BERLIN: German hackers said yesterday they have been able to get past the new biometric identification system contained in the latest generation of Apple’s iconic iPhones.
On its website, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) said that by using “the simplest, everyday means”, it had hacked into the new finger-print identification system on Apple’s latest iPhone models launched last week.
“The phone owner’s finger print, photographed from a drinking glass, was sufficient to create a forged print to unlock the iPhone 5S”, the hackers said. A spokesman for the group said it was easy for amateurs to do by lifting prints from a bottle or drinking glass.
“The most complicated part is getting your hands on an iPhone 5S,” he joked.
Norwegian summons Boeing on faulty 787
OSLO: The budget airline Norwegian Air Shuttle announced a meeting yesterday with aircraft manufacturer Boeing to discuss technical problems with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
“We have called Boeing to a meeting this week in Oslo,” Norwegian spokesperson Aasa Larsson said. “We are going to bring up the latest problems we’ve encountered with the Dreamliners,” she said. The airline operates two Dreamliners from Boeing — part of an eight-plane order — which has been beset by delays and setbacks. Since their delivery the aircraft have experienced a series of technical problems.
Helmsman blamed for Italy ship crash
ROME: Francesco Schettino, captain of Italy’s doomed Costa Concordia cruise ship, yesterday blamed the Indonesian helmsman for causing the accident that killed 32 people.
“I wanted to slow the ship down. But the helmsman did not follow my orders correctly,” Schettino told a court in Grosseto, where the trial against him for manslaughter and abandoning ship resumed after a summer recess.
“He steered in the wrong direction and we crashed,” he said, accusing helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin of being slow to react and steering the tiller to the right instead of the left.
The mistake, he claimed, caused a fatal delay in changing the ship’s course.
Police shake-up in Greece after murder
ATHENS: Two Greek police chiefs quit in a shake-up yesterday after the murder of an anti-fascist musician by an alleged member of neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn sparked protests, and led to a probe of a possible police connection.
Police said two regional supervisors for southern and central Greece had stepped down as an inquiry was under way into possible links between the police department and Golden Dawn. The shake-up also involved the suspension of a number of senior officers on the island of Evia for failing to investigate a Golden Dawn office near a local police station where weapons were allegedly kept. Agencies
