Bitdefender Carrier IQ Detector

The deeply integrated Carrier IQ software on mobile devices has made the rounds lately. Check out this introductory post for detailed information about Carrier IQ. The technology has recently been discovered on Android and Apple smartphones in a way that the discoverer called rootkit-like. Users have a hard time finding out if Carrier IQ is running on their phone, and virtually no possibility of finding out which data it collects or transfers. To top it all off, there is no native option to disable Carrier IQ from running on the phone.

If you are like me, you’d probably want to know if a program that can virtually access all data on the phone is running on it and with which server and companies it communicates.

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Finder is a new program for Android mobile phones by Bitdefender that can be used to find out if the technology is running on a phone.

Android users need to download the application from Android Market where it is available for free. The app has been designed to detect Carrier IQ on Android phones. It cannot remove the technology nor detect or remove malicious software from the phone.

Android users can point their browsers to the Bitdefender carrier IQ Finder market place listing to install the program directly from there. It is necessary to be logged in a Google account to install the app.

The app will search for traces of Carrier IQ on the phone on start up.

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Detector

A red screen after the scan indicates that Carrier IQ has been found running on the system, a green screen that the technology has not been found on the smartphone.

What can you do if Carrier IQ has been found on your phone? It may be virtually impossible to remove the technology completely from the phone. You could contact your carrier for additional information about the technology. (via)

android , cyber news , download , smartphones , software

Bitdefender Carrier IQ Detector

takecy 12/05/2011

Carrier IQ, Your Android Might Record Your Activities

If you have never heard about Carrier IQ before you can rest assured that you are not the only one. Security researcher Trevor Eckhart published a research paper on Carrier IQ, a software that he discovered running on his HTC Android device, in mid November. Lets start at the beginning, and with a simple question: What is Carrier IQ.

Carrier IQ is a software that runs on more than 140 million mobile phones (according to information on the Carrier IQ website). It is a monitoring software that can track user activities and data, including their personal information, locations, network communications, phone calls, messages and a lot more.

A few aspects make the software especially suspicious from a consumer perspective. Carrier IQ is not listed as a running application on the phone. The software furthermore cannot be stopped or deactivated on standard phones.

The Carrier IQ company stated that the Carrier IQ software “delivers Mobile Intelligence on the performance of mobile devices and networks to assist operators and device manufacturers in delivering high quality products and services to their customers”.

How can you find out if Carrier IQ is running on your phone?

It’s almost impossible for users to find off switches, user interfaces, policies, or references to IQRD anywhere on the phone. Using standard functionality, the only place you can see that the application is installed on the phone is in Menu -> Settings -> Manage Applications -> All, then scroll down to IQRD. This application has a non-descript icon and offers no information about itself. Even on old devices, IQRD runs continuously because it’s set to start automatically at boot. The only option you have to stop the application is to select “force stop”—which does nothing. The application continues to run.

The only option to remove Carrier IQ is to root the phone:

The only choice we have to “opt out” of this data collection is to root our devices because every part of the multi-headed CIQ application is embedded into low-level, locked regions of the phones. Even if you unlock your device and remove the base application with a sophisticated removal method, neutered, leftover code called from other applications will likely throw an error each time an old action is triggered.

It’s almost impossible to fully remove Carrier IQ. The browser is modified to send to Carrier IQ daemon, as is almost everything else. The application is so deeply embedded in our devices that a user must rebuild the whole device (system.img and boot.img) directly from source code to remove every part of CIQ.

Eckhart only looked at Android devices, but it is likely that other phone manufacturers are also making use of Carrier IQ.

I suggest you take a look at the YouTube video that is a live demonstration of the Carrier IQ software by the security researcher himself.

I suggest you read the two detailed articles (What is Carrier IQ? and CarrierIQ Part 2 for a deeper understanding of the situation. (via)

android , smartphones

Carrier IQ, Your Android Might Record Your Activities

takecy

ExploitMe Mobile Vulnerable Android and iPhone

The application contains both mobile web and mobile programming defects and we've outlined a set of labs and solutions online to guide you. This tool will help both mobile QA and mobile web developers to learn the kinds of weaknesses that exist in the mobile app space. 

