This question has come up a few times via the contact form. This is actually one of the most frustrating things about iPods to me. If you format you iPod for a Mac it will only work with a Mac. So say you have a Mac at home and a PC and work, you cannot connect the iPod to your work system. However if you format your iPod on a PC (FAT32) your iPod will work with both a Mac and a PC, which I am seeing is pretty much the norm even for die-hard Mac geeks. Another practical benefit of this is that when you put your iPod into Disk mode the storage will work with both Mac and PC.
Now what I find REALLY frustrating is Apple’s response to the issue. Instead of fixing the problem, they simply state that they do not support using a Windows formatted iPod on a Windows system, even though it works perfectly fine. WTF? Although my wife has an iPod, I personally have a Cowon player (X5L), I love it. Not only is the sound quality better than an iPod, but it uses USB mass storage out of the box, so I can connect it to my Windows, Mac and even Linux box with no problems. It also supports FLAC and OggVorbis, it is just a much more open system than Apple. Don’t get me wrong I like a lot of Apple products (love my iPod Touch…it it only had a freaking disk mode), but I think their control freaks and some of their monopolistic and controlling practices are starting to make Microsoft look like the good guys.
posted by akuma @ January 12, 2008 2:34 am
Just a little note to some of the folks who have emailed in asking for help on hax0ring websites, banks and other stupid and illegal acts. Apparently a systems administrator has gotten himself into some hot water when he realized he was not as l337 as he thought he was. He has received the longest federal prison sentence for attempting to damage a computer system. Mr. Andy Lin will be serving 30 months jail time for planting malicious code that would delete data from the companies server. Not only did his little time-bomb code fail miserably( which is little more funny considering he had root access as sysadmin ), but he also got caught when he tried to reset it for a year later.
To be frank I think he got off easy. Considering the fact that the data he was trying to delete was a database with prescription and billing information, this could have affected quite a few people if it had succeeded.
This just goes to show you that the weakest link in any security plan sits between the computer and the chair. You can trust a computer, that is until it starts executing code humans wrote. If people have malcious intent no technology can really protect you and no degree of paranoia will save you. More than 70% of all security breaches and mass data thefts occur from BEHIND the firewall. The threat nowadays is not so much from those evil Russian and Chinese hackers like the media and Hollywood have us believe, but from inside our networks, or to be more precise, our virtual network that takes into account our increasingly mobile workforce.
Endpoint security has become a new buzz word, mostly by companies that are trying to sell you a product that monitors connections to your systems, encryption, passwords, content distribution, etc. But really endpoint security is much more than this, it is a fundamental attitude and approach that should take “soft systems” into account.
Hard systems are what we currently know, it is the network infrastructure, the devices on that network that are concrete and easily understood through diagrams and data visualization, it is predictable. Soft systems are not so easy or concrete, it deals more in the realm of social science. Soft systems introduces the human element into the system. It takes into account social attitudes, prejudices, paranoia, opinions and all of those other wonderful ambiguous things that makes us so unpredictable.
The sysadmin here was the security failure, he was “corrupted’ and shipped back to the manufacturer for repairs (or in this case a correctional facility). Another sysadmin found the flaw and reported it, so maybe the answer to a more secure network is more is oversight and accountability, or maybe just a personality test 
But, then again I might fail, as sometimes I don’t even trust myself.
posted by akuma @ January 10, 2008 2:06 am
There has been a lot of questions coming in regarding tracking solutions for iPods and other gadgets. The main reason being that a lot of folks have received them as Christmas presents this year and are a bit afraid to bring them back to school, on the bus, leave them in the car, or even just plain walk down the street with them for fear of the device being stolen. Their fears are well grounded. According to the Urban Institute’s “iCrime” report there is evidence to suggest that an increasingly mobile society has led to an increase in theft and violent theft at that.
GadgetTrak, who has been mentioned on this site before offers several solutions to help this issue. The original GadgetTrak USB product was developed with removable media and gadgets such as iPods in mind. When a device is stolen the software can send data back that helps lead to recovery such as general location, user name, computer name and other data. This system is the first product on the market that enabled device owners a means of theft recovery for their devices. The agent software leverages some interesting characteristics such as evading firewalls and sending data over a secure connection with some new advancements on the way.
The second product GadgetTrak PhoneBak offered is for cellular phones and takes a somewhat similar approach only utilizing wireless networks. When a thief steals a phone it is essentially worthless after 48 hours unless they switch the SIM card in the phone, when this occurs their software detects the change and triggers software to send data via SMS to pre-defined numbers.
GadgetTrak now also offer Mac theft recovery software, even utilizing the built in iSight camera to capture video of thieves, information regarding wireless networks in the area and a bevy of other data that helps with theft recovery. The data is all collected without the use of a central server, or any sort of monitoring by GadgetTrak, the information is sent to the owner’s email account(s). There is also an option to integrate the software with Twitter, for additional notifications. There are theft recovery solutions out there for PC’s that kind of give me the willies as they rely on a “Big Brother” model, with your system constantly communicating with a central server. GadgetTrak does not currently offer a PC solution, but it is nice to see a solution specifically targeted towards Macs.
In addition to all of these booby traps for thieves, GadgetTrak also offers lost and found tags for those who are kind enough to return an item if it is simply found.
GadgetTrak although a young company, even has some recoveries under their belt. So if you have a new gadget, make sure to keep it close and if you are worried about theft you might want to take a look at GadgetTrak.
posted by akuma @ December 31, 2007 3:15 am
LG is about to launch a new thumb drive called the LG Vaccine Drive, which comes with antivirus software installed on it, apparently the drive will monitor data coming in and out of the drive. I really think this is a great achievement and one that will be adopted by more flash drive manufacturers. I will be getting one soon to review in more depth, I am particularly interested in the trigger to update the anti-virus software.
What we will start seeing is that Flash drives will become more intelligent and will essentially function as stand alone systems complete with processor and their own OS. Really this is the only way to secure the devices, as we have seen it is quite easy to circumvent password protected and encrypted drives, the drives themselves need to be smarter and be able to evade security risks.
posted by akuma @ December 30, 2007 3:03 pm
USB Toaster! Real Or Fake? - video powered by Metacafe
Too bad it is a fake! I would buy one 
posted by akuma @ December 17, 2007 4:18 am
