Today Apple unveiled the next generation of OS X, Lion and new iOS 5. Among the features, I’m concerned about two features: AriDrop and iCloud.

My worry for AriDrop comes from its automatic discover ability. While services like Bonjour also has automatic discover ability, they are passive. On the contrary, AriDrop is active, allows user to send (drop) a file to another user. Sounds pretty convenient. But this just reminds the old Bluetooth worms. Although saving a file requires user’s permission, the worm continually pings the victim for ‘dropping’ the file, and most users will then get annoyed and permit the saving. So without further restriction, I would say AirDrop opens a new door for worms. Cheers!

UPDATE: the log data is posted here.  A notification group about new log sharing is here.

This WASL 2009 workshop reminded me that I always used to bitch that some academic researchers use antediluvian data sets for their research (Lincoln labs 1998 set used in 2008 “security research”  makes me want to just curse and kick people in the balls, then laugh, then cry, then cry more…).

However, why are they doing it? Don’t they realize that testing their “innovative intrusion detection” or “neural network-based log analysis” on such prehistoric data will not render it relevant to today’s threats? And will only ensure ensuing hilarity :-)