- Bits and Bytes

App For Google Android Smartphones Secretly Records Calls

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:41:52 -0600

Source: The Guardian - August 2, 2011

A mobile application for Google's Android smartphones can secretly record users' phone calls and transmit them to malicious hackers, security researchers have found.

Once downloaded by a user, the app – which the researcher has not named, but seems to have a name relating to "System Messages" – surreptitiously stores a recording of the user's incoming and outgoing calls to the phone's memory card, according to the New York-based security experts CA Technologies.

In a blog post unveiling the finding, researcher Dinesh Venkatesan said the so-called "Trojan app" is one of the most invasive they have ever uncovered. He also warned that there is an increasing trend targeting smartphones using Google's Android software, which allows developers to submit apps with little vetting.

Google had not returned requests for comment at the time of publication.

Venkateskan wrote on the researcher's official blog: "In one of our earlier blogs, we have demonstrated how a Trojan logs all the details of incoming/outgoing calls and call duration in a text file.

"This Trojan is more advanced as it records the conversation itself in 'amr' format [which is optimised for recording speech]. Also it has many other malicious activities that we have seen in many of the earlier malware incidents targeted for Android platform."

The app, which was not named by the researchers for security reasons, asks users' permission to intercept outgoing calls and record audio before it is installed. Once downloaded, all calls the user makes will be logged on the phone's memory – which can potentially be accessed by the app's makers. The sound is filed in a folder called shangzhou/callrecord, suggesting that its author is Chinese.

Venkatesan added: "As it is already widely acknowledged that this year is the year of mobile malware, we advise smartphone users to be more logical and exercise the basic security principles while surfing and installing any applications."

Only last month security experts warned over a new strain of the Zeus virus – known to be one of the most pernicious on the internet and which targets login details for banks – that specifically targeted Android smartphones.

Almost 52m Android smartphones were shipped worldwide in the second quarter of this year – almost a fivefold increase year-on-year – according to market researchers Canalys. The huge increase is attributed to the large number of manufacturers, including HTC, Samsung and Motorola, now making handsets using Google's software.

Media Warfare - Power Struggles Of The Global Elite

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:26:23 -0600

The 3D Printer

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:02:59 -0600

This technology foreshadows the future of home based manufacturing - coming to a garage near you soon.

Bitcoin: The Gathering

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:47:58 -0600

Germany: Corporate Espionage And 'Biscuit Tins'

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:32:36 -0600

Source: AFP/Google News - June 26, 2011

A German chemicals company said on Monday its managers have begun keeping their mobile phones in biscuit tins during meetings in order to guard against industrial espionage.

"Experts have told us that mobile phones are being eavesdropped on more and more, even when they are switched off," Alexandra Boy, spokeswoman for Essen-based speciality chemicals maker Evonik, told AFP.

"The measure applies mostly when sensitive issues are being discussed, for the most part in research and development," she said, confirming a report in business weekly Wirtschaftswoche.

Biscuit tins have a so-called Farraday cage effect, she said, blocking out electromagnetic radiation and therefore preventing people from hacking into mobile phones, not only for calls but also to get hold of emails.

The firm, with 34,000 employees and sales of 13 billion euros ($18.5 billion), is not alone in wanting to defend itself against what experts warn are increasingly sophisticated methods of industrial espionage.

Power-Grid Experiment

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:52:19 -0600

Source: MSNBC - June 24, 2011

A yearlong experiment with America's electric grid could mess up traffic lights, security systems and some computers — and make plug-in clocks and appliances like programmable coffeemakers run up to 20 minutes fast.

"A lot of people are going to have things break and they're not going to know why," said Demetrios Matsakis, head of the time service department at the U.S. Naval Observatory, one of two official timekeeping agencies in the federal government.

Since 1930, electric clocks have kept time based on the rate of the electrical current that powers them. If the current slips off its usual rate, clocks run a little fast or slow. Power companies now take steps to correct it and keep the frequency of the current — and the time — as precise as possible.

The group that oversees the U.S. power grid is proposing an experiment that would allow more frequency variation than it does now without corrections, according to a company presentation obtained by The Associated Press.

Continue reading "Power-Grid Experiment"

The Fiber Revolution

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:10:50 -0600

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Facebook Is Coming For Your Children

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 24 May 2011 20:17:22 -0600

Source: Today - May 24, 2011

Wearing the mantle of education reform, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told attendees at a recent summit on innovation in education that, "My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age."

A really, really good way to do that, Zuckerberg said, is to let kids ages 13 and under join Facebook.

...

One more thing: Legally allowing kids 12 and under to join Facebook is also a really, really good way to make (even more) serious bank.

Facebook is said to generate $2 billion in revenue annually, mostly from outside marketers. Its "half a billion users have made it an attractive target for advertisers, including Coca-Cola Co., JPMorganChase & Co. and Adidas AG," AdAge reports.

Now that you're no longer able to hide your interests and other personal details, that information is used to show you ads related to your info, so that you're more likely to respond.

