Tuesday, January 31, 2012


Your phone is becoming less secure as it becomes more functional...
Counterclank’ Trojan Found in 13 Android Apps
January 31, 2012 by Dissent
Matt Liebowitz reports:
A batch of corrupt Android apps once again has been found lurking in the official App Market, and up to 5 million customers have already had their data stolen right under their noses by the Trojan-hosting apps.
Security software maker Symantec identified 13 apps containing “Android.Counterclank,” a Trojan that can silently steal device and user data, monitor phone calls, open up a backdoor on devices and act as part of a botnet, receiving malicious commands from a remote source.
The infected apps include spoofed versions of “Counter Elite Force,” “CounterStrike Hit Enemy,” “Hit Counter Terrorist,” “Stripper Touch Girl,” “Sexy Girls Puzzle,” “Sexy Girls Photo Game” and “Deal & Be Millionaire,” the last of which has been downloaded between 1 million and 5 million times in the past 30 days. The apps are from three developers: iApps7 Inc., Ogre Games and redmicapps.
Read more on Tech News Daily.


Now here is a clear case of “These guys should know better!” Strangely, the article never says the flash drive was encrypted...
Regions says employee 401k data lost when auditor Ernst & Young mailed flash drive and code key together
January 31, 2012 by admin
Russell Hubbard reports:
Personal information about Regions Financial Corp. current and former employees was lost in November when a flash drive with the data came up missing after being mailed by outside auditor Ernst & Young in the same envelope as the decryption code.
Read more on al.com.
[From the article:
When the package arrived, the flash drive was gone, but the page with the decryption code was still there, the companies said in their letters.


Does “Do no evil” include “Don't be disingenuous?”
Google responds to privacy policy concerns
January 31, 2012 by Dissent
Tony Fromm reports:
Google is pushing back against complaints about its new privacy policy, saying users can still prevent the company from linking all the data it collects about them by turning off their search history, by skipping some of Google’s offerings or by using different Google accounts at different times. [See? Simple! Bob]
In a letter to lawmakers who have raised questions about the new policy, the company says users will have plenty of ways to control how their personal data is collected and used — even though they can’t opt out of the privacy changes altogether.
Read more on Politico.


Which is wimpy, which is wise?
"Two Dutch ISPs have complied with a demand to block the Pirate Bay, but KPN and T-Mobile are refusing to block the site."
Torrent Freak has a bit more info. T-Mobile at least seems to imply they would respond to a court order, and are merely refusing to take down sites at the request of a private entity.


It's not your father's 4th...
United States v. Jones and the Future of Privacy Law: The Potential Far-Reaching Implications of the GPS Surveillance Case
January 30, 2012 by Dissent
Law prof Daniel Solove writes:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Jones, No. 10-1259 (U.S. Jan. 23, 2012) is a profound decision in Fourth Amendment juris- prudence as well as in privacy law more generally. In this case, FBI agents installed a global positioning system (GPS) tracking device on Jones’s car and monitored where he drove for a month without a warrant. Antoine Jones challenged the warrantless GPS surveil- lance as a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed (United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544 (D.C. Cir. 2010). Other federal circuit courts have reached conflicting conclusions on GPS, and the Supreme Court stepped in to resolve the conflict.
In an astonishing set of opinions, the Court concluded 9-0 that the installation of a GPS tracking device on a car is a Fourth Amendment search. The opinions are quite surprising, not just because they take the law in new directions from the court’s existing precedent, but also because they advance some new theories of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that might reshape the way it is interpreted and have reverberations throughout a much broader swath of privacy law.
Read more from the Privacy & Security Law Report.

(Related) Schools continue to move toward “students are cattle, they have no rights” Apparently, the school's policy plus the Sheriff's policy equals law.
MO: SPS didn’t violate students’ rights with drug dog search, court rules
January 30, 2012 by Dissent
Claudette Riley reports:
The Springfield school district didn’t violate students’ Fourth Amendment rights by using a trained dog to sniff for drugs at Central High School, according to a U.S. District court decision.
Alleging an April 22, 2010 search at Central High was an “unreasonable search and seizure,” Councilman Doug Burlison and his wife Mellony brought a lawsuit against Springfield Public Schools and the Greene County Sheriff’s Department. It also named Superintendent Norm Ridder, Central High Principal Ron Snodgrass and Sheriff Jim Arnott.
U.S. District Judge Richard E. Dorr found in favor of the school district and sheriff’s office.
Read more on News-Leader.com
[From the article:
“The long and short of all of this is that the written policies and procedures of the Greene County Sheriff and the Springfield Public Schools involved in this case appear to be reasonable and not in any way a deprivation of a federal right,” Dorr wrote in the judgment.
… Arnott said deputies followed the established procedures for such searches.
“All of our searches are open air searches,” he said. “We don’t search people, we search objects. Our policy is students have to be removed from the room so there’s no contact.”


So what do you offer me that deserves a higher price? Training? Hassle free returns? Immediate access (beets even overnight shipping)
"Marissa Taylor says the retail chains' worst nightmare are consumers who come in to take a look at merchandise in-store, but use smartphone apps to shop for cheaper prices online. But now stores like low-end retail chain Target plan to fight 'showrooming' by scaling up their business models and asking vendors to create Target-exclusive products that can't be found online. 'The bottom line is that the more commoditized the product is, the more people are going to look for the cheapest price,' says Morningstar analyst Michael Keara. 'If there's a significant price difference [among retailers] and you're using it on a regular basis, you're going to go to Amazon.' Target recently sent an 'urgent' letter to vendors, asking them to 'create special products that would set it apart from competitors.' Target's letter insisted that it would not 'let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices without making investments, as we do, to proudly display your brands.' Target also announced that it had teamed up with a handful of unique specialty shops that will offer limited edition merchandise on a rotating basis within Target stores in hopes of creating an evolving shopping experience for customers. Target is 'exercising leverage over its vendors to achieve the same pricing that smaller, online-only retailers receive,' says Weinswig. 'This strategy would help Target compete with retailers like Amazon on like-for-like products.'" [Think that's a competition you can win? Bob]

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