Topic: Phone - on July 16, 2016 at 6:08:00 PM CEST
Are We All Becoming Pavlov’s Dogs?
Blame your smartphone (and Steve Jobs).
Scenario 1: Your smartphone buzzes. Without a moment’s hesitation you grab it out of your pocket and check the alert: Was it an email? A test? A Facebook notification? Or just a phantom vibration? Scenario 2: You looked at your phone a few minutes ago, but now you're standing in line at the market and grab it to check for messages even though your phone has not beeped, vibrated, or flashed. Scenario 3: You posted on Facebook a few minutes ago and although you have not been notified of any responses, likes, or whatever, you tap the icon and scroll through the newest posts. You see that your best friend from high school just posted a photo of her trip to Maui, and you smile when you become the first to “like” it. Scenario 4: You are at dinner with a group of friends and you have all agreed to put your phones on silent and stash them away. After the appetizer, you get up to go to the restroom (even though you really don’t need to go) and upon opening the restroom door, you grab your phone and check the sports scores, your email, or whatever. Looking around you notice that every other person in the restroom is doing the same.
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Topic: Phone - on July 9, 2016 at 5:49:00 PM CEST
Your guide to secret iPhone codes
Your iPhone has been keeping secrets from you. But now you can learn how to use them yourself. Every iPhone has a hidden “Field Test Mode” that will reveal helpful details like its signal strength and unique identifiers like its IMEI number. These aren’t normal features that you can find in your device’s Settings menu, which is where the secret codes come into play. You don’t have to be Alan Turing to use your iPhone’s Field Test Mode. The codes are relatively idiot proof and limited in their functionality. You’re able to pop up your iPhone’s internal hood, but you won’t have much of a chance to mess things up. This field test mode is by no means unique to Apple. Many mobile devices have a hidden menu for its “backdoors” already built in. Many of the codes have been in place for years and can even work on Android, while some vary by device or network.
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Topic: Phone - on July 9, 2016 at 10:40:00 AM CEST
Hidden Voice Commands Embedded in YouTube Videos Can Hijack Your Smartphone
A series of distorted voice commands surreptitiously hidden in YouTube videos can force unprotected Android or iOS smartphones to carry out malicious operations, researchers have discovered. Controlling smartphones with voice commands was already done last year when two security researchers from French agency ANSSI have used radio waves to send hidden commands to smartphones running Siri or Google Now. The attack was possible only if the phone had its headphones plugged in.
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Topic: Phone - on June 13, 2016 at 11:59:00 AM CEST
New Fallout Pip-Boy replica is a $350 ‘smartwatch' for phone calls and text messages
Remember last E3, how Bethesda announced a real-life Pip-Boy? And remember how it was essentially a crummy smartphone shell? Well, this E3 Bethesda has revealed a new Pip-Boy and this one looks maybe — just maybe — like it’s the Pip-Boy Fallout fans wanted all along. Unlike the old version, the Pip-Boy Deluxe Bluetooth Edition has "an integrated screen and its own on-board software and hardware." The gadget pairs to a smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth, and allows wearers to take calls, view contacts, read messages, and display various Fallout related screens.
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Topic: Phone - on June 10, 2016 at 10:01:00 PM CEST
Israeli startup presents $14,000 unhackable phone
Promising top protection, Solarin device was co-developed by former state cyber-security whizz. An Israeli-produced super-secure smartphone worthy of a James Bond movie has been unveiled in London by an Israeli start-up company. Celebrities Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio were among those present at the launch. The Solarin Android, produced by Sirin Labs and available through Sirin’s own London store and at Harrods from June 30, offers a unique security shield activated by a security switch and deactivated by biometric ID, encrypted emails, secure calls and messaging services, and special anti-cyber threat detention and prevention software.
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Topic: Phone - on June 10, 2016 at 9:49:00 PM CEST
The Amazing iPhone-sniffing Prison Dogs
Two years ago, a Belgian Malinois named Drako earned a flurry of press attention when his proud owners at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced he had found his thousandth contraband cell phone in the state’s prisons. He’d once found thirty stashed in a microwave, and one hidden in a jar of peanut butter. But Drako was only the most famous of a growing number of dogs around the country trained to find cell phones. Usually they are a specially-trained subset of canine units employed to find drugs. They have been used by prisons in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. Texas and California have 13 cell phone dogs each.
