Powerful spyware apps let the government control everything on your phone
There’s been a lot written over the past year about government spying, but not so much about how governments spy. It’s easy to forget that there’s an industry thriving underneath that controversy. In 2011 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released a series of documents it called the Spy Files — a comprehensive database of surveillance products and companies who market their services specifically to government agencies. Companies like Hacking Team specialize in advanced spyware, gifting their customers with the ability to exercise total control over a target’s device while remaining completely invisible. A group of researchers recently tracked down and reverse engineered Hacking Team’s RCS (Remote Control System) tool to see just what these corporate spyware firms are capable of. The answer, is quite a lot.
Over the last year or so, SecureList has been looking into Hacking Team’s products to suss out their capabilities. Recently, it’s been focusing on the tool’s mobile modules — malware designed to monitor and log data from Android, iOS, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. Since one of those platforms is a struggling brand and the other has already been replaced, the team focused on modules designed specifically for iOS and Android — the analysis revealed a shockingly powerful surveillance system. Hacking Team’s iOS product can take control of a handsets Wi-Fi and GPS units, record voice, log E-mail, SMS and MMS data, track web usage and call history, read data from the devices clipboard and notes, peek at calendar appointments, log keystrokes and even control and activate the microphone for covert eavesdropping.
These tools seem terrifyingly powerful, but don’t panic just yet — installing them on a device is no laughing matter. According to SecureList’s investigation, the iOS modules will only function on jailbroken iPhones, and even then an attacker needs to have physical access to the device or remote administrator access to install the malware. Both iPhones and Android devices can be infected by connecting to a computer with Hacking Team’s desktop software, but only if the device has been unlocked with a password. You aren’t going to implant your device with tracking tools by simply browsing the web. Still, it’s good to be aware that spying products like this exist.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Hacking Team is how it presents itself. The italian company insists that its products are intended for legal surveillance only, such as police officers who have a warrant for a suspect in custody. The company’s website is clean and unsettlingly open about its product’s capabilities. “Total control over your targets,” it says. “Log everything you need.” It’s not hiding itself, and it openly admits that its products are intended for governmental bodies. Proving that your government is one of its customers is another matter, but SecureList’s ping of countries using RCS servers fingers the United States as the firm’s biggest customer. It’s impossible to say for sure what the US-located RCS severs are being used for, but SecureList says that “several IPs were identified as ‘government’ related based on their WHOIS information and they provide a good indication of who owns them.”
Is the government listening in on your water cooler talk? Probably not, but the tools for them to do so exist, and it’s actively marketed to law enforcement. Regardless of how you feel about Edward Snowden, PRISM and government surveillance, it’s clear that law agencies can do a lot more than simply collect call metadata. Hungry for more details? Check out the source links below for an in-depth look at the researchers adventure into fingerprinting methods, servers and RCS configuration file code.
[Image Credit: Shutterstock / arbalet]
Source: CitizenLab, Wired, SecureList
Google+ Photos now lets you go back and re-edit pics you already edited
Google+ Photos already saves originals of your edited photos, in case you ever regret some of the more Warholish tweaks you made. Now, Google is letting you go back and edit your edits (editception!), rather than making you start from scratch with the original. So if you like all the filters you previously added, but just wanna crop the shot more tightly, you can do that without having to redo the whole thing. The catch is that this feature only works on Chrome, according to a post from Google employee John Nack, which means Android and iOS users are out of luck for now. Additionally, the company is introducing a feature called Auto Awesome Effects (yep) that automatically applies filters to your photos, videos and gifs as you upload them. As with everything else, though, these effects are reversible; you can undo them if you don’t like the ones Google picked out. Look for both features to start rolling out today, in case you have time for a little image-play.
Filed under: Internet
Via: Android Police
Source: John Nack (Google+)
Chromebook Pixel owners get $150 after Verizon abruptly cuts off free LTE
The Chromebook Pixel is undoubtably an expensive offering, starting at $1,299 for the 32GB WiFi-only model and $1,449 if you decide to opt for LTE and 64GB of storage. What made the latter pricing more palatable, however, was that you also got two years of 100MB per month LTE courtesy of Verizon as part of the deal. Or so we thought. As it turns out, apparently Verizon and Google didn’t quite see eye to eye on that, as Verizon recently stopped that service for Pixel owners who bought their Chromebook only a year ago — it seems Verizon thought it was a one year plan instead of two. Thankfully, Google has stepped up to take care of the error by offering a $150 Visa gift card to anyone who bought an LTE Pixel. A spokesperson gave us this statement: “While this particular issue is outside of our control, we appreciate that this issue has inconvenienced some of our users. We are offering gift cards to affected customers.” If you need more assistance, you can visit this Google support page and contact the company for more info. That $150 doesn’t quite make up for a year of lost service, but it might help soothe the woes of those who didn’t get what they were promised.
