FaceTime is one of the many pride and joys of iPhone users and along with applications such as iMessage, this has been touted as one of the many reasons why you should own an Apple device over Android. Unfortunately, a recently discovered bug makes using the voice and video calling platform a privacy nightmare…

The weird bug allows iPhone users calling their contacts via FaceTime to hear the audio on the other end before the recipient has answered the call. This means if you leave your phone ringing and make some remark about why you don’t want to speak to that person there’s a good chance that the individual on the other end will hear what you really think of them. The bug can be replicated by making a call to a Mac as well which means it is not just the phones which are compromised but the computer hardware. It’s said to be affecting all users on iOS 12.1 and above.

Here’s a video of the bug in action:

Now you can answer for yourself on FaceTime even if they don’t answer#Apple explain this.. pic.twitter.com/gr8llRKZxJ

— Benji Mobb (@BmManski) January 28, 2019

Apple has said the issue will be resolved in an update being pushed later this week but for a company that seems to prioritise security over Google and it’s own Android software this does seem like a pretty significant blow. Until Apple fixes the bug, it’s not exactly clear how to protect yourself against this attack either. Oh, you can disable FaceTime altogether.

To make matters worse, a Twitter user has discovered how to activate the eavesdropping bug on videos as well which means goodbye privacy for millions of subscribers:

I just replicated the issue – on top of that, if you “join” the call using your invitation on another device (in this case another iPhone) you also get video!! Even though the call is still ringing / not answered on the destination device.

Isn’t Apple all about security?

Apple has always pitted itself against Facebook and Google by playing the security card. Their claims thus far have been that they don’t sell anyone’s data to advertisers and everything that happens on an iPhone stays on an iPhone. Now here’s a bug that’s contrary to all that talk and Apple’s competitors will not forget about this scandal any time soon. It’s something you can expect them to poke fun at in their marketing campaigns and with Samsung’s Galaxy S10 around the corner, I expect them to mention this incident in some funny ads. Samsung does love to poke fun at Apple in their marketing campaigns and this will probably lead to some funny ads.

What’s with the increasing number of gates?

If you speak to people who own iPhones their usually there for the “quality” of devices but of late there seems to have been an increase in the number of scandals that the Cupertino company are facing it does seem that quality control has been on the wane.

Bendgate

Last year there was the Bendgate that occurred with the latest batch of iPads. The devices were showing slight bends if they were put under slight physical pressure which could occur if you were keeping your iPad in a bag with some books. Now the fact that Apple said there was no problem with this was actually more infuriating than the problem itself but they probably did it to avoid returns and trade-ins which would result in Apple losing more money. So what did Apple do? They said the bending was normal and the iPads meet Apples standards;

Relative to the issue you referenced regarding the new iPad Pro, its unibody design meets or exceeds all of Apple’s high quality standards of design and precision manufacturing. We’ve carefully engineered it and every part of the manufacturing process is precisely measured and controlled.

Our current specification for iPad Pro flatness is up to 400 microns which is even tighter than previous generations. This 400 micron variance is less than half a millimeter (or the width of fewer than four sheets of paper at most) and this level of flatness won’t change during normal use over the lifetime of the product. Note, these slight variations do not affect the function of the device in any way.

Again, thanks for reaching out and I hope the above explanation addresses your concerns.

To make matters worse this was actually the second bendgate after the iPhone 6 Plus had a much worse scandal back in 2014. This was much worse because the phones were bending in consumers pockets, which means it was something pretty hard to avoid if your phone was defective.

Antennagate

Back in 2010 Apple also faced some serious criticisms when consumers buying iPhone 4s’ faced dropped calls due to antenna issues and the issue was serious to the point where consumer reports stopped recommending people to buy the iPhone 4s.

Chipgate

After bendgate, Apple had another issue in the iPhone 6s series that had to do with their chosen SOC suppliers. Some chips were made by Samsung and others were made by their usual supplier TSMC. The Samsung chips would overheat and subsequently battery life was poorer on these devices and thus another gate began.

Is the quality control really up to standard?

