Relaunch

from Greg
You may have noticed that, after a hiatus, tablet certified has returned with a vengeance. We here at Golden Delicious Apps have always been excited about the tablet certified brand but weren't able to fully service it until now.

After pausing to finish all our open software development, we are kicking off 2014 with new focus and energy. Our promise to you is new content everyday. Check back often so you can see what's new.

Here are our all time most popular posts so far:

1 - The Daily Beast App is tablet certified

2 - Ticket to Ride game app is tablet certified

3 - ESPN iScore baseball scorekeeper app is tablet certified

4 - Heroclix tap app is coming soon

5 - Xcom Enemy Unknown is a great PC game

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• Marvel's The Ultimate Universe Relaunch!
• ESPN relaunches ScoreCenter iOS and Android app, now calls it SportsCenter
• Report: Newsweek To Resurrect Their Print Issue

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Best Longread Sites

From Wikipedia
Long-form journalism is a branch of journalism dedicated to longer articles with larger amounts of content. The length of long-form articles is between that of a traditional article and that of a novel. Long-form articles often take the form of creative nonfiction or narrative journalism.

Long-form journalism has grown in popularity over the past several years, with blogs and media organizations including BuzzFeed and the New York Times creating or expanding long-form coverage and new companies being founded to capitalize on the new interest.

From Greg
I like nothing better that long form nonfiction. I find it more rewarding than reading fiction. The truth is usually far more entertaining than imagination. Here are some of the best sites to get long form articles. Enjoy.

Sites with long form non-fiction:

1- http://longform.org/

Longform.org recommends new and classic non-fiction from around the web.

Articles can be read on a browser or saved to read later with Readability, Instapaper, Pocket or Kindle.

Article suggestions, including writers and magazines submitting their own work, are encouraged. Longform considers pieces over 2,000 words that are freely available online.

Longform was founded in 2010. Longform Fiction was added in December 2012. Additional sections to come.

2- http://longreads.com/

Longreads, founded in 2009, is dedicated to helping people find and share the best storytelling on the web, across both nonfiction and fiction.

Longreads are defined as anything over 1,500 words. They’re stories that are best enjoyed away from your desk — whether it’s on a daily commute, an airplane, a subway, or your couch.

Longreads features stories from hundreds of the best writers and publishers on the web, as well as exclusive stories never before published online.

Readers:

Share your favorites with the #longreads community by tagging your tweets with #longreads. Check the raw feed for most recent submissions, or search the Longreads archive for thousands of timeless stories curated by the editors.

Publishers:

Longreads is a company that brings together people who are passionate about reading and sharing great storytelling. Share your best stories by tagging them on Twitter (#longreads).

Drop a note if you would like to collaborate: mark@longreads.com

***

Longreads was created in April 2009 by Mark Armstrong, and it is edited by Mark Armstrong and Mike Dang. You can reach us here: mark@longreads.com.

3- http://epicmagazine.com/

You know that feeling you get when a good true-life tale grabs you right from the start? You can’t stop turning the page — because you realize incredible things happen to real people — and it's hard to believe that what you’re reading is non-fiction. That is the kind of story we like to tell.

Epic writers travel the world searching for encounters with the unknown. Wartime romance, unlikely savants, deranged detectives, gentlemen thieves, and love struck killers: stories that tap into the thrill of being alive.

Epic stories will debut on Medium,  a new venture by Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone. Medium is a platform built for ideas that should last. And that's what Epic aims for: stories worth remembering.

Welcome aboard.

4- http://narrative.ly/

Narratively, named one of TIME's "50 Best Websites of 2013," is a platform devoted to original, in-depth and untold stories. We launched in September 2012.

Narratively slows down the news cycle. We avoid the breaking news and the next big headline, instead focusing exclusively on untold, human-interest stories—the rich, intricate narratives that get at the heart of what a place and its people are all about.

Each week, we explore a different theme and publish a series of stories—just one a day—told in the most appropriate medium for each piece. We might feature a longform article on a Monday, followed by an animated documentary on Tuesday, then a photo essay, an audio piece or a short documentary film. Every story gets the space and time it needs to have an impact—an approach we call “slow storytelling” or “slow journalism.” (Stay up to date on our latest stories by signing up for our weekly and weekender emails.)

Our community of writers, editors, photographers, filmmakers, illustrators, and designers have worked extensively for top media outlets like the New York Times, New York magazine, CNN, NPR, MediaStorm, the New Yorker and the BBC, among other innovative and experimental publications. And we’ve subsequently gotten press from leading outlets like Forbes, PBS, Yahoo! Finance and others.