...

In seeking out the youth market, the fairly young company isn't blazing new ground. The American Academy of Pediatrics points out:

Increasingly, advertisers are targeting younger and younger children in an effort to establish "brand-name preference" at as early an age as possible. This targeting occurs because advertising is a $250 billion/year industry with 900,000 brands to sell, and children and adolescents are attractive consumers: teenagers spend $155 billion/year, children younger than 12 years spend another $25 billion, and both groups influence perhaps another $200 billion of their parents' spending per year.

What's more, "research has shown that young children — younger than 8 years — are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising," writes the AAP. "They do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value."

Sony Network Hacked - Millions Of Credit Cards Exposed

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:50:14 -0600

Source: ArsTechnica - April 26, 2011

Sony has finally come clean about the "external intrusion" that has caused the company to take down the PlayStation Network service, and the news is almost as bad as it can possibly get. The hackers have all your personal information, although Sony is still unsure about whether your credit card data is safe. Everything else on file when it comes to your account is in the hands of the hackers.

In other words, Sony's security has failed in a spectacular fashion, and we're just now finding out about it. In both practical and PR terms, this is a worst-case scenario.

Intel Unveils CPU Based DRM

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:16:39 -0700

Source: Wired - January 5, 2011

LAS VEGAS — Intel is preparing a new line of processing, graphics and wireless technologies aimed in part at bringing video to consumers — and preventing them from copying it.

The content protection scheme, known as “Intel Insider,” is a feature built into its second-generation Core processors, which Intel unveiled Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show.

The feature will prevent playback or copying of HD video content through insecure channels within a PC. For example, video can be delivered to a secured HDMI port, but not over an unsecured PCI bus. It also provides a mechanism for online content providers to recognize Intel Insider computers, and deliver copy-protected content only to them.

“It’s like an armored truck, if you will,” Intel marketing director Josh Newman told Wired.com. “It’s a way of securing the content once it’s inside the PC.”

The second-generation chips, which will retain the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 nomenclature used in the current generation of chips, feature enhanced graphics-processing capabilities aimed at delivering better 3-D image-rendering for games, faster image editing and improved HD video processing. They are made with Intel’s 32-nanometer manufacturing process and incorporate its high-k metal gate transistor technology.

In a demo, Intel showed a “video thumbnail” browser that let users browse through dozens of simultaneously playing video clips. Intel says the chips can support playback of seven or eight HD video streams simultaneously, and can transcode and downsize a two-hour HD video to iPhone format in five or 10 minutes — without tying up the processor, so you can continue to use your computer during the operation.

Quad-core versions of the chips will be available on Jan. 9, with dual-core versions to follow in February. PC manufacturers will soon introduce more than 500 laptop and desktop models using the chips, according to Intel.

Intel says the chips will also be more power-efficient, leading to longer battery life and enabling thinner, lighter and cooler notebooks.

They will all include an enhanced “Intel Turbo Boost” technology that reassigns CPU and graphics-processing resources as needed to provide improved performance to applications such as games.

But it’s the Intel Insider feature that has movie studios excited.

“Now that Intel has made it more secure, we’re able to provide new releases and popular catalog titles in full HD to the PC,” said Warner Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara, in a press release.

Although Intel Insider prevents end-user copying and playback, Intel is pitching the feature as one that’s beneficial to consumers, presumably because it will make movie studios and TV networks more comfortable about selling or renting their content online, thus opening the door to more content. It also doesn’t require people to enter complicated authentication codes, because the authentication all happens in the background.

“We’re trying to be user-centric,” Intel senior vice president Tom Kilroy told Wired.com in a pre-briefing.

20th Century Fox will also use Intel Insider to distribute content. CinemaNow will also support the feature.

2010, The Year Of Wikileaks

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:51:32 -0700

A side note: I've been interested in the work of halfpasthuman in an, 'out of the corner of my eye' kind of way. The notion of web-bots trawling the net for phrases looking for some sort of premonitory field of data is intriguing to say the least, especially considering the innate psychic nature of human consciousness. At some point during the past year there was data collected by the web bots of a "dog poet" entity that would emerge, and that this "dog poet" would become ubiquitous in the media, even to the point of being discussed by the average Joe/Jane in their place of work. It became obvious to me some time ago that this data set was correct, and that the "dog poet" was indeed Julian Assange. I knew it most definitely when I posted Witnessing which linked to Assanges old blog, and which was brim full with his thoughts and, yes indeed, his poetry. But the funny thing is, who would have known he was such a "dog"!? No offense to Julian here, but the description certainly fits, and I'm curious why I haven't heard it proclaimed elsewhere. Maybe someone has had this realization and I've yet to hear about it? Nevertheless, it's clear to me that 2010 was the year of the "Dog Poet".

Cheers, and Happy New Year!

