Related
EVERYONE need to read this thread in the link below, please post this other threads related to this, BTW it discusses that this is James Young is a HOAX read the last couple of posts
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=492330
Admins: Just talked with Microsoft being my profession and this was not sitting good with me since it was missing A. a contact phone number and for these cases it must also contain a Digital Signature with that being said they said it is fraud, I gave them the link here and they verified that they do not have a James Young employ and that the email extension [email protected] is not valid furthermore they said on there notices they will also have a phone number for the person(s) to call and correspondence is done through written. I will be receiving an email with the case number and contact information for the antipiracy case manager who verified the information and will forward it to the Admins here and at PPCGeeks as well. If one one the Admins here can PM there email addy so I can send the email to them for future verification on these types of notices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More info on the Ms Hoax please pass this info along to all sites and admins...
http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=7041
Microsoft Impersonator Sends Fraudulent Letters, Disrupts Community
Posted by Chuong Nguyen
March 13th, 2009 at 02:53 PM
It turns out that there may be an impersonator lurking around disrupting Windows Mobile communities. In response to an article that was posted this morning about Microsoft demanding that Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM images that were cooked unofficially be taken down, our own Microsoft MVP Adam Z. Lein spotted that the guy responsible for the letter to XDA-Developers may be a fraud, as was posted on PPCGeeks.
A similar hoax had occurred before at msmobiles in regards to Windows Mobile 6.5 screenshots. In the cease and desist letter to msmobiles, the gentleman claiming to be with Microsoft's legal department asked the site to remove screenshots of the forthcoming operating system
. The letter was sent after Microsoft had publicly announced and shown the very screenshots at Mobile World Congress 2009. According to msmobiles: "In any case, if it is genuine action on behalf of Microsoft, it is a case of extreme incompetence that this guy is showing because he is requesting removal of pictures of something that has been officially announced few days earlier." It should also be noted that pocketnow.com had posted screenshots and news of Windows Mobile 6.5 before, during, and after Microsoft's Mobile World Congress announcement and we did not receive a cease and desist letter.
The community over at msmobiles performed some additional investigations and found that the gentlemam, James Young, sent emails originating from IP addresses in London and not from Microsoft's corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, leading many to believe that he is not connected with the software giant. Additionally, emails were sent from [email protected], and not at a "@microsoft.com" email address.
Whatever the case may be, other forum members in our original post here at pocketnow.com made mention that only the Windows Mobile 6.5 cooked ROM made by ROM chef Da_G was affected and 6.5 ROMs for other HTC-made devices were seemingly okay.
i only hope it is a hoax
I f you read the links I posted you will see that some users and some who work for M$ verified that it was a hoax...
Thanks for this.
It has been raised in the Moderators Forum.
I'll closed this thread now because there are a few of them floating around, might as well keep the discussion focused.
Might I suggest that if this is found to be a hoax, the site admin (or a moderator maybe) will let you know. We would appreciate it if anyone who has had a takedown notice by the admin adears to it until further notice from xda.
Regards,
Dave
I'll re-open this thread for discussion.
Can I request that if Flar removed your ROM images / links that you do not re-add them until you here from Flar (or maybe a moderator).
The takedown notice for those images may be genuine.
Thanks
Dave
thank you Dave,
question, since this has affected several hosting sites, what would be the best way to get them to re-think there decisions ? To me I think is not going to be a easy task to do since they are now very unsure of where they stand..legally that is..I doubt the M$ is going to come right out and tell them "all is well"
Who ever this guy is..he hit a very tender spot and if it was not for a minor slip up this may not have been nipped in the bud as quick as it was..
I have unlimited bandwidth and file space to host...
I am just unsure of the "legality" of ROM images in the US on a file server.
If they are considered legit, and do not contain any illegal software in the ROM image itself, I would be more than willing to host on my 100MBit web server.
What a p*ss take but to be honest someone should have noticed the extension on the email address!!! Or even checked into it... "Just want to clarify not pointing the blame @ anyone"
I know now XDA has to do there research on this and comply with any thing that has happened till the all clear is called.
Just shame the ammount of disruption this has caused to chefs and users alike....
With regards hosting sites i think that they will be fines as i imagine the flagged ROMs were reported by the offender and most hosting sites do not have enough time to check every upload to there servers....
