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Android

Submission + - CarrierIQ: Most Phones Ship with Rootkits (xda-developers.com) 1

Kompressor writes: According to a developer on the XDA forums, TrevE, many Android, Nokia, and BlackBerry smartphones have software called "Carrier IQ" that allows your carrier full access into your handset, including keylogging, which apps have been run, URLs that have been loaded in the browser, etc.

Discuss.

Android

Submission + - Massive Security Issue in HTC Android Phones (androidpolice.com)

Kompressor writes: Trevor Eckhart, Justin Case, and Artem Russakovskii have found and analyzed a frightening array of vulnerabilities related to HTC's customization of Android. From the article:

Any app on affected devices that requests a single android.permission.INTERNET (which is normal for any app that connects to the web or shows ads) can get its hands on:

  • the list of user accounts, including email addresses and sync status for each last known network and GPS locations and a limited previous history of locations
  • phone numbers from the phone log SMS data, including phone numbers and encoded text (not sure yet if it's possible to decode it, but very likely)
  • system logs (both kernel/dmesg and app/logcat), which includes everything your running apps do and is likely to include email addresses, phone numbers, and other private info

Programming

Submission + - Slime mould simulates Canadian transport system (i-programmer.info)

mikejuk writes: Yes you did read the title correctly — slime mould can solve optimization problems.
There are two ways to solve any problem using a simulation you can use analog or digital methods. Analog methods have been out of fashion for some time but they could be about to return if the slime mould approach catches on.
So if you find yourself complaining about the road system, electricity grid, water distribution ... it might be a slime mould you have to blame.

Comment Re:What router/firewall? (Score 1) 206

when you say "firmware" you are leading me to believe they are not IOS supported devices.. and if that is so then they are from the linksys side and not what i consider actual "cisco" hardware.

Yes, they're definitely of Linksys origin - pre-Cisco buyout by quite some time. They're significantly more reliable than the standard Linksys home router, but I suspect the fact that I always made sure to supply them with a nice clean 60 Hz sine wave at 120V had a lot to do with it.

while i like/liked linksys and i like cisco - and i'm fine with the buyout.. some of their decisions have muddied the waters and made it a little more difficult to find the right solution.

I agree - Cisco putting their name on Linksys hardware in the consumer sector is easy to see past, but knowing whether you're looking at something that descended from Linksys or IOS heritage is difficult at the bottom end of the business line.

I generally don't deploy these for my clients any more, as I'm working with businesses that are willing to invest a bit in more feature-full hardware than I was before. I've had good luck recently with Fortigate, and their focus on security is, IMHO, worth the slight premium for the hardware and the yearly support contracts.

Comment Re:What router/firewall? (Score 1) 206

That's likely because the RV series came out of their Linksys purchase - I've deployed Linksys RV042 routers in the past; they were reasonably priced and didn't give me any maintenance issues.

They were rather lackluster from a configuration and firmware perspective - they were capable of basic VPNs and had 2 WAN ports, but that's about all for features over a home class router.

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