Russia Goes Open Source

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:36:27 -0700

Source: International Business Times - December 28, 2010

In what can prove to be massive blow to Microsoft, Russia has taken another step towards the transition into complete usage of free software. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday signed an order for the transition of federal bodies and agencies to use free software.

This comes after the 2008 campaign to rid schools of all paid proprietary software and encourage free software.

Although Russia's expanding campaign against proprietary software will negatively impact several software developers, world's software behemoth, Microsoft stands to lose out on the most.

Russia has so far worried Microsoft with its notoriously high-rate of software piracy, following China and other Asian countries. While the majority of the population uses pirate Microsoft softwares, now the country is completely planning to cut off paid proprietary software.

Moreover, Microsoft is already down licking its wounds in the United States, where the internet giant and rival company Google has managed to grab the attention in the software market as well. Businesses, universities, and government institutions are increasingly opting for professional Google Docs solution over Microsoft's offerings.

....

Several organisations and countries have tried and continue to try their hand at encouraging migration to free software. One of the campaigns that failed in the past was China's Jiangsu deployment of Linux in secondary education. The feedback was extremely poor. It later led to a trade deal between China and Microsoft that allows students in the Asian giant to legally buy Windows+Office bundles for just $3.

The latest order

The order that affects all Russian federal agencies and any organizations funded by the federal budget maps a step-by-step transition, slated to be completed by 2015.

Each point of the 25-point document, which can be read and accessed on Google Translate, specifies an action that needs to be taken by an agency within the specified time; besides the expected result from the event.

CNews reported that one of the interesting points of the plan was a reference to the national repository, which must be created to the II (second) quarter of 2012. Deputy Minister of communications Ilya Massuh explained that the document refers to "not so much an assembly repository distro Linux, many applications store similar to App Store, but for free operating systems. "

International Hackers Convene in Berlin

nospam@example.com (Harvest Dream) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:50:23 -0700

Source: DW-World - December 29, 2010

The 27th annual Chaos Communication Congress is currently underway in Germany. These hackers say society should be worried about personal data collected by governments about us.

On Monday, two Berlin mobile security researchers outlined what they've dubbed the "SMS of Death" attack, which they claim could potentially could affect significant portions of mobile phones worldwide, the overwhelming majority of which are non-smartphones, like an iPhone or Android.

By flooding these mobiles with hundreds of thousands of malicious texts, they were able to discover bugs within the phones text-message reading software, that in some cases would force the phone to get stuck in a reboot loop.

And that was just day one of the 27th annual Chaos Communication Congress, the annual gathering of the Chaos Computer Club, currently going on this week in the German capital.

Man on a phoneBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The new attack could affect millions of mobile phonesThe two German researchers, Collin Mulliner and Nico Golde, from the Technical University of Berlin, claimed that their attack potentially could affect older-generation mobile phones made by Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Micromax and LG. Mulliner theorized that a large scale such attack might be overwhelming to a mobile network by inducing "ten thousand mobiles to try to reconnect simultaneously."

Amongst the 3,000 attendees, there's a majority of very pale, sometimes chubby men, with laptops under their arms who look like they haven't seen a lot of sunlight, there are also students, a few hipsters and women in attendance.

During the conference, which concludes on Thursday, participants take part in lectures and workshops on political and technical topics - from censorship, data surveillance and copyright, to VOIP security and hacking smart phones. Attendees can even buy SIM cards to use a special, experimental mobile phone network set up solely for this conference.

WikiLeaks first debuted at the 2007 CCC congress

The Chaos Computer Club, or CCC, was founded in Berlin in 1981 and is one of the world's oldest self-desecribed hacker clubs.

Since that time, the CCC has become known for consistently exposing security flaws and challenged the trend of heightened data surveillance since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In 2008, the CCC published the fingerprints of Germany's interior ministerTo protest the authorities' increasing use of biometric data, in March 2008, the CCC acquired the German interior minister's fingerprints, which they took from a water glass the politician used at a public speaking event. They took that imprint and published them as a way to protest the increased use of biometric data in Germany and to highlight the insecure nature of such data.

Three years ago, at the 2007 congress, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange presented an early sketch of the now-contraversial website. There, he met CCC member, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, (then known by his alias, Daniel Schmitt), who until a few months ago was considered Assange's number two at WikiLeaks.

While the two groups are not formally affiliated, Frank Rosengart, a Chaos Computer Club spokesperson, said that his organization supports WikiLeaks because both groups have similar goals, especially around the issues of more transparency in government, or what Rosengart calls "machine-readable government.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange presented his website to the CCC in 2007"WikiLeaks, for us, it's the right way to do it, to publish information," said Rosengart. "Keeping the privacy and keeping the sources anonymous - that's a very important part of software and this can be considered a good hack to set up such a system that works in this way."

Rosengart said that first and foremost the Congress is a meeting place for technical collaboration to take place - as was the case with WikiLeaks.

"There are a lot of projects like open-source programming projects and some people they meet here for the first time in real life," he said. "So they know them online, they work together, they do software together, but they meet here for the first time."