Apple’s Epic Battle

Epic – the maker of the massively popular game Fortnite – has thrown down the proverbial gauntlet. It has decided that it no longer wishes to cut Apple in for 30% of its profits… Which is exactly what all app developers do – and have explicitly and contractually agreed to do – in return for using Apple’s platform, tools, software development kits, and security testing. Apple provides this and access to billions of users. Microsoft, Sony and Google charge the same 30% in their app stores. But Epic claims that Apple’s cut is too much, and has deliberately picked a legal fight with Apple (and Google) to try to get more favorable terms or be allowed to run a private Epic store. It’s complex and nuanced, but I’ll wade into the muddy and turbulent waters on today’s show. In other news: There’s a tricky new Outlook email phishing scam going around, Jack Daniels has been hacked and asked to pay millions in ransom, Google had a big outage, your location data is for sale to corporations as well as government agencies (bypassing the need for court orders and warrants), and I’ll cover a couple interesting Android security stories from the recent DEFCON and BlackHat security conferences. Further Info: Scan suspicious files online: www.virustotal.com