Android Attacks, Kindle Spying, Insurance Fraud and a Gov that answers to no one!

Recent tech news, etc.

Found a few interesting articles:

Android Attack!!

Android devices are now attacked more often by malware than PCs, according to a report released Tuesday by a cyber security software maker.

The 2013 Security Threat Report from Sophos revealed that almost 10 percent of Android devices in the U.S. have experienced a malware attack over a three-month period in 2012, compared to about 6 percent of PCs.

The situation is worse in Australia, where more than 10 percent of Android devices have been attacked by malware, compared with about 8 percent for PCs.

With 52.2 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, Android has become a tempting target, Sophos reported. "Targets this large are difficult for malware authors to resist," the report said. "And they aren’t resisting – attacks against Android are increasing rapidly."


Sophos noted that the most common malware attack on Android involves installing a fake app on a handset and secretly sending expensive messages to premium-rate SMS services.

www.pcworld.com...


So here is a phone OS platform susceptible to malware attacks... One getting more and more popular among smartphone users. So far the attacks are centred around jacking the users SMS usage and having them use cost services from special SMS providers. What does that mean? Well, someone jacks 1 million phones to send a $1.00 text and they just earned a quick mill. Times that by 20 times an hour and , no wonder these criminals have jumped on the tech bandwagon.

What does that mean for when someone is trying to jack other things from the phone though? Microphone, camera, etc?

Is your Kindle spying on you?

That’s because e-book readers are never really alone -- at least, not according to a new report by the digital rights defenders at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Released last month in advance of the holiday shopping season, the report reveals how privacy policies of virtually all e-reading devices allow the companies that make them to monitor the activity of their users. Such monitoring, the foundation found, can include recording your search habits, sharing your data, tracking purchases you’ve made from other sources, and even monitoring what books you read after you’ve purchased them.

Yup, yup it is. Jeez, and people were worried about checking certain books from the library back in the day... (What if my mom knew I read that one?) So who will the third party be interested in buying the info?

Insurance fraud agents get shotguns, fast cars

Read more from this Tulsa World article at www.tulsaworld.com...

The Oklahoma Insurance Department has stepped up the presence of its anti-fraud unit, a move that is raising some eyebrows at the state Capitol.

In recent months, the unit has bought new police cars, shotguns, uniforms, badges, body armor and other equipment for the seven-member unit, and some are asking why.

"There's no reason for John Doak to be rolling up to a business or any other area in a SWAT-style vehicle mounted with shotguns," said state Sen. Harry Coates, R-Seminole. "That's insanity."

Doak's duties are really pretty simple - regulate insurance companies and protect consumers - and anything involving higher order police work should be left to sheriff's deputies and police officers, Coates said.

Somehow I don't think they needed SWAT Teams and SUVs to take down Madoff and the like. Am I wrong?

.........Hypocrisy at its best.

Government Cannot Be Sued For Violating Its Own Wiretapping Laws

A federal appeals court is refusing to reconsider its August ruling in which it said the federal government may spy on Americans’ communications without warrants and without fear of being sued.

The original decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this summer reversed the first and only case that successfully challenged President George W. Bush’s once-secret Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Without comment, the San Francisco-based appeals court announced Wednesday that it would not rehear (.pdf) the case again with a larger panel of 11 judges, effectively setting the stage for a Supreme Court showdown. The appeals court Wednesday also made some minor amendments (.pdf) to its August ruling, but the thrust of it was the same as before.

Here's an interesting one...

Which is obviously going to need a supreme court ruling to be laid to rest.





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So a quick recap of the last weeks news, in tech and other matters.

I can only speak for the android OS, and basically it gives you freedom to get at the machine itself at the cost of security, being a linux based operating system. If you're the sort of person who will root the device allowing it to be compromised without any understanding of what you're doing, then it's different.

But you can google pretty much any paid app and find it on some shonky website for free, and they appear to be fine. But that's where the problem would come in, and to do that you need to root the phone anyway.

Basically, out of the box prepaid smart phones or devices on a plan are locked to a provider and their restricted rom version. If a security issue was to be found on the google play store though, with apps approved when they're devious, then I dunno.. unexpected outcome I think.

Haha kindle spying on you..

reply to post by winofiend

Haha kindle spying on you..

50 Shades of Grey fan eh?



I jest, I jest...

Android has a free SDK. To make effective Window's viruses you probably need a paid version of visual studio. This should be easy enough to figure out that android's are easier targets.