Not sure i got anything else to say except lets all get back to usual.....
stylez said:
With regards hosting sites i think that they will be fines as i imagine the flagged ROMs were reported by the offender and most hosting sites do not have enough time to check every upload to there servers... I have personally had to initiate a DMCA, send it, and follow up with individuals before, as well as removing illegal material from some of the websites our current and former clients have hosted.
Not sure i got anything else to say except lets all get back to usual.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can speak to that since I am a partner with a game and web hosting company. We do look at the individual files on the box to determine if the reported apps or media violates either our Terms of Service or any copyright laws. We also check into each "report" we get to determine if the report is legitimate, and we do investigate IPs and domains, to determine if they are valid.
In our arena, we do get gaming guilds who pretend to be official companies who try to get us to take down a competitors site or server.
We have also used copyright DMCA ourselves, and we do send email notification, but ONLY after a written certified letter is sent. The email is sent to the listed contact of the company and contains a copy of what was sent via certified mail.
We do this since we normally engage in unofficial conversation if someone has used our copy-righted material to save us money, as most of the time they use it without knowing they can't.
As far as the DMCA goes, we can send notice using our own attorneys, but we HAVE to hire local counsel to serve any legal action notice if we end up going that route. However, we do have a choice of mediation and litigation clause which allows us to use the laws of and conduct legal activity in the state our company is registered in. MS would have to do the same thing.
so when will roms be back? will everyone have to re post them therselves?
If it's truly found to be a hoax, I'd sure hate to be "James Young", or whatever his real name is. He may quickly become the target of thousands of hackers. I would imagine with the combined power of everyone effected, he could find himself with:
An Empty Bank Account
Homeless
Late Vehicle Registration/Stolen Vehicle
On the FBI's Most Wanted List/On MI6's Most Wanted List
His Face In Porn Movies/Beastiality Movies
A Failed Drug Test at Work
On People Magazine's Worst Dressed List
etc, etc...
More info from another thread.
By Dereth
this guy obiously has no life....
he sends these to the pirate bay all the time:
http://static.thepiratebay.org/ms-loveletter.txt
and read this email at the bottom it states the copyright on the email.
http://static.thepiratebay.org/sega_mail.txt
"IMPORTANT: The contents of this email and attachments are confidential
and may be subject to legal privilege and/or protected by copyright.
Copying or communicating any part of it to others is prohibited and may
be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use,
copy, distribute or rely on this email and should please return it
immediately or notify us by telephone. While we take every reasonable
precaution to screen out computer viruses from emails, attachments to
this email may contain such viruses. We cannot accept liability for loss
or damage resulting from such viruses. We recommend you carry out your
own virus checks."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tell ya what this guy been everywhere!!!
Last month, Ars reported that Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) digital rights management protection had been cracked, and a program called FairUse4WM had been written that would strip DRM data from purchased audio files. Microsoft was aware of the workaround, but did not seem too concerned, merely stating that "we designed the Windows Media DRM system to be renewable, so that if such events occur the system can be refreshed to address them." Now it seems that the company has gone a little further than that, sending out cease and desist orders to web sites hosting the FairUse4WM program. According to the owner of the web site BG4G, the orders came in via e-mail.
The notices are of a standard boilerplate format, claiming that the sites are "offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to copyrighted works published by Microsoft." The copyrighted works are Windows Media Player 10 and 11, and the unauthorized activities are listed as "offering 'Cracks' or 'Product Keys', intended to circumvent technical measures that control access to Microsoft's copyrighted works and that protect Microsoft's copyrights in those works."
The "Demand for Immediate Takedown" e-mail comes from a James Young, "Internet Investigator," who claims to be acting on behalf of Microsoft Corporation. The interesting thing about the e-mail is that it makes no mention of the DMCA, which is the one law that would make FairUse4WM (which does not contain any copyrighted code, portions of Windows Media Player, nor any copyrighted music files themselves) illegal. The DMCA contains provisions against programs that attempt to circumvent copy protection. It also provides a "safe harbor" for Internet Service Providers and web hosts that take down files in a certain amount of time (usually 10 to 14 days) after a warning letter has been received.