One thing that could explain why “Gates” are more common with Apple devices is simply the fact that they manufacture a gazzilion more devices than their competitor and quality control is affected at times. For example, iPhone sold 77 million iPhone 6s’ and this means that if 1% of devices were affected during manufacture this would affect 770 000 units which are more than enough to start a gate.

Samsung went through one of its own scandals when Galaxy Notes started exploding randomly. Both Samsung and Apple have made it past their scandals and this FaceTime bug is another one of those blips on the radar that I don’t think will affect Apple in the long run. Manufacturing processes are quite intense and the fine margins involved in this process make it much harder for companies working on scales as large as Samsung and Apple to avoid defects. It does seem like these manufacturing defects are more common on Apple devices than they are with their competitors

In the meantime, however, Android fans and manufacturers will have a field day and we will remind Apple why their devices are insecure and can be used to spy on them…

The post FaceTime Eavesdropping Bug Dents Apple’s Reputation As The Protector Of User Privacy appeared first on Techzim.

If you are an ardent Techzim follower you know that we have been selling airtime since November here on our platform. To buy the airtime you just visit our site and click this link and go through a simple process.

That’s all good. Anyway, we figured out that not everyone who has internet bundles at anytime to access our site but some may just have Facebook bundles (only) but they would still want to buy our ‘cheaper airtime’. So, we decided to make it possible for those with Facebook bundles to buy airtime from us as well. And the process of buying airtime from our Facebook is quite easy. You literally just go 3 simple steps (of keying in your information) and our bot will deliver your airtime immediately. Now, how do you buy airtime on Techzim’s Facebook page?

How to buy airtime on Techzim’s Facebook

• Log in to your Facebook account and search for our Techzim page
• Go and click the ‘ Send Message’ Icon on our Techzim page
• Now send the message “airtime”
• The bot will reply telling you how to input your details. If you want to buy a dollar’s worth of Netone airtime, for instance, you just input: 1#0718917XXX#0773870XXX. Where “1” will be the amount of airtime, “0718917XXX” will be the number to which your airtime will be credited and “0773870XXX”.
• After which, an EcoCash prompt will pop up on your phone and you input your EcoCash passcode
• And you receive your airtime immediately

You know that sometimes technology spoils the fun, you might input all your details correctly and pay but your airtime won’t get credited. In that case, you can just contact us by sending a message in the same inbox or write us on our Facebook Wall and then we will solve your problem. That’s when the ‘order number’ and phone number, you see at the end of your purchasing process (as you can see in the screenshot), will come in handy.

P.S Unfortunately, at the moment you can only buy airtime from on Techzim’s Facebook by paying using Ecocash only.

The post You Can Now Buy All Your Airtime From Techzim On Facebook appeared first on Techzim.

POTRAZ has put out a notice in newspapers consulting the general public and interested parties on a proposed light licensing of rural broadband fixed wireless access systems.

The notice reads:

The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) intends to make the frequency bands 2400- 2483 MHz and 5 725-5 875 MHz available for the implementation of rural Broadband Fixed Wireless Access (BFWA) systems in farming and rural areas of Zimbabwe.

Additionally, POTRAZ intends to make the frequency band 5 725-5 875 MHz available for Short Range Devices (SRDs) and low-power BFWA systems, on a licence exempt basis in both urban and rural areas of Zimbabwe, as is the case for frequency bands 2400 – 2483MHz, 5.15 – 5.35 GHz and 5.470 –5.725 GHz.

The objectives of the proposed regulatory change are as follows:

1. to enhance broadband connectivity in rural Zimbabwe, particularly in schools, hospitals, police stations and rural amenity intuitions.
2. to extend the reach of broadband services in both urban and rural areas of Zimbabwe.
3. to enhance ICT-centric innovation in Zimbabwe.
4. to connect the unconnected.

An underlying principle of the proposed licensing regime is that primary services to which the bands are allocated in the Zimbabwe National Frequency Allocation Plan (ZNFAP) would and shall always be protected.

Establishment, ownership and operation of rural BFWA systems would be authorised through Public Network Operator Licences OR through light-licences issued by POTRAZ.