Filed under: Laptops, Google, Verizon
Source: Computerworld, Google Support
New Google Glass headsets ship with more memory, everyone gets help with photos
Two years after it was introduced, Google Glass hasn’t gotten any cheaper — although it is a bit more stylish with Diane von Furstenberg frames and international now that it’s launched in the UK — but it is getting better. Not just through one of the many software updates that have reached the headset since its debut either, as its hardware has undergone a mild revision. Google announced that new units are shipping with 2GB of RAM, double the amount previously available, among other tweaks that have improved battery life and made voice search better.
The bad news? The new units aren’t coming to existing members of the Explorer Program. Still, everyone with Glass can check out a few new features thanks to a software update, like the viewfinder shown above that helps line up photographs. Also new to Glass are Google Now cards that have been on mobile for a little while, reminding wearers where they parked their car and about any packages that are on the way. The skydive into I/O in 2012 is still one of the more memorable product introductions we’ve seen, and now we’re wondering what else Google has in store for the 2014 conference tomorrow.
Filed under: Wearables, Google
Source: Google Glass (G+)
Apple Reverses Course on Ban for Apps Incentivizing Ad Watching, Social Sharing
Earlier this month, Apple began cracking down on some of the methods developers use to monetize their apps, rejecting some apps that offered rewards for viewing videos and sharing content on social networks.
Developers were understandably upset about this policy change, as offering opt-in ads in the form of rewards for video watching provided a way to generate revenue without significantly disrupting gameplay. Providing in-game currency, extra lives, or another incentive for watching an advertisement has become common in freemium games.
Apple now appears to have reversed course on its decision to reject apps for using these promotional methods, with TechCrunch noting that Apple has ceased rejecting apps for using incentivized ads and has changed its opinion on some previously rejected apps.
Now we’re hearing that things have changed.
Sources in the video ad industry have reported that app rejections related to this matter have now declined, indicating the policy is being rolled back.
We’re also hearing that some of the initial, and more worrisome, rejections are being undone — that is, the apps are being allowed back in the App Store.
While Apple is allowing developers to continue to offer an in-app reward for users who watch a video or post about an app on social media, the company is still rejecting apps that offer incentives to users for reviewing an app, rating an app, or downloading another app, as reviews and ratings can affect an app’s position on the Top Charts.
Manipulating the App Store charts is explicitly forbidden in Apple’s app guidelines under rule 3.10, which states that developers who attempt to “manipulate or cheat the user reviews or chart ranking in the App Store with fake or paid reviews or any other inappropriate methods” can be removed from the Developer program. Thus, under Apple’s new rules, developers appear to be able to allow users to watch ads for other apps, but are unable to encourage users to download those apps.
Basically, developers are fine to reward viewing video ads, whether for their own apps, those belonging to others, or brand ads, but they can’t reward anything that also has a direct download piece to it.
This change will likely be a relief to developers who rely on such incentives to promote their apps to a wider audience. iOS 8 is will also bring several changes to the App Store that will help increase app discovery, including an improved App Store search algorithm, an “Explore” feature that makes it easier to find apps, and app bundles that offer several apps together for a discounted price.
Microsoft: law enforcement faces ‘bleak future’ if US doesn’t scale back its spying
It’s patently clear by now that Microsoft is no fan of the US government’s surveillance strategy, but the company’s general counsel, Brad Smith, just took the war of words to a new level. He tells those at the Brookings Institution that the US’ aggressive data collection is only going to make things worse over time. According to the legal leader, concerns about spying will be “more important, not less” as seemingly every device goes online. He contends that the government needs to scale back its efforts and follow the spirit of the law — if it can’t, law enforcement (and by extension, the public) faces a “bleak future.”
To no one’s surprise, Smith has a simple solution to avoid this dystopia. He’s asking Congress and the White House to stop large-scale collection and reform the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. That may be a tall order given how much protection the court gets. Even if Smith can’t spark political changes, though, there’s talk of offering you more power over your data. He has proposed a dashboard that would let you not only see and manage information about you, but find out how it’s being used. It’s not certain whether or not Microsoft plans to introduce that kind of control panel itself, but Smith’s ardent pro-privacy stance suggests that you shouldn’t rule it out.
