Phone news Criminals take aim at iPhone Criminals take aim at iPhone |
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| Written by Rene Millman | |
| Saturday, 10 November 2007 | |
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The Jesus phone went on sale yesterday in O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores up and down the land as well as the Apple Store and Apple fanboys rejoiced and said lo it was good. However, crooks have been flooding the market with cheap fakes to fool unsuspecting punters. According to research from Netnames, 70 per cent of auctions featuring the phone were offering unlocked iPhones (which at the moment is impossible as the O2 versions haven't been hacked). Another 62 per cent claimed to have iPhone stock in the country, but these were in fact cheapChinese knock-offs, known as the CECT P168 (which does look remarkably similar to the iPhone - but of course isn't). Also, many cybersquatters have been buying up domains with iPhone somewhere in the title and putting adverts for unlocking the iPhones to work on rival networks. Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer for NetNames, said the sites could be extremely valuable to criminals. "The iPhone launch is one of the biggest product launches of 2007 and has been just as eagerly anticipated by cybersquatters as it has by consumers," he said. "Cybersquatters have spent a great deal of time over the past few months securing as many iPhone and operator domain name combinations as possible based on speculation about the launch."
Other experts said that the arrival of the "Until now, the big brands in the mobile phone industry have only really successfully integrated the camera function into mainstream handsets. Now the iPhone combines a camera, email, web browser and, most importantly, the iconic iPod," said Tom Dudderidge, CEO of iPhone accessory maker Gear4. "The mobile phone market recognises Music on the Mobile as a huge growth opportunity but has yet to truly capitalise on it. The great strength of the iPhone is not only in Apple's design and user-friendly interface, but also its key competitive advantage of seamless integration with iTunes, the software which currently monopolises the music download industry."
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Well, it's arrived. Some would say that it sprung fully formed from the
loins of Zeus, others say that with it you can call the mythical town
of 
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