Individual citizens, corporates, private and public institutions are invited to download the consultation paper on the POTRAZ website which is www.potraz.gov.zw

What is this light licencing they speak of?

A Light-licence is an authorisation upon which users of a frequency band operating under simplified regulatory conditions compared to those applicable to conventional licences. It leads to registrations of stations under significantly reduced fees coupled with simplified operating conditions.

In light licensing the role of the regulator is reduced by transferring the responsibility for frequency planning and interference analysis to the license applicant. This way faster, cheaper and more efficient licensing procedure is established, thus enabling more flexible access to the RF (Radiofrequency) spectrum. This new approach has been widely implemented over the world for frequency bands with low risk of interference.

And BFWA??

One can see how on the surface, such a licence would be popular for rural areas where telecoms players don’t want to spend bucket loads of money that increase the time it takes for them to get their return on investment.

BFWA uses radio signal rather than fixed lines to deliver internet access and it’s lauded for its ability to reach consumers in hard to reach areas. The use of these networks also makes it possible to build mesh networks; which means as long as one base station has access it can beam to the other towers in the network.

This seems like a good idea but the whole purpose of having a consultation is for the public and interested stakeholders to raise whatever concerns they may have with the introduction of this light licensing scheme, particularly with the 2.4GHz & 5.8GHz bands. You can download POTRAZ’s consultation paper here and also contribute to the discussion.

The post POTRAZ Consulting Public On How They Can Improve Internet Connection In Rural Areas appeared first on Techzim.

Hackers have lately been targeting our cherished football personalities in South Africa. According to a report by The Herald, Khama Billiat’s Facebook and Twitter accounts have been hacked.

This comes two weeks after, former footballer, Peter Ndlovu’s phone was hacked too. It’s not only Peter Ndlovu and Khama Billiat but also Willard Katsande fell victim to this kind of cybercrime too last year.

Back to Khama Billiat’s ordeal, it’s said that the hackers are demanding $10 000 US dollars or else they will leak his photos online. I don’t know what type of photos they are but naturally one would guess; nude photos. But the hackers didn’t tell what type of photos they have, they just said:

We’ve hacked all your accounts on social media and have all your photos……We will post these photos to all media and send them

The hackers not only want to cause a scandal by posting his photos but they also want to use Khama Billiat’s account to post scathing messages to both Presidents of Zimbabwe and South Africa.  The went on to say;

…….we will insult your govt (government) and Zim & SA Presidents through your accounts on social media.

Where is Khama Billiat receiving these ultimatums from?

You are obviously wondering where these hackers are telling Khama Billiat their threats from? Well, Khama Billiat is receiving these ultimatums through his Instagram account which he says they (hackers) have given him control over so that they can communicate their demands. As a matter of fact, initially, the hackers hacked Khama Billiat’s Instagram account and deleted 10 of his photos just to show off that they have the power to hack into all his social media accounts.

What’s the deadline?

The hackers are demanding Khama Billiat to send them $10 000 US dollars via western union in 24 hours.  For someone who earns R833 333 ($38 000 US dollars) a month, he probably can afford to pay the $10 000 if he really wants to preserve his reputation.

Anyway, these hackers seem to be entry-level hackers because they will easily get caught since sending money on Western Union is ‘trackable’. So, If I was Khama Billiat, I would have struck the deal with these hackers (and also secretly engage Western Union) and send them the money, knowing that they will be tracked and get caught.

Although the hackers can just publish the photos on some other platforms, Khama Billiat would be well-advised to contact Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and tell them to deactivate his accounts for the time being.

The post Another Famous Zim Footballer Has Been Hacked, Hackers Demanding $10K USDs Or Leak His ‘Photos’ Online appeared first on Techzim.

It seems the most popular emailing client, Google Mail is currently down for many users all over the world. It does seem the platform is working for some users whilst some users can’t access the site.

Users trying to access the service are getting a 404 error:

Gmail is facing outage in parts of the world with users reporting ‘404 Error’ while trying to open the site! Are you experiencing the same problem @Techzim

— Owen Kaura (@owenkaura) January 29, 2019

I’ve achieved Inbox-Zero in my gmail for the first time in a long time.

