Skyfall movie review – Shaken, not stirred

After the mediocre and rather dull Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig is back as James Bond in his third Agent 007 movie called Skyfall.

But don’t think for a moment that 007 has lost his touch. In Skyfall you’re brought to a blood-fizzing action scene from the get-go, reminding you what Bond is capable of. Luckily, this isn’t the only brilliant Casino Royale-like action sequence, the director Sam Mendes (Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, American Beauty) treats us to in Skyfall.

And that’s exactly what Bond needs in his 23rd movie, celebrating the half-century anniversary of Agent 007.

Before we go on with the review, check out the official Skyfall trailer (if you have, rewatch it – it’s still awesome).

So, the lives of all NATO secret agents are at stake and MI-6 has been put to its knees by what looks to be a job of someone familiar with the system.

Meet Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) – the main villain in Skyfall, the mastermind behind all the horror and destruction brought to London. And all he is after is the woman in charge of MI-6 – M (played, as usual, by Judi Dench).

From the very first words coming out of his mouth, you and the standing hair on the back of your neck are convinced that this guy is both mental and is going to play the villain in Skyfall well. And he does – he is unstoppable, insane and ruthless in his pursuit of vengeance.

There’s a big but here though – it seemed to us that he tries a bit too hard to be a Joker (yes, the one created by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight). A mental character who would prefer total destruction of his enemy over personal gains and driven by the dark moments in his past. Of course former agent Silva isn’t as chaotic as the Joker, but we still feel the similarities are just too many. And for all the effort Javier Bardem puts, he simply cannot come anywhere near the Heath Ledger standards.

As we said – it’s a good overall performance, but just pales in comparison (and we already explained why comparisons are inevitable). It’s just that at the end we were left feeling sorry that Bond didn’t get the villain he deserved.

Now is the time to say that the acting of just about everyone else in Skyfall was absolutely flawless. Daniel Craig does his job of a sophisticated bad ass agent as brilliantly as Judi Dench plays the role of an iron lady, who puts the national interests first. By the way M has far more screen time than usual this time and she really makes it count.

Even the bad taste that Olga Kurylenko’s acting left in Qunatum of Solace is washed away, thanks to the superb acting of both ladies that caught Bond’s attention in Skyfall – Bérénice Marlohe (Sévérine) and Naomie Harris (Eve).

Decent plot, mostly great acting and jaw-dropping action sequences – Skyfall seems to tick all the right boxes. Well, there’s actually one left – the soundtrack. For a movie of such caliber, the sound was just not up to scratch. In Skyfall, the classic Bond tunes are there to support the cool explosions and action scenes, but the villain introduction could’ve been further enhanced with a better music.

And don’t even get me started on the Adele’s song used in the Skyfall’s intro. Depending on your taste you might find it to be a decent song (we mostly agree it’s horrible) but it sounds out of place. It tries to be what Chris Cornell’s You Know My Name did for Casino Royale, but fails miserably. And to make matters worse it lasts for ages – the only good thing is that it’s at the start and once you are past that there are two hours of high-quality cinematic waiting for you.

Skyfall is a great movie that doesn’t have anything remotely common with the boring train wreck that was Quantum of Solace. It takes the viewer on a joyride of explosive action, drama and clever British humor with the expert guidance of Agent 007.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Leaked: One million iOS device identifiers stolen from FBI laptop

A file containing one million Apple UDID codes has been leaked, after it was allegedly stolen from an FBI agent's laptop earlier this year.

Operation AntiSec has made a return, this time leaking a file containing 1,000,001 unique device identifier numbers, or UDIDs, for Apple devices. The hackers are claiming that the data was stolen from a laptop belonging to the FBI, and that in total, it contained more than 12 million UDID numbers.

The file containing the data was accompanied by a longer than usual Pastebin post, which claims that in March, a Dell laptop belonging to “Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl,” who works for the FBI’s Regional Cyber Action Team, was compromised using a Java vulnerability and a variety of files downloaded from it.

One was the above list of 12,367,232 UDID numbers, along with other personal data such as user names, Push Notification tokens, telephone numbers, address and the originating device.

According to the post, the personal data has been removed prior to uploading, but the UDID, notification token, device name and device type apparently remains. Forbes.com’s Andy Greenberg downloaded and decrypted the file, and found it contains a massive collection of 40-character strings, all of which could pass for Apple UDID codes.

Real UDID codes?

As you’d expect, the leak raises more questions than it answers. To whom do the UDID’s belong too, and why — presuming the information on the source is accurate — would the FBI have a single file listing 12 million of them.

While labeling its existence as proof of a conspiracy will be popular, there is an equally good chance the file is part of an investigation, or was supplied to the FBI quite innocently. There’s also the chance it didn’t come from the FBI at all, but from a developer. It’s also not the first time AntiSec has targeted Apple.

In its Pastebin text, Anonymous says that the “FBI is using your device info for a tracking people project or some sh*t,” and calls for UDID codes and similar device-identifying numbers to be “erradicated (sic) from any device on the market in the future.”

Apple’s use of UDID numbers has caused controversy in the past, with even Apple telling developers to stop tracking users using the codes. UDIDs themselves don’t carry personal data, but can be combined with other information to aid device tracking and monitoring.

Over at Hacker News, at least two contributors claim to have found UDID codes relating to their personal iOS devices. One lives in the USA and the other in the UK, but no common link between them or the apps they have installed has been established.

Interestingly, Cydia developer Jay Freeman (AKA Saurik) adds to the conversation, saying that 16.7-percent of the UDID’s in the file come from jailbroken iOS devices, according to his research.

FBI Agent

As for Special Agent Christopher Stangl, it appears he exists, which potentially adds some weight to Anonymous’ claims. There is a LinkedIn profile for someone under that name, who works for the FBI and has that job title; plus in 2009, FBI Agent Chris Stangl made a video for Cyber Security Awareness Week at NYU.

His name also appears on an FBI email list published on the Internet earlier this year, which led to hackers listening into a conference call discussing the activities of LulzSec and Anonymous. It’s speculated that these addresses were phished and led to a compromised website, where a Java vulnerability was exploited.

Anonymous has said it won’t be providing any further details, but hopes that due to the large amount of leaked information, “someone should care about it.” While we’re not expecting much from the FBI, it’ll be interesting to see if Apple provides a response.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com