5- http://www.vanityfair.com/

Mission
"Vanity Fair has but two major articles in its editorial creed: first, to believe in the progress and promise of American life, and, second, to chronicle that progress cheerfully, truthfully, and entertainingly." —Frank Crowninshield, March 1914

Vanity Fair became a bellwether of the Jazz Age under the editorial direction of Frank Crowninshield in 1914. It folded in 1936, but was resurrected in 1983, hardly missing a beat. Helmed by Tina Brown until 1992, and currently edited by Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair publishes a steady stream of hard-hitting stories, colorful narratives, and eye-popping exposés that routinely become part of the national discussion.

Related articles

• The Best Longreads of 2013
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The New York Times / China Hack: What Really Happened and Who Really Did It?

The New York Times reported that it has been fending off a persistent attack by hackers which coincided with its publication on October 25, 2012 of an article on the wealth of the family of China's prime minister Wen JiaBao. However that appears to be an assumption because according to Jill Abramson, nothing was taken:

“Computer security experts found no evidence that sensitive e-mails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied,” said Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times.

What did the hackers actually do?

• They first accessed the network around September 13
• Installed malware that wasn't detected by Symantec's anti-virus
• They installed backdoors.
• Obtained passwords for 53 Times employees who didn't work in the Times' newsroom
• They "created custom software that allowed them to search for and grab Mr. Barboza’s and Mr. Yardley’s e-mails and documents from a Times e-mail server" but that conflicts with Ms. Abramson's above statement.

So no customer data was stolen, and nothing about the Wen family was accessed, downloaded or copied. That's not really much of a story so far. Better add everyone's favorite bad guy - China.

Why blame China?

“If you look at each attack in isolation, you can’t say, ‘This is the Chinese military,’ ” said Richard Bejtlich, Mandiant’s chief security officer.
But when the techniques and patterns of the hackers are similar, it is a sign that the hackers are the same or affiliated.
“When you see the same group steal data on Chinese dissidents and Tibetan activists, then attack an aerospace company, it starts to push you in the right direction,” he said.
Mandiant has been tracking about 20 groups that are spying on organizations inside the United States and around the globe. Its investigators said that based on the evidence — the malware used, the command and control centers compromised and the hackers’ techniques — The Times was attacked by a group of Chinese hackers that Mandiant refers to internally as “A.P.T. Number 12.”

What's Wrong With This Picture?
This article appears to be nothing more than an acknowledgment by the New York Times that they found hackers in their network (that's not really news); that China was to blame (that's Mandiant's go-to culprit), and that no customer data was lost (i.e., the Times isn't liable for a lawsuit).

I think that Mandiant does good incident response work and I know Richard Bejtlich and some other Mandiant folks to be honest, hard-working professionals however their China-centric view of the hacker world isn't always justified in my opinion. Here are a few of the reasons mentioned in the New York Times article for why Mandiant believes that China was responsible. None of them hold water.

The Beijing Workday Argument. The hackers could have been from anywhere in the world. The timezone that Mandiant imagines as a Beijing workday could easily apply to a workday in Bangkok, Singapore, Taiwan, Tibet, Seoul, and even Tallinn - all of whom have active hacker populations.

The Lanxiang Vocational School Argument. The article mentioned that the hackers were traced back to the "same universities used by the Chinese military to attack U.S. military contractors in the past." If memory serves, one of those was the Lanxiang Vocational School in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province and home to a PLA regional command center. Actually, Jinan is an industrial city of six million people and more than a dozen universities. IP Geolocation to one school means absolutely nothing.

Furthermore, even if the Chinese government was involved in cyber espionage against the New York Times, it wouldn't use its military for that. It would use its Ministry of State Security (China's equivalent of the CIA). And they wouldn't be stupid enough to run the attack from their own offices, which if you're interested in checking IP addresses, is in Beijing - 274 miles from Jinan.

The Hackers' Techniques. The article mentioned the hackers use of a Remote Access Tool (RAT). One such widely used tool is called GhostRAT. The fact that it was used in an attack against the Dalai Lama in 2008 (GhostNet) doesn't mean that all of the later attacks which used this tool originated with the same group. In fact, even the GhostNet researchers refrained from attributing this attack to China's government.

Another tool whose use is often blamed on Chinese hackers is the "xKungFoo script". Like GhostRAT, the xKungFoo script is widely available for anyone to use so even if it was originally created by a Chinese hacker, it doesn't mean that it is used by Chinese hackers in all instances. I personally know Russian, English, and Indian hackers who write and speak Chinese.