Let’s see how long that will lastpic.twitter.com/GikHnwtUn2

— @CoderFromZimbabwe (@coderFromZim) January 29, 2019

@HelpGoogle Why Gmail not working pic.twitter.com/00sGlyBfnp

— Manoj kumar (@Manojku73234492) January 29, 2019

Not everyone is affected

The outage doesn’t seem to be universal as I attempted to open my Gmail at the time of writing and I did so successfully. Gmail’s official Twitter account hasn’t acknowledged the downtime. Quite the contrary, they said there are no disruptions and urged a user to clear the browser cache and cookies. This seems to be working for some but for others, this won’t solve the problem. More confusingly, the official Gmail status page acknowledged the error and noted that they are working on a fix:

We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail.

We will provide an update by 1/29/19, 12:50 PM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

Take note that the 12:50 PM is UK time (GMT to be precise) which means 2:50 PM local time. Are you also facing challenges using the Gmail app or site?

The post Gmail Down For Users All Over The World appeared first on Techzim.

On January 30, 2019 Geroge Charamba -The President’s Spokesperson- said:

Let’s not over dramatise. Investors don’t need the internet when they come to Zimbabwe. They just need peace.

On the same day in an interview published by the Newsday, Energy Mutodi -Deputy Minister of Information- said:

The Internet shutdown was not illegal as such. The only issue that arose is that the person who ordered the shutdown is not the rightful person to do that.

Government can invoke the Interception of Communications Act because that is part of our law. Whenever the need arises, government will invoke that. People can criticise all they want, but that is the law.

Besides the fact that this statement sounds like Mutodi is positioning the Government as against the people and not for the people, let’s talk about how the government’s new stance scuppers any meaningful plans to have fully functional smart cities in our country.

Smart cities NEED the internet…

For those wondering if we are anywhere near having smart cities, well the baby steps are being taken. The Harare City Council started work on having cameras at traffic lights around the CBD last year and the City Council said that would be a functional system at some point this year. Same thing in Bulawayo where they had a trial run of a similar system.

Econet also pledged that they would be making First Street a smart street, so there definitely was interest in this concept from citizens, corporates and the City Council but it seems the government does not see eye to eye with all these parties when it comes to smart cities.

Though the government has not come out and  outrightly said they are against smart cities, threatening to turn off the internet sends a pretty clear message to whoever wants to put the infrastructure for smart cities in place:

YES, YOU CAN GO AHEAD AND PUT THIS INFRASTRUCTURE IN PLACE BUT PLEASE BE AWARE THAT WE WILL DISRUPT THE INTERNET MAKING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE REDUNDANT FROM TIME TO TIME.

Yours sincerely,

Government

There are a lot of different priorities within government and whilst some will no doubt be welcoming of developments such as smart cities, (as we’ve seen government officials in attendance at smart city events), the loudest and most popular (or unpopular) members of the government are letting it be known that the internet is theirs to switch on and off and if you plan on having any business that greatly requires the internet, proceed knowing that you’ve been warned.

Only time will tell whether companies and councils looking to invest in smart city infrastructure regard these statements as growing pains and challenges that can be dealt with or if they believe the smart city is already a sinking ship that should be abandoned.

The post Zim Government’s Stance On Internet Shutdowns Might Mean That Smart Cities Never Materialise appeared first on Techzim.

I was a fool to think that, our government was regretting its decision to shut down the internet a couple of weeks ago, apparently not. In fact, it will shut it down again in future when protests happen again according to Presidential Spokesperson, George Charamba. In an interview he said:

As a matter of fact, it’s a standard practice that whenever you have very serious civil disturbances in any country or an attack of a terrorist nature – we saw it recently in the UK – those services are suspended. Only for the duration of the disturbances. In our case, it was even more compelling because we then discovered that the internet was being used to coordinate those demonstrations unnecessarily. If it was a weapon of choice by the demonstrators, we had to make sure that that weapon of choice was denied them…….The internet is always live all the time and so it becomes a tool for coordinating for those trying to cause chaos and mayhem in society. So yes, it will be suspended. It was suspended and it will be suspended in the future.

