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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