The Wen JaiBao Argument. Mandiant believes that the hackers gained access to the New York Times network around September 15, 2012, during the time that the Wen story was being researched. We also know that the hackers gained access to the emails of the Times Shanghai Bureau Chief David Barboza and it's South Asia Bureau Chief in India Jim Yardley. Does this mean that China was responsible? Maybe it does, but the Wen story could have been a coincidence. Check out how many stories Mr. Barboza and Mr. Yardley worked between August and December, 2012 - several dozen between the two of them. And Yardley's name isn't associated with the Wen story at all.

Asian politics and economics are pivotal in some way to every developed and developing nation in the world. And the New York Times has its finger on the pulse of that region. The list of potential culprits who could have breached the Times network for information on Asia is far longer than just China. 

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HostDime, SoftLayer, et al, Need to be Federally Bitch-Slapped For Violating Syrian Sanctions

Source: HostDime.com website

When the New York Times released its story that some of the Syrian government's websites were hosted outside of Syria, I wasn't surprised to see SoftLayer Technologies as one of the hosts. They are also the company that hosted StopGeorgia.ru, the Russian forum which coordinated many of the cyber attacks against Georgian government websites during the Russia Georgia war (2008).

Other U.S. ISPs in addition to SoftLayer who are hosting Syrian government websites in violation of an Executive Order by President Obama (EO 13582) are HostDime.com, WeHostWebSites.com, 383Inc., HopOne, Net2EZ, Tiggee, and PEER 1. Of those seven, HostDime and Softlayer are consistently among the world's 50 worst hosts for serving malicious content.

Furthermore, this isn't the first time that Softlayer and the other offending ISPs learned of their violation of EO 13582. CitizenLab first created their report The Canadian Connection: An investigation of Syrian government and Hezbullah web hosting in Canada in November 2011. A blog posting by HostJury.com shows that SoftLayer didn't respond to their inquiry back then and still hasn't. A spokesperson for HostDime responded on the HostJury blog last November by saying "We are currently aware of all OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) rules and regulations and continue to comply and monitor to the best of our ability." Since they have continued to hosting a Syrian government website (MOW.GOV.SY) more than a year ago and have done nothing about it, they and the other ISPs involved are knowingly in violation of EO 13582.

In my opinion, these ISPs need to be federally bitch-slapped for this. I hope that one or more of my federal government readers takes the hint and sets a much-needed example with HostDime, SoftLayer and the others.

UPDATE (30NOV2012 0634PST): VF (Vicki Fraser) of HostDime (@HostDime) responded to me on Twitter shortly after I published this article: "We do not host any Syrian websites and are not in violation of federal sanctions.   ^VF". Say, Vicki. Do you know how to use ROBTEX?

VF responded via Twitter: "@jeffreycarr it is hosted within our datacenter but not by us, we've reached out to our direct client expressing our concerns ^VF".

UPDATE (30NOV2012 0829PST): @HostDime announced via their Twitter feed: "@jeffreycarr Update: Our client (the host of the Syrian site) has taken action and taken the site offline. ^VF"

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Stuxnet, Disgraceful Conduct and the Next Growth Industry

For over a year I was one of the few people who was convinced that the U.S. wasn't behind Stuxnet. When New York Times journalists William J. Broad, John Markoff, and David Sangar wrote "Israeli Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay", I criticized them for producing no verifiable evidence as well as mis-stating some facts. Almost 18 months later, David Sangar published an excerpt from his forthcoming book that had so many confidential details about the U.S. and Israeli operation called "Olympic Games" that there's no longer any doubt as to which nation state is responsible for the world's first cyber weapon - mine. The United States. I was wrong and I'm sick about it - but not because I had guessed it was China. I had laid out my reasons for my assessment and I made it in good faith. I don't mind being wrong about my analysis. At least I made an analysis which was more than most people did. No, what I'm sick about - horrified actually - is that so many U.S. citizens with security clearances who had sworn oaths to protect their country gave up everything about a highly classified program at the request of a journalist. It's my sincere hope that each and every one of them is caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And - if any of you are reading this blog - your lack of honor disgusts me.

I'm also very worried about the consequences that we'll face as a country now that it's known that we once again broke the barrier of introducing a new weapons system that no one in the world had ever before used (at least that anyone knows about). We have a history of this so the consequences are easy to predict.

Nuclear weapons proliferated after our use of them against Japan. Unmanned Aerial Systems are being developed in over 130 countries after our introduction of them in Afghanistan. Now it's known that the U.S. with Israel's help has virtually attacked and caused physical damage to an industrial control system in another nation's nuclear laboratory. The blow back on this is going to be monumental and so will the pressure by the Pentagon on Congress to increase cyber-related spending because of a world-wide development race thanks to our own operation Olympic Games. If you're wondering what the next growth industry is going to be for the next 20 years, you can stop wondering. It'll be cyber munitions.

UPDATE (06JUN12): The FBI has opened an investigation into those leaks.

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