News Roundup 6/18: Hide Your Keychains, Hide Your Password, They’re Hacking Everybody

Nothing gets press attention like an Apple keynote, but Apple vulnerabilities might come in a close second. It’s been rough lately even for the security conscious, so you’ll want to take a look to see how to protect yourself.


British Indie Labels Want Their Two Dollars

It’s hard out there for indie labels. Especially when you have artists like Adele and The Arctic Monkeys on your roster, acts big enough that Americans might assume they’re big enough to rip off with a clear conscience. That may be why a association of British indie labels have protested Apple’s plans to withhold royalties for three-month trial periods for Apple Music.

If you read their argument, published in The Telegraph, they’d rather have three months of Spotify’s fractions of a penny, rather than three months of nothing from Apple. From my perspective, it seems like their mad that Apple left them out of discussions especially when you read statements like this, “Apple hasn’t thought this through at all and it’s not like them. They can’t spring a contract like this on us three weeks from release.”

It seems like these labels may hold back their artists from the service, willing to play Apple’s rival Spotify’s terms against them.


Critical Flaw In OS X Puts Keychain At Risk

Because of the way that Apple handles the iOS App Store, many users probably assume that software in the Mac App Store is vetted and safe. In fact, this is what OS X is trained to believe. However, a new paper has detailed the way that trusted apps can gain access to iCloud passwords as well as anything else saved in your Keychain.

Krebs on Security has the details of the paper. This includes some additional details not in other reports. The way that it seems to work is creating new entires for these accounts in the Keychain, prompting users to re-enter the password. So essentially they can’t read your existing entries, but they can create realistic looking prompts for existing passwords.


You Sue Me, I Screw You

There’s nothing like lawsuits to bring out the worst in tech companies. Apple and Monster have been at odds since Apple purchased Beats. Apple bought on ongoing lawsuit between the headphone makers, which was due to some shady dealings around IP and a change in ownership due to an earlier deal between Beats and HTC.

Mac Observer notes that Apple’s decision to pull the MFI license from Monster is forcing the company to remove the logo from around 900 products. Monster is rightly calling Apple a bully for the decision, considering that Apple warned them that the lawsuit was ruining their “working relationship.” Though it might not have been wise to ask the 900 lb. gorilla to “come at me bro.”


Mac Games By Mac Gamers

Campo Santo is a game development studio backed by Panic Inc. Their inaugural game, Firewatch is set to come out on the Mac. (As well as PC and Playstation 4.) As part of E3 that game got a new trailer. It’s worth checking out, as the game looks to be pretty unique. You can see it on You Tube. The game has a nice pedigree of developers from Telltale Games and other big studios.


Check out these hot offers from our Deals site:

  • Vitasigns Smart Bluetooth Body Analyzer
  • The Network Engineer’s Learning Bundle
  • Swiftpoint GT Gesture-Enabled Mouse

Offers are good for a limited time only. Note: Macgasm gets a cut from purchases made through our Deals site. It’s a great way to support us—and save a few bucks in the process!

Mac geek? Gamer? Why not both? Mike is a writer from Wisconsin who enjoys wasting immense amounts of time on the Internet. You can follow him on Twitter.