[Image credit: Todd Bishop, Flickr]
Filed under: Internet, Microsoft
Source: CNET
Twitter’s latest experiment rethinks the retweet
Twitter already made the move to allow tweets inside tweets, but it appears the 140-character social stream is looking to revamp the way we all retweet, too. According to TechCrunch, a new feature being labeled as “retweet with comment” that enables users to better participate in the on-going convo by adding proper context could be on the way. Currently, in the company’s own app there are options for a straight retweet and quoting the musing to be recast. Rumor has it that the new method could replace that latter choice, and in the process allow for a proper comment where the ol’ RT text count doesn’t eat into your precious character allotment. That original tweet will likely appear in card form — much like the embeded option — but hopefully via a single button press rather than the current copy/paste method.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile
Source: TechCrunch
Oculus VR to buy design team behind the Xbox 360 gamepad and Kinect, Carbon Design
Just six months ago, we were talking about the money Oculus VR was raising from investors to get its virtual reality headset to consumers. Now, after being purchased by Facebook earlier this year, Oculus VR is making full-on acquisitions of its own: the company behind the design of the Xbox 360 gamepad and the original Kinect, Carbon Design, is joining Oculus VR. The price of the purchase wasn’t given, though a few specifics were. First, Carbon “will officially become a key component of the product engineering group at Oculus,” which to us sounds like the end of the name “Carbon Design.” That doesn’t mean Carbon — a Seattle group — is moving to Oculus VR’s Irvine, CA. headquarters, though — the design team is set to stay in Seattle and work with Oculus’ R&D group in Redmond (headed up by ex-Valve VR man Michael Abrash).
Though the deal is fresh, Oculus says its collaboration with Carbon isn’t. “We’ve been working with Carbon for nearly a year,” the announcement says. Working on what, though? On “multiple unannounced projects,” apparently. Thus far, Oculus VR has only announced its Rift headset and, with that, there’s no release date (or even a window) in sight.
When we asked the company about other hardware projects at E3 2014, we were told that others exist but there’s nothing to talk about just yet. See the full interview for yourself below.
Filed under: Wearables, Microsoft
Source: Oculus VR
These ‘smart dumbbells’ log your lifting sessions, call you out on your bad form
The “Internet of Things” basically now includes all the things: internet-connected slow cookers, tea kettles, baby onesies. And don’t you think that also includes athletic equipment? Bowflex, the company best known for its all-in-one home-exercise machines, is showing off a pair of “smart dumbbells,” which log your weight lifting sessions, and also use sensors to detect if you’re moving your arms too fast (bad form, dudes). The SmartTech 560 dumbbells, as they’re called, then send that data to an Android or iOS app over Bluetooth. Even then, there’s a display on the weights, so you can glance at some of this info right there. Once you’re in the app, you can view 70-plus video tutorials, courtesy of MyFitnessPal, as well as participate in a six-week training challenge.
Additionally, the dumbbells use Bowflex’s existing SelectTech technology to add or subtract weight, using the cradle you see in that photo above. All told, the weights can shift between two and 90 pounds of heft, so you can use the set of dumbbells for your squats, lunges and bicep curls. (Fun fact: The company’s technology is already used in gyms, where you can pick up a weight and not worry about whether all the 10-pound dumbbells are already taken.) No word on an exact release date, except that the company expects them to be on sale before Christmas.
The price isn’t final either, though a spokesperson said a set of two weights might fall in the $450 to $500 range. Yeah, we know: Insane. Unless, of course, you were otherwise planning on buying two-dozen individual dumbbells for your home gym. And if you have that kind of money, don’t you already have a fancy gym membership? So many questions, guys. So many questions. Hopefully some of them will be answered once we get the chance to get hands-on sometime this fall. Until then, here’s a demo video of the things in action.
Apple TV gets ABC News, PBS Kids and a brand new Flickr app
You’d think that the steady stream of new Apple TV content would have slowed to a trickle by now, but nope — far from it. Apple has just delivered a handful of fresh channels that include the free ABC News service (not to be confused with the authentication-based WatchABC), PBS Kids and the cricket-focused Willow TV. Flickr’s app has also received a long, long overdue revamp (shown below) with a densely packed Explore section, an elaborate personal page and improved search. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the new AOL On channel — yes, you can now watch Engadget videos and other clips from our corporate overlords. Whatever content tickles your fancy, you just have to wake up your Apple TV to check it out.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Apple
Source: 9to5 Mac
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