Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security
The Quebec Superior court has ordered Telus to reimburse customers to the tune of $2.6M in text messaging fees. This is a result of Telus unilaterally changing terms and conditions for 172425 customers in Quebec (charging 15 cents per incoming text message).
If you are one of the affected customers, you could receive a whopping $15 but know that Telus is reviewing the decision. They could of course appeal the decision so we'll have to wait and see.
Image by bigpresh under creative commons license
You may not know this but Ryan Seacrest is the founder of an iPhone accessory company called Typo. Typo designed and sells an add-on iPhone physical keyboard which Blackberry claims is a copy of its own proprietary design.
Here is a picture of the Typo keyboard installed on an iPhone 5s
A report by CIO magazine says Blackberry has submitted a request to the US District Court in Northern California to block Typo from "making, using, offering to sell, or selling within the United States, or importing into the United States, the Typo Keyboard.”
Blackberry has said it will "vigorously" defend its unique keyboards intellectual property and of course Typo has said ”BlackBerry’s claims against [us] lack merit and we intend to defend the case vigorously.”
The first shipment of Typo keyboards is already sold out and new orders are expected to be delivered in March (each kit costs $99). If you own an iPhone 5s, be aware that you lose the fingerprint capabilities when this case is installed. You can order one directly from Typo keyboard if interested (link).
As an infosec leader working for a large multinational, a lot of risks keep me up at night. Most execs still believe (mistakenly) that the biggest risks come from the outside. Imagine my interest when I learned that AMD is suing 6 former employees because it believes they leaked over 100,000 documents ("trade secret materials relating to developing technology") to NVIDIA.
The complaint says these employees took the info with them when they switched employers. AMD claims to have uncovered evidence of their claim using “forensically revealed data”. As expected, the company intends to aggressively protect its Intellectual Property using litigation and the court system.