These guys are either stubborn or they just don’t understand the implications of shutting down the internet. Protests happen every day in the Middle East but they don’t switch off the internet because they know they are probably killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Who will want to come to invest in Zimbabwe if they have a business that overly depends on the internet? Actually, many businesses depend on the internet these days. And what stops investors from just going to Mozambique where the government doesn’t switch off the internet?

The post Internet Will Be Shut Down Again In the Future To Curb “Chaos And Mayhem In Society”- Presidential Spokeman, George Charamba appeared first on Techzim.

Today people (both exam writers, parents guardians etc.) are in a haste to check their loved one’s Zimsec O’level results. However, we have noted that some people are opening the wrong Zimsec website to access their results.

If you are one of these people it’s not your fault because even me initially opened the wrong address. I mean naturally one would think that they can access the results on: www.zimsec.co.zw. But No!, that’s not the site to see the results. As it happens, the: www.zimsec.co.zw doesn’t even open sometimes or it takes a century to open.

So, let me take this opportunity to tell you the correct website to access your Zimsec O’level results:

The correct website to access Zimsec O’level your results its:   https://dcmv1.zimsec.co.zw/

Why is that link working when the site isn’t?

One would expect that since the ZIMSEC site isn’t working the link to access the portal would also be hindered. It seems the link to the portal might be hosted on a different server to the full site but anyway what’s most important is; if you use the direct link to the portal you’re less likely to face any challenge.

ZIMSEC PORTAL: https://dcmv1.zimsec.co.zw/

The post Zimbabweans Are Opening The Wrong Zimsec Website To Access O’Level Results. Here’s The Correct Website appeared first on Techzim.

Zimbabweans are going crazy on the internet with the #CharityCharambaChallenge. It’s a challenge that started after the Zimbabwe Republic Police National Spokesperson Charity Charamba dismissed a SkyNews documentary that showed a policeman abusing a certain guy.

Sky News says the clip in the documentary happened during the recent Shutdown Zimbabwe protests. Whereas Charity Charamba disputed this by saying that the clip was recorded in 2016 and not during the Shutdown Zimbabwe protests. This is where the #CharityCharambaChallenge is coming from-people are now posting pictures and videos that were captured very recently (like today or last week) with a caption that says the picture or video was taken 10, 20, 5, 7 or 3 years ago.

So, Twimbos (Zimbabweans on Twitter) are just being sarcastic towards Charity Charamba by just posting an event (in picture or video) which happened recently but deliberately lying that the event happened some time long ago. For example, the death of Oliver Mtukudzi (which happened last week), one can just post a picture at Mtukudzi’s funeral and tweet “at Mtukudzis funeral in the year 1992”. Take a look at some of the tweets for the #CharityCharambaChallenge

The post Zimbabweans On Twitter Going Crazy About The #CharityCharambaChallenge: Check Out Some Of The Hilarious Tweets appeared first on Techzim.

So ZIMSEC announced that they are now uploading results on an online portal which is pretty cool. Unfortunately accessing this portal has been a nightmare and we’ve seen guys ask us a few questions about the service. We got in touch with ZIMSEC’s PR and they answered a few of these questions:

Q: Can I access my results if I wrote my exams years ago?

A: No. The Portal contains results from November 2018 going forward. If you wrote before that there’s no reason for you to use the portal.

Q: Can Private Candidates also access their results on the online portal.

A: Yes, there’s no separation between private candidates and normal candidates

Q: They are saying “account has been halted” what do I do?

A: You’ll have to go to your center to collect the results manually because the account halted error only pops up when two people have tried to login into the same account.

Also read, How To Access Your Zimsec O’Level Results Online

The post FAQ: Answers To Some Questions You’ve Been Asking About The ZIMSEC Results Portal appeared first on Techzim.

Econet is introducing a new way for users without smartphones to get a taste of Twitter on their mbudzi’s (feature-phones). The mobile network operator has been sending the following messages to subscribers announcing the Twitter Trends service:

Keep up to date with TWITTER! Dial *717*3*1# NOW and receive daily updates of the hottest Twitter trends by SMS for only 5c/day.