The DMCA is a US invention and applies only in the United States, but many companies have attempted to use it outside their country's borders. The notice advising web sites to take down the FairUse4WM program came from the domain Microsoft-Antipiracy.com, which according to DNS records belongs to Microsoft but is actually administered by the ISP Nildram Ltd, which is based in the UK (the web site itself redirects to a page on microsoft.com).
Microsoft has not commented on the takedown notices, but they would be consistent with the sorts of notices given to web sites hosting cracks for other media-related copy protection. In the case of FairUse4WM, the problem may be somewhat more urgent from Microsoft's perspective, as the subscription-based model used by many DRMed WMA online music stores allows downloading an unlimited number of songs, but they can only be listened to for as long as the subscription is active
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More reading regards this:
http://jamesholden.net/2007/04/25/microsoft-didnt-issue-takedown-notices-for-fairuse4wm/
Tell you what though there is a hell of alot of letters and some of them going back as far as 2004 from what i'm reading lets hope that XDA can nip this in the but...
this is all nice to be a freelance paid by M$ or ? black M$ funds haha. its way back to .... that this guy is scaring on the inet for them . SO XDA WHAT WILL BE RESPONSE TO ALL CLOSED THREADS
edit : i want my thread back restored from backup hehe red lines removed . WHEN ?
Use common sense, people! (Admins mainly)
IF Microsoft would have sent any of such letters, it would require you to remove ALL of their products, not just one - isn't it obvious?
I cannot imagine msoft asking xda to remove anything WM6.5 related, but not mentioning WM6.1 and WM6.0 ROMs and files
It's like Sony would have ask i.e. The Pirate Bay in a C&D letter to remove links to just 1 movie torrent and not mention links to all other Sony-owned movies present there.
I don't think it ever happened that way.
And letter coming from microsoft-antipiracy.com ? That's a no brainer LOL! It's as credible as if it would have come from microsoftsucks.org
Sure it's a hoax.
You've been pwnd
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=microsoft-antipiracy.com&prog_id=godaddy
http://msmobiles.com/news.php/8059.html
http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=7041
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=4780
http://brian.carr.name/mscompln.htm
F2504x4 said:
More info from another thread.
By Dereth
this guy obiously has no life....
he sends these to the pirate bay all the time:
http://static.thepiratebay.org/ms-loveletter.txt
and read this email at the bottom it states the copyright on the email.
http://static.thepiratebay.org/sega_mail.txt
"IMPORTANT: The contents of this email and attachments are confidential
and may be subject to legal privilege and/or protected by copyright.
Copying or communicating any part of it to others is prohibited and may
be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use,
copy, distribute or rely on this email and should please return it
immediately or notify us by telephone. While we take every reasonable
precaution to screen out computer viruses from emails, attachments to
this email may contain such viruses. We cannot accept liability for loss
or damage resulting from such viruses. We recommend you carry out your
own virus checks."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting... the confidentiality notice is often a sub mail server attachment, meaning its attached to the email as it leaves the companie's mail servers, not when it leaves the users outbox... There are universal clauses out there, but since this one matches pretty much 100% it would be safe to say that the company James Young mailed it from and this company are one and the same, or connected through a parent or something like that. Here is the one that my company attaches once the emails leave our intranet and go out:
This message w/attachments (message) may be privileged, confidential or proprietary, and if you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender, do not use or share it and delete it. Unless specifically indicated, this message is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of any investment products or other financial product or service, an official confirmation of any transaction, or an official statement of <removed>. Subject to applicable law, <removed> may monitor, review and retain e-communications (EC) traveling through its networks/systems. The laws of the country of each sender/recipient may impact the handling of EC, and EC may be archived, supervised and produced in countries other than the country in which you are located. This message cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. This message is subject to terms available at the following link:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
James probably worked there at the same company that sent the sony notice and got fired, so he's taking it upon himself. Maybe he got served a notice, and got mad that everyone else has it so he is sending out notices himself as a revenge plot... who knows... he has issues thats all.
Good news for xda developers :
http://www.duttythroy.net/component...crosoft-and-htc-say-ok-to-xda-developers.html
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/59043/microsoft-xda-developers-illegaal-maar-we-pakken-ze-niet-aan.html
Thanks and regards
Okay, so there is a HUGE issue that is going on with the American Government right now.
first to prevent spam and other things admins might suspect, My name is Jordan moddes. facebook is facebook.com/jordanmoddes
Here is the issue, If the SOPA / PIPA Bill is passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and inhibit people's access to information online.