What you're able to learn using ExploitMe Mobile: 

[+] Parameter manipulation of traffic

[+] Insecure communications

[+] Weak password lock screens

[+] Insecure memory management

[+] Weak file system permissions

[+] Insecure storage of files

[+] Insecure logging of information

You can find the full blog overview here with source code links: 

http://labs.securitycompass.com 

ExploitMe Android Lab setup and walkthroughs:

http://securitycompass.github.com/AndroidLabs

ExploitMe iPhone Lab setup and walkthroughs:

http://securitycompass.github.com/iPhoneLabs

ExploitMe Mobile Vulnerable Android and iPhone (via)

android , cyber news , iPhone , vulnerable

ExploitMe Mobile Vulnerable Android and iPhone

takecy 10/26/2011

Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy Nexus

Google Mobile Blog : Beaming a video with a single tap or unlocking a device with only a smile sounds like science fiction. Now, you can actually do these things (and more) with a phone that fits in the palm of your hand.

Wednesday morning in Hong Kong—together with Samsung—we unveiled Galaxy Nexus, the first phone designed for the latest release of Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

With a super slim profile, Galaxy Nexus features a 4.65” Contour Display with true high definition (720p) resolution and a lightning-fast dual core 1.2ghz processor combined with 4G LTE or HSPA+ technology. Galaxy Nexus also features the latest in software: Ice Cream Sandwich makes Android simple and beautiful, and takes the smartphone to beyond smart. 

Beauty and simplicity

With Ice Cream Sandwich, our mission was to build a mobile OS that works on both phones and tablets, and to make the power of Android enticing and intuitive. We created a new font that’s optimized for HD displays and eliminated all hardware buttons in favor of adaptable software buttons. We also dramatically improved the keyboard, made notifications more interactive and created resizable widgets. 

The desktop-class browser is significantly faster, featuring a refined tab manager and the ability to sync your bookmarks with Google Chrome. Ice Cream Sandwich also features the best mobile Gmail experience to date, with a new design that lets you quickly swipe through your inbox and search messages even when you’re offline. Calendar boasts a clean new look and you can zoom into your schedule with a pinch.

Connect and share

People are at the heart of Ice Cream Sandwich. We rethought how you browse your contacts with the new People app, which combines high-resolution photos and updates from Google+ and other social services. It’s also easier to capture and share your life with family and friends. Galaxy Nexus sports a high-end camera with zero shutter lag, automatic focus, top notch low-light performance and a simple way to capture panoramic pictures. Shoot amazing photos or 1080p video, and then edit and share them directly from your phone.

Beyond smart

Galaxy Nexus isn’t just a smartphone—it’s beyond smart. Ice Cream Sandwich gives you complete control over the amount of mobile data you use by helping you better understand and manage it. We’re also introducing Android Beam, which uses near field communication (NFC) to instantly share webpages, YouTube videos, maps, directions and apps by simply tapping two phones together. Face Unlock uses state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to unlock your phone with nothing more than a smile.

This weekend marks the third birthday of the G1, the first-ever Android phone. Nine releases later, more than 550,000 Android devices are activated daily.

Starting in November, Galaxy Nexus will be available in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Check out the Nexus website for a product tour and more info.

android , gadget , Galaxy Nexus , google , smartphones

Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy Nexus

takecy 10/20/2011

Google Translate With Conversation

Google Blog : Mobile technology and the web have made it easier for people around the world to access information and communicate with each other. But there’s still a daunting obstacle: the language barrier. We’re trying to knock down that barrier so everyone can communicate and connect more easily.

Earlier this year, we launched an update to Google Translate for Android with an experimental feature called Conversation Mode, which enables you to you translate speech back and forth between languages. We began with just English and Spanish, but today we’re expanding to 14 languages, adding Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish.

To use Conversation Mode, speak into your phone’s microphone, and the Translate app will translate what you’ve said and read the translation out loud. The person you’re speaking with can then reply in their language, and Conversation Mode will translate what they said and read it back to you. 

