You may think Yes Minister is a comedy. I know it's a documentary - Peter Lilley
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Top smartphones spy on you
SMARTPHONE applications are turning your expensive smartphone into a spying machine, according to insecurity experts.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald a test of 300,000 free applications for Apple's Iphone and Google's Android software found that many of them secretly pull sensitive data off users' phones and ship it off to third parties.
The test was carried out by US-based Lookout, which is a smartphone security outfit. Data sent from the applications included users' contacts, their pictures, text messages and Internet search and web browsing histories. The data was sent to advertisers and companies that analyse data to target ads and learn more about their users.
If that was not bad enough, some of the applications were vulnerable to hacking and used in identity theft. A quarter of the Iphone and almost half the Android apps had the spying function added on.
Some code had been written by the third parties and inserted into the applications by the developers, usually for a specific purpose, such as allowing the applications to run ads.
Lookout warned that some of the code winds up forcing the application to collect more data on users than even the developers might realise.
John Hering, CEO of Lookout said that smartphones don't alert users to all the different types of data the applications running on them are collecting. Iphones only alert users when applications want to use their locations.
Android phones offer stronger warnings when applications are first installed, but many people breeze through them too fast. µ
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Facebook does this all the time. Nobody cares about that either.
App site companies need to be responsible and test apps for data forwarding to outside IP addresses, opening of ports for allowing outside access, stay resident components, and anything else that might be a problem. In some ways we're still in the infancy of mobile apps so someone has to protect users. I'm okay with companies putting in restrictions and testing before posting apps, since we know people are already pushing security limits to see how far they can go. The last thing I would want is the industry to get so bad that we have to buy anti-virus or anti-malware apps just to use our phones.
People in general are stupid, ignorant, dumb, panicky animals. Quick to believe anything you tell them and stare at any shiny thing you put in from of them.
It is very simple simpletons! The more technology you use, and carry with you. The easier it is to track and keep data on you.
DUH!
I often wonder about my GPS. How easy is if for something to track it when it is turned on?
Why are they still being allowed to do this? Doesnt it contravene the Data Protection Act? (Weasel-worded "disclaimers" notwithstanding.)
Why are phones still being shipped that even allow apps to do this? Shouldnt there be some security layer that intervenes when (eg) what is ostensibly a simple puzzle game tries to send your business card and entire usage history to some server in russia?
Why are duhvelopers still so naive that they include random malware in their code without finding out *exactly* what it does? (Or so lazy and corrupt that they just dont care?)
Why are l^Husers still blithely using apps that suck this much? Are they just STUPID?
et cetera, ad nauseam.
And never forget there are apps to listen in when connected or anytime, besides to get your location.
This mentions what I've long suspected: that libraries of code contain malware that innocent programmers include.
in other news .. the Sun is expected to rise in the morning.
Free is 99% of the time not free .. go figure