Why? SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.
Go to
http://americancensorship.org/
Go to wikipedia.com or google.com (home, DEFAULT page)
please take 2 minutes. If this bill is passed, this website COULD be indefinably blocked from users WORLD wide. PLEASE share this with friends, family, co-workers and CONTACT your political representative.
If you have questions, please find your questions on wikipedia's only american page available via web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
This really effect everyone of you.
Here is Google's response
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
Please help us.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21549253#post21549253
Hi,
We have developed a new, effective licensing control system for Android called DroidActivator.
It's intended to block piracy and also gives you some interesting opportunities, as licensing your app with an annual renewal fee, apply a subscription model to sell features or contents, protect your app outside GooglePlay, acquire device data, track custom events and more.
It is an Open Source project licensed under LGPL.
You can take a look at the Google Code Project Page (code.google.com/p/droidactivator) and to the project web site ([www].droidactivator.org)
Hope it can help the community!
Have a nice day,
The DroidActivator developers team.
Not quite sure what the point of an open source anti-piracy app. It just allows people to tinker with it and thus bypass it.
A protection system should not rely on hiding its code to be effective.
Any protection can be defeated by a determined pirate.
It's just a matter of making life harder.
algos-dev said:
A protection system should not relay on hiding its code to be effective.
Any protection can be defeated by a determined pirate.
It's just a matter of making life harder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isn't open source making it easier?
This is an interesting topic.
You are right lambstone: looking at the source can help you cracking the code.
But in my opinion, the point is in the targeted audience.
An open source protection would not be suited for the new angry-birds-whatever but it would be for your medium/high-priced business app.
We have just no technology to avoid piracy. If the app is interesting enough, the pirate will decompile the app, remove the protection, repackage it and share it on the web. In this scenario, if the pirate got helped by looking at the code or struggled a bit more on the binaries doesn't matter so much.
We are not willing to fight this kind of piracy. We just wanted to build a tool to help small software houses to fight "casual" piracy (folks who won't search for and use the crack, but won't hesitate violating the EULA in the absence of technical license protection mechanism) which represents the vast majority of piracy.
lambstone said:
Isn't open source making it easier?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It cuts both ways: more people reviewing the code means that it can be made harder to crack.
Security through obscurity
DroidActivator anti-piracy system updated
DroidActivator, the Open Source anti-piracy system for Android, has been updated.
The backend now features searching in activations and events and generates activation codes automatically. The GUI has also been restyled using CSS.
If you are interested, have a look at the Google Code project page [code.google.com/p/droidactivator] or at DroidActivator's web site [3w.droidactivator.org]
Thank You,
DroidActivator's development team
[INFO][Who is Spying & Monitoring you] Google removes privacy feature from Android
Index of posts:-
Google removes privacy feature from Android, says inclusion was an accident
US judge says NSA phone data snooping probably illegal
Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
NSA mass collection of phone data is legal, federal judge rules
Top Secret NSA catalog reveals US government has been secretly back dooring equipment from US companies including Dell, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and more, risking enormous damage to US tech sector.
NSA can gain complete access to iPhones, but Apple denies it helped install spyware
Facebook faces lawsuit for allegedly scanning private messages
Officials: Obama Likely to OK Phone Record Changes
NSA able to target offline computers using radio-waves for surveillance, cyber-attacks
NSA 'collected 200m texts per day'
How intelligence is gathered
NSA spying through Angry Birds, Google Maps, leaked documents reportedly reveal
Quantumbot. & Facebook server
Other Referenced Articles
FBI Can Remotely Activate Your Android Phone Mic or Laptop Cameras: Report
WSJ: The FBI can remotely flip on Android phone mics to record conversations
can government really listen in on phones, even while off?
Why Google force all to sync the data/ why Google wants to enter in everybody's life?
FEMA Implements “Special Chip” In Cell Phones to Send Out Alerts
When you search Google,
Selling Secrets of Phone Users to Advertisers
Google Now figured out where I work
My Android Phone is Communicating with the DoD Network Information Center.