This technology is still in alpha, so factors like background noise and regional accents may affect accuracy. But since it depends on examples to learn, the quality will improve as people use it more. We wanted to get this early version out to help start the conversation no matter where you are in the world.

We’ve also added some other features to make it easier to speak and read as you translate. For example, if you wanted to say “Where is the train?” but Google Translate recognizes your speech as “Where is the rain?”, you can now correct the text before you translate it. You can also add unrecognized words to your personal dictionary. 

When viewing written translation results, you can tap the magnifying glass icon to view the translated text in full screen mode so you can easily show it to someone nearby, or just pinch to zoom in for a close-up view. 

Google Translate With Conversation

Finally, we’ve also optimized the app for larger screens like your Android tablet.

While we work to expand full Conversation Mode to even more languages, Google Translate for Android still supports text translation among 63 languages, voice input in 17 of those languages, and text-to-speech in 24 of them.

Download the Google Translate app in Android Market—it’s available for tablets and mobile phones running Android 2.2 and up.

android , google , google translate

Google Translate With Conversation

takecy 10/14/2011

Google Earth Optimized for Android-Powered Tablets

Google Offical Blog : When we launched Google Earth in 2005, most of us were still using flip phones. At the time, the thought of being able to cart around 197 million square miles of Earth in your pocket was still a distant dream. Last year, that dream came to fruition for Android users when we released Google Earth for Android. With the recent release of tablets based on Android 3.0, we wanted to take full advantage of the large screens and powerful processors that this exciting new breed of tablets had to offer.

Today’s update to Google Earth for Android makes Earth look better than ever on your tablet. We’ve added support for fully textured 3D buildings, so your tour through the streets of Manhattan will look more realistic than ever. There’s also a new action bar up top, enabling easier access to search, the option to “fly to your location” and layers such as Places,Panoramio photos, Wikipedia and 3D buildings.

Moving from a mobile phone to a tablet was like going from a regular movie theatre to IMAX. We took advantage of the larger screen size, including features like content pop-ups appearing within Earth view, so you can see more information without switching back and forth between pages.

One of my favorite buildings to fly around in Google Earth has always been the Colosseum in Rome, Italy:



With the larger tablet screen, I can fly around the 3D Colosseum while also browsing user photos from Panoramio. The photos pop up within the imagery so I can interact with them without losing sight of the Colosseum and its surroundings. Also, by clicking on the layer button on the action bar, I can choose which layers I want to browse.

This version is available for devices with Android 2.1 and above. The new tablet design is available for devices with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) and above. Please visit the Google Earthhelp center for more information.

To download or update Google Earth, head to m.google.com/earth in your device’s browser or visit Android Market. Enjoy a whole new world of Google Earth for tablets!

android , gadget

Google Earth Optimized for Android-Powered Tablets

Unknown 5/06/2011

DoggCatcher Is a Powerful Podcast Downloader and Manager for Android

Android: If you like to listen to a lot of podcasts on-the-go, DoggCatcher is the perfect podcast manager for Android. It will automatically download new episodes, delete old ones you've listened to, and even speed them up if you're time-starved.

Previously mentioned Google Listen has always been an okay app for finding and streaming your favorite podcasts, but if you're looking for something a bit more feature-filled, DoggCatcher is the podcast app for Android right now. It isn't brand new, but we hadn't really tried it out before, and we're pretty wowed. Not only does it have a great search engine for finding your favorite podcasts, but it'll even recommend you other good ones based on what you like. You can also import your existing feeds from Google Reader or an OPML file.

When it comes to listening to podcasts, it's got you covered in more ways than one. It will automatically download new episodes in any of your feeds so you can listen to them offline, delete old episodes that you've already listened to (so your SD card doesn't fill up with podcasts), and even let you speed up audio podcasts to get through them quicker. They also have a pretty active community where you can ask questions, get support, and make feature requests.

Doggcatcher is a $6.99 download for Android phones, and it is well worth the price if you listen to any podcasts. The features and options are too numerous to mention here, so head over to the Android Market and check it out.

DoggCatcher | Android Market via Talk Android

source

android , gadget

DoggCatcher Is a Powerful Podcast Downloader and Manager for Android

Unknown 5/02/2011