I signed up for the service begrudgingly and it seems like Econet are not connected to your Twitter and just sending you the latest trending news. Whether the news is tailored by country or it’s global will be interesting to see as I’ve only received one tweet thus far and it’s hard to decipher whether it was from a Zim account. Anyway, you can see the first tweet I got after subscribing below.

Worth the 5c? Well, time will tell but this looks like something that could be a useful source of news whilst abusing all the stress of sifting through the timeline and also dealing with the inevitable Twitter abuse that seems to befall most users on the platform at some point.

The post For 5c/Day, Econet Now Let’s Subscribers Access Twitter Via SMS appeared first on Techzim.

By now you are most probably aware of the Techzim Generation Z career guidance Master class that takes place in the Techzim Generation Z WhatsApp Group every Thursday at 19:00 hrs CAT. If not well today we give you yet another chance to join, or get your teenage or early 20s child to join the group and learn from the experts and be set for life.

We thank technology and its pioneers for enabling us to have such fancy things in this day and age. Growing up in the 90s we had no defined career paths as we lacked exposure and experience and opportunities. We as Techzim have decided to bridge that gap and offer the young techies a chance to be guided and be set on a clear career path at a tender age.

Our Guest For Tonight

Tonight the group of young techies will get the chance to learn at the feet of one Mr Fayaz King. Mr King :

• Is currently COO for Econet Wireless Zimbabwe – The 2nd fastest growing Telco in the World. $600 million dollars in half-year revenue to 31 August 2018. Well on its way to becoming the country’s first listed billion-dollar revenue business.
• Has 25 + years management experience with the last 10 years as CEO/COO/MD of high performing Mobile Operators.
•  Is a renowned international telecommunications executive with a passion for operational excellence and over achievement in high growth start up, turn around and emerging market environments.
• Has a proven track record in leading transformation and growth in emerging and mature markets.His Key Skills include:
  Start-ups, turnaround and high growth emerging markets;
  Business development and revenue growth.
  Strategic planning and execution.
  Mergers, acquisitions, divestments, funding and IPO’s.
  Financial control and performance optimization.
  Information technology and strategic architecture.
  Project management and delivery.
  Business process engineering; Organizational and cultural transformation;
  Leadership, training, coaching and mentoring.
  Communication, public relations and public speaking

How i wish i was a teenager or a young adult too. Join the fun and get to interact with great minds here https://chat.whatsapp.com/IbJ3nBcE5LyDLVDKopyR4y

 

The post Techzim Generation Z Career Guidance Master : Our Guest For Tonight, Econet COO Fayaz King appeared first on Techzim.

By now your most certainly must know that ZIMSEC Ordinary Level results for those who wrote in November of 2018 are out. You must also know that you can check the results online, so no more excuses, we have published a guide on how you can do this and even threw in a curated list of all the Frequently Asked Questions.

As a technophile I am thrilled by this development. I have made it my life to make sure that Zimbabwe’s education system moves into the twenty first century. The results portal, despite it’s shortcomings and lack of proper support is a step in the right direction.

The post Our Verdict On The ZIMSEC Results Portal appeared first on Techzim.

Telecel Zimbabwe has launched a home WiFi moderm and service. This is similar to NetOne’s One-Fi and the Wibroniks offering from ZOL.

Telecel is selling the modems at $150 each. Each modem can connect up to 15 devices in the home. Similar to the competition the home modem will be connecting to Telecel towers and giving the home customer access to the internet via WiFi.

Customers can then buy monthly bundles which are priced as follows:

Telecel is giving new customers free 5GB of data upon sign up.

The biggest challenge for Telecel is that they have the least LTE coverage meaning that for some customers the home internet speeds will not be as fast as people expect for a home.

We will be comparing how their offer fares against One-Fi and Wibroniks.

The post Telecel Launches Home WiFi Modem And Service Challenging NetOne’s One-Fi And ZOL.’s Wibroniks appeared first on Techzim.