Google removes privacy feature from Android, says inclusion was an accident
Reuters, December 16, 2013 source
Google Inc has removed an experimental privacy feature from its Android mobile software that had allowed users to block apps from collecting personal information such as address book data and a user's location.The change means that owners of smartphones using Android 4.4.2, the latest version of the world's most popular operating system for mobile devices released this week, must provide access to their personal data in order to use certain apps.
A company spokesman said the feature had been included by accident in Android 4.3, the version released last summer.
"We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it," said Peter Eckersley, technology projects director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights website first publicized the change in a blog post on Friday.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
<sniped> read full article from source link above
Privacy has become an increasingly important issue as smartphones, which are loaded with consumers' personal information, become the primary computing device for many consumers. In November Google agreed to pay a $17 million fine to settle allegations that it secretly tracked Web users by placing special digital files on the Web browsers of their smartphones.
© Thomson Reuters 2013
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, this was featured on Reddit.
What is Google thinking? Is pulling this stunt amidst the largest NSA scandal really such a great idea?
Either Google isn't thinking, or Google knows we aren't thinking.
klau1 said:
Either Google isn't thinking, or Google knows we aren't thinking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, its WE, who are not thinking, as I recall when Google was in its infancy, they were able to offer to every individual who took up their free email offer, so much space ( when NO one else would offer it) on their servers and tell us NOT to delete anything. ( they will manage it)
which makes one wonder why? They don't want you to delete and NOTHING gets truly deleted, as every aspect of your life is of some importance to them. So NSA, Google , seem to have the same or share the SAME objective IMHO.
Recently on the pretext of mapping they were collecting data from unencrypted Wi-Fi signals in 30 countries Read this
Check this out! Links to useful Guides and " Banned " Documentaries
US judge says NSA phone data snooping probably illegal
AFP SOURCE
By Guillaume DECAMME (AFP) – 50 minutes ago
Washington — A US judge struck a first blow against the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records Monday, ruling it breaches citizens' privacy to an "almost Orwellian" degree that is probably unconstitutional.
The scathing ruling by a federal judge in Washington was stayed pending appeal, but if upheld it could lead to the spy agency being barred from indiscriminately gathering metadata on millions of private calls.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They haven't made a ruling yet, it's just "PROBABLY" unconstitutional.
klau1 said:
They haven't made a ruling yet, it's just "PROBABLY" unconstitutional.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yap that's why
was stayed pending appeal, but if upheld
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But it starts the ball rolling , read
Obama to meet with tech execs to talk NSA
Check this out! Links to useful Guides and " Banned " Documentaries
I'm getting quite tired of this. Apple apparently let's users choose the permission at the moment the program requests for it. So it's not all or nothing like Android.
Pathetic
klau1 said:
I'm getting quite tired of this. Apple apparently let's users choose the permission at the moment the program requests for it. So it's not all or nothing like Android. Pathetic
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's more to it, than just allowing or disallowing permissions ( are more false flags) , what has been embedded into the system is something that we will not know when it concerns apple or for that matter any smart phone. Read this
Check this out! Links to useful Guides and " Banned " Documentaries
I'm aware that the baseband modem partition is basically an independent OS.
I think this will become less and less of a concern as users upgrade to DATA based texting solutions like BBM, What's App which is independent of the compromised GSM system.
Same with Voice, we are moving towards Data based solutions like Google Voice and the countless other VoIP solutions based on TCP/IP Data Packets, abandoning GSM reliance, we should no longer be compromised by the insecure GSM technology.
---------- Post added at 11:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:10 PM ----------
I'm not really sure I understand this part:
and you can remotely turn on microphones, cameras, place rootkits, place calls/send SMS messages to expensive numbers, and so on. Yes, you can even brick phones permanently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone
Isn't the baseband only incharge of the GSM modem? Why does it need access to Cameras and main storage partitions?
klau1 said:
I'm not really sure I understand this part:http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone Isn't the baseband only incharge of the GSM modem? Why does it need access to Cameras and main storage partitions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well basically the way I would conclude is , the modem acts only as the trigger to boot other aspects of the phone (even if its powered OFF), which can be retrieved / activated by and with such a tracking technology . So its just not a GSM loophole but an all inclusive tracking technology.
