without the firing of guns. This news comes from Kotaku where users have flocked to flip out over the situation due to their full purchase of the game and essentially complete inability to play it. This game was released this week for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

When one downloads The Fall for $6.99 USD on the Apple App Store, it will work completely fine if you’ve got a factory-fresh iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. If you’ve taken the time to jailbreak the device, on the other hand, you’ll be unable to play.

At the moment it’s not entirely clear why the developers behind the game do not warn users that they’re so very against the jailbreaking process that they’ll stop anyone who does it from playing their game. Jailbreaking is not illegal at the moment here in the USA, just warrantee-breaking. Game developers certainly – again, at the moment – appear to have the right to initiate a break like this, but we imagine the situation wont be around for long.

At least, not with no warning as we’re seeing here.

UPDATE: It would appear that Square Enix has been quick on the pistol with a response to this public relations mistake of a release. These words were provided by the developers to Penny Arcade Report:

“We have not been clear in our communication earlier this week when we launched Deus Ex: The Fall. We did not state clearly that the game would not support jailbroken devices and so we will be switching this off via an update, so that all the supported iOS devices will be able to play the game in the near future

We feel it is the right thing to do in this situation and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. No customer should be out of pocket when we were not clear from the start, so we’ll get the game updated as soon as possible so that everyone who wants to play Deus Ex: The Fall can do so regardless of whether their device is jailbroken or not.

As soon as this update is live we will communicate this via the Eidos Montreal Community channels” – Square Enix

This sort of situation has appeared with several other games in the recent past, notably Game Dev Tycoon which, having expected their game to be pirated immediately after having been released to the wild, added a bit of a break inside it.

As players played, they found their (pirated) game to be giving them massive amounts of bad sales reports due to in-game pirating. Irony at its best.

Jailbreakers beware: games continue to cut service to hackers [UPDATE: Statement] is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A doozy of an Android bug has been discovered by Bluebox Security’s Bluebox Labs, one that affects all Android releases since 1.6 Donut. With the vulnerability, malicious coders can create a trojan application to serve whatever purpose they’d like, whether to steal a user’s information or take over control of the device. More information will be given at Black Hat USA 2013 in a keynote speech.

According to Bluebox Labs, because of how many versions of Android are affected, a potential 900 million devices could suffer from the vulnerability, which involves a means for modifying APK code without harm to the app’s cryptographic signature. As such, a perfectly legit app can be converted into a trojan that slips under the radar.

The company goes on to specify that apps developed by the handset’s makers pose a greater risk due to their elevated privileges. Because of this, one of these apps that are exploited and turned into a trojan can give the hacker complete access to the mobile OS’s apps and system, as well as all their related data. The ramifications of this are two-fold:

Depending on the intent of the hacker, personal data like text messages, emails, any documents on the device, account passwords that are saved, pictures, and other related items can be swiped, potentially giving access to things like bank accounts and revealing contacts’ information. In addition, this can be taken a step further so that the hacker has the ability to use the device to send text messages, snap pictures, record videos, make phone calls, etc.

In an extreme case, the vulnerability could be used to create a botnet.

According to Bluebox, it informed Google of this Android vulnerability in February of this year. To take care of the issue, every device manufacturer will need to create a patch and roll it out to its users, who will then need to install it. The security firm says it will release “tools/material” and more info about this vulnerability during Blackhat USA 2013, which takes place later this month.

SOURCE: BlueBox

Android vulnerability discovered affecting devices running version 1.6 and later is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s been a bit of awhile since we’ve heard about a large online service hack, but we should’ve knocked on wood when we had the chance. Ubisoft has confirmed that some of its “online systems” were hacked, with only usernames, email addresses, and passwords stolen. The game publisher says that financial information is safe, since that info isn’t kept by Ubisoft.

Obviously, Ubisoft is recommending that all account holders change their passwords on ubi.com, as well as on other websites where they use the same password. Of course, it’s good practice to not use the same password for everything, as that could start a chain reaction if your password gets stolen on one service.

However, Ubisoft says that the passwords are encrypted on their servers, so while the hackers didn’t have the passwords themselves at the time of the breach, Ubisoft says they “could be cracked, in particular if the password chosen is weak,” which is why the company is recommending that its users change their passwords as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, specifics about how the breach happened weren’t disclosed by Ubisoft “for security reasons,” but they said that the hack did not affect their Uplay gaming service. Currently, ubi.com is “under maintenance,” and isn’t accessible at this time because the publisher is working on solving the attack.

Ubisoft is just one of the multiple big game publishers that will be releasing games for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year. Watch Dogs seems to be one of the big games to hit the new consoles in the fall, and the publisher looks to go all-in on the next-generation of gaming.

SOURCE: Ubisoft Blog

Ubisoft hacked with usernames and passwords stolen, financial info safe is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hackers were able to access personal details of thousands of U.S. troops posted in Korea, and that information has reportedly been leaked on multiple sites online

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Back in September, we reported that one of The Pirate Bay’s founders, Gottrid Svartholm Warg, had been sent to Sweden by Cambodia, where he was arrested at his apartment. The issue resulted from a sentence in 2009, which was appealed and reduced to a few months and a multi-million fine. Today he received a jail

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