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Topic: Phone - on June 10, 2016 at 9:37:00 PM CEST
Anonyme SIM-Karten: Europäischer Menschenrechtsgerichtshof schaltet sich ein
Der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte hat die Bundesregierung aufgefordert, sich zur Ausweispflicht für Prepaid-SIM-Karten zu äußern. Damit soll ein Verfahren vorangetrieben werden, das seit über zehn Jahren durch die Instanzen geht.
Dem Plan der Bundesregierung, im Rahmen des neuen Anti-Terror-Pakets unter anderem eine Ausweispflicht für Prepaid-SIM-Karten einzuführen, könnte sich der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) in den Weg stellen. Dabei geht es im vorliegenden Fall gar nicht mal um den aktuellen Gesetzentwurf, der anonyme beziehungsweise pseudonyme Mobilfunk-Kommunikation abschaffen will: Bereits seit der Novellierung des Telekommunikationsgesetzes (TKG) im Jahr 2004 ist es gesetzlich vorgeschrieben, dass auch solche SIM-Karten auf einen Anschlussinhaber registriert werden müssen – selbst wenn Mobilfunkanbieter bei der Anmeldung nicht überprüfen müssen, ob die angegebenen Daten tatsächlich korrekt sind, indem sie sie etwa mit einem Personalausweis abgleichen.
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Topic: Phone - on December 25, 2013 at 2:13:00 PM CET
Kokain war gestern: Südamerikanische Kartelle steigen massiv in den Handel mit gestohlenen Smartphones ein
In der Hauptstadt eines Landes, das für seinen Drogenhandel berüchtigt ist, war diese Szene nicht ungewöhnlich. Die kolumbianische Polizei hielt nach dem Hinweis eines Informanten einen Minivan auf, der gerade den Flughafen El Dorado in Bogota verlassen wollte. Im Laderaum des Fahrzeugs fanden die Ermittler, was sie suchten: dutzende Kisten mit wertvoller Schmuggelware.
Beschlagnahmt wurden in den Morgenstunden des 26. September 2012 aber nicht Kokain oder andere illegale Drogen. Die Kisten enthielten über 400 Smartphones der Marken Samsung, LG und BlackBerry – komplett mit Handbüchern und Ladegeräten. Als die Polizisten die Geräte einschalteten, wurden die Namen und Logos der amerikanischen Mobilfunkanbieter AT&T und Verizon angezeigt.
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Topic: Phone - on November 29, 2013 at 4:46:00 PM CET
Build your own cellphone for $200
David Mellis, one of the minds behind the Arduino platform, has released the blueprints to a cellphone that, with time and patience, anyone can build. Mellis used the readily available Arduino GSM Shield, which lets Arduino-based machines access the web over cellular networks, as the basis for his project, but greatly expanded upon the component's hardware and software, adding support for a display, buttons, speaker, microphone, and a full interface. The result is a basic cellphone that can make and receive calls, text messages, store names and numbers, and display the time.
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Topic: Phone - on November 13, 2013 at 3:04:00 PM CET
The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone
I've always known this, and I'm sure most of you do too, but we never really talk about it. Every smartphone or other device with mobile communications capability (e.g. 3G or LTE) actually runs not one, but two operating systems. Aside from the operating system that we as end-users see (Android, iOS, PalmOS), it also runs a small operating system that manages everything related to radio. Since this functionality is highly timing-dependent, a real-time operating system is required.
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Topic: Phone - on September 23, 2013 at 2:19:00 PM CEST
Chaos Computer Club hackt Apple TouchID
Hackern des Biometrie-Teams des Chaos Computer Clubs (CCC) ist es gelungen, die biometrischen Sicherheitsfunktionen des Apple TouchID mit einfachsten Mitteln zu umgehen. Dazu genügte den Hackern ein Fingerabdruck, welchen sie von einer Glasoberfläche abfotographierten, um einen künstlichen Finger zu erzeugen. Damit waren sie in der Lage, ein iPhone 5s zu entsperren, welches mit TouchID geschützt war. Damit demonstrierten die Hacker wieder einmal, daß biometrische Daten zur Verhinderung eines unberechtigten Zugriffs vollkommen ungeeignet sind.
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Topic: Phone - on September 21, 2013 at 5:25:00 PM CEST
Senator asks if FBI can get iPhone 5S fingerprint data via Patriot Act
Since Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) arrived in the United States Senate, he’s become the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. He’s made it his mission to raise questions about tech issues that he feels are improper, unjust, or just downright questionable.
The debut of the new iPhones 5S, replete with a fingerprint reader, has now also gotten Franken’s attention. On Thursday, the Minnesota senator published a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, raising questions about the logic in making fingerprint readers more mainstream.
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