Check this out! Links to useful Guides and " Banned " Documentaries
Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer
source
(Reuters) - As a key part of a campaign to embed encryption software that it could crack into widely used computer products, the U.S. National Security Agency arranged a secret $10 million contract with RSA, one of the most influential firms in the computer security industry, Reuters has learned.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sniped
Started by MIT professors in the 1970s and led for years by ex-Marine Jim Bidzos, RSA and its core algorithm were both named for the last initials of the three founders, who revolutionized cryptography. Little known to the public, RSA's encryption tools have been licensed by most large technology companies, which in turn use them to protect computers used by hundreds of millions of people.
At the core of RSA's products was a technology known as public key cryptography. Instead of using the same key for encoding and then decoding a message, there are two keys related to each other mathematically. The first, publicly available key is used to encode a message for someone, who then uses a second, private key to reveal it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sniped
The Clinton administration embraced the Clipper Chip, envisioned as a mandatory component in phones and computers to enable officials to overcome encryption with a warrant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes it is very bad step for everyone who using android
just look for unother app like this
NSA mass collection of phone data is legal, federal judge rules
Source
A legal battle over the scope of US government surveillance took a turn in favour of the National Security Agency on Friday with a court opinion declaring that bulk collection of telephone data does not violate the constitution.
The judgement, in a case brought before a district court in New York by the American Civil Liberties Union, directly contradicts the result of a similar challenge in a Washington court last week which ruled the NSA's bulk collection program was likely to prove unconstitutional and was "almost Orwellian" in scale.
Friday's ruling makes it more likely that the issue will be settled by the US supreme court, although it may be overtaken by the decision of Barack Obama on whether to accept the recommendations of a White House review panel to ban the NSA from directly collecting such data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check this out! Links to useful Guides and " Banned " Documentaries
Top Secret NSA catalog reveals US government has been secretly back dooring equipment from US companies including Dell, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and more, risking enormous damage to US tech sector.
http://www.spiegel.de/international...back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html
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NSA can gain complete access to iPhones, but Apple denies it helped install spyware
Source
The National Security Agency can intercept the world’s Internet communications, tap Google’s and Yahoo’s corporate networks, collect revealing data on every phone call in America, and covertly divert new PC shipments to install monitoring software. And now, as newly revealed NSA documents show, we know it can take complete control over virtually anyone’s Apple iPhone.
Apple, for its part, says it knew nothing about the iPhone exploit, and has vowed to protect customers from any “malicious hackers.”
First revealed by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, the NSA installs a piece of spyware called DROPOUTJEEP, which enables the agency to intercept SMS text messages; snag voicemail, geolocation data, cell tower location, and contact lists; capture conversations over the iPhone’s microphone; and snap pictures via the camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sniped
“Either [the NSA] have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce, and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves,” said Appelbaum (via the Daily Dot).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's just silly that this isn't offered. So much grey area with apps.
so, only hope is to keep the phone off?
bliblidi said:
so, only hope is to keep the phone off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How? You can't even remove the battery on iPhones.
klau1 said:
How? You can't even remove the battery on iPhones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know, just saying...
bliblidi said:
so, only hope is to keep the phone off?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry to inform you, that technolgy has already been developed that it can be powered on by the internal battery and topped up by a wireless source, by those whose intention is to spy on targeted individuals when necessary. So even if external battery is removed its internal clock battery is active to do the job.
and as for iphone , you cannot even remove the battery as already mentioned by klau1
Check this out! Links to useful Guides and " Banned " Documentaries
What absolute [email protected]
So... how do we get around this?
The First Horseman of the Privacy Apocalypse Has Already Arrived: Verizon Announces Plans to Install Spyware on All Its Android Phones
Within days of Congress repealing online privacy protections, Verizon has announced new plans to install software on customers’ devices to track what apps customers have downloaded. With this spyware, Verizon will be able to sell ads to you across the Internet based on things like which bank you use and whether you’ve downloaded a fertility app.
Verizon’s use of “AppFlash”—an app launcher and web search utility that Verizon will be rolling out to their subscribers’ Android devices “in the coming weeks”—is just the latest display of wireless carriers’ stunning willingness to compromise the security and privacy of their customers by installing spyware on end devices.
The AppFlash Privacy Policy published by Verizon states that the app can be used to
“collect information about your device and your use of the AppFlash services. This information includes your mobile number, device identifiers, device type and operating system, and information about the AppFlash features and services you use and your interactions with them. We also access information about the list of apps you have on your device.”
