Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Thursday, June 14th, 2018. I'm your host Brian McCullough.

Today, Apple tries to lock down its phones again.

Google makes ad targeting more transparent.

Microsoft works to replace cashiers with robots,

but the robots have already come for middle managers at

Amazon, and a plea to help save Metafelter. Here's what you missed today in the world

of tech. Motherboard and a bunch of other places had been reporting on this, but the New York Times

and Reuters actually got Apple to confirm that an upcoming software update will soon

disable the iPhone's lightning port if it isn't used for longer than an hour.

This will effectively close the technical loophole that had allowed law enforcement agencies to essentially brute force their way into phones and access the data of criminal suspects.

We've spoken before about devices like Grey Key

that law enforcement agencies have been purchasing

to break into phones and defeat Apple's existing security

features.

In the old and timey days you could break into iPhones

simply by trying every possible pass code, but Apple blocked that by disabling

iPhones after a certain number of incorrect entries. Devices like the Gray Key could

still break in by installing low-level software through the lightning port.

Now, by automatically shutting down the ability of the lightning port to send data if it hasn't been unlocked in the past hour, this essentially shuts that door.

Quote, we're consistently strengthening the security protections in every

Apple product to help customers defend against hackers, identity fees, and

intrusions into their personal data, said an Apple representative in a statement.

...