Troubling as it may be to collect intimate details about what apps you have installed, the policy also illustrates Verizon’s intent to gather location and contact information:
“AppFlash also collects information about your device’s precise location from your device operating system as well as contact information you store on your device.”
And what will Verizon use all of this information for? Why, targeted advertising on third-party websites, of course:
“AppFlash information may be shared within the Verizon family of companies, including companies like AOL who may use it to help provide more relevant advertising within the AppFlash experiences and in other places, including non-Verizon sites, services and devices.”
In other words, our prediction that mobile Internet providers would start installing spyware on their customers’ phones has come true, less than 48 hours after Congress sold out your personal data to companies like Comcast and AT&T. With the announcement of AppFlash, Verizon has made clear that it intends to start monetizing its customers’ private data as soon as possible.
What are the ramifications? For one thing, this is yet another entity that will be collecting sensitive information about your mobile activity on your Android phone. It’s bad enough that Google collects much of this information already and blocks privacy-enhancing tools from being distributed through the Play Store. Adding another company that automatically tracks its customers doesn’t help matters any.
But our bigger concern is the increased attack surface an app like AppFlash creates. You can bet that with Verizon rolling this app out to such a large number of devices, hackers will be probing it for vulnerabilities, to see if they can use it as a backdoor they can break into. We sincerely hope Verizon has invested significant resources in ensuring that AppFlash is secure, because if it’s not, the damage to Americans’ cybersecurity could be disastrous.
AppFlash is just a custom bloated version of the Google Search Bar with intense focus on data mining. This is essentially a widget, which belongs to a package, which should be able to be disabled/uninstalled depending on its implementation. You may need a rooted phone to fully remove it from the system - but time will tell. Either way, this will end up in my pile of other Verizon 'Services/Apps' that are either uninstalled or frozen.
the_rev said:
But our bigger concern is the increased attack surface an app like AppFlash creates. You can bet that with Verizon rolling this app out to such a large number of devices, hackers will be probing it for vulnerabilities, to see if they can use it as a backdoor they can break into. We sincerely hope Verizon has invested significant resources in ensuring that AppFlash is secure, because if it’s not, the damage to Americans’ cybersecurity could be disastrous.
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I find this comment amusing - eluding that 'hackers' don't probe every single aspect of a system and it's software, but now that this application is going to be pushed you better worry!
Calm down. The sky isn't falling yet.
"UPDATE: We have received additional information from Verizon and based on that information we are withdrawing this post while we investigate further. Here is the statement from Kelly Crummey, Director of Corporate Communications of Verizon: "As we said earlier this week, we are testing AppFlash to make app discovery better for consumers. The test is on a single phone – LG K20 V – and you have to opt-in to use the app. Or, you can easily disable the app. Nobody is required to use it. Verizon is committed to your privacy. Visit www.verizon.com/about/privacy to view our Privacy Policy.""
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/...e-has-already-arrived-verizon-announces-plans
Oh, and what can you do about it? You can vote every single individual in Congress that voted for repealing these protections out of office. Be vocal about this with friends and family. The general population does not understand this issue. I have answered so many questions like "So, if I clear my browser history this doesn't matter, right?" lately that it makes me sick to my stomach.
Averix said:
Oh, and what can you do about it? You can vote every single individual in Congress that voted for repealing these protections out of office. Be vocal about this with friends and family. The general population does not understand this issue. I have answered so many questions like "So, if I clear my browser history this doesn't matter, right?" lately that it makes me sick to my stomach.
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This. Vote out every single person who voted to repeal what we've spent years fighting for. They let their own monetary gains guide their decisions and not what's best for the people, which is what their job is.
It's absolutely baffling to me how many people just don't give 2 fks about having companies mine personal and sensitive information about them. The classic "If you don't have anything to hide, then what does it matter" argument instantly enrages me.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge using XDA Labs
just calm down.. I've been telling everyone about this for past 4 years.its not just this app.but hard bedded in every device..the only way to get rid of any of it is educate yourself on removing it. .as for the comment about hackers knowing the weaknesses.hes absolutely right...the good amd bad hackers.not all of us are bad.
All of this concern over potential "spyware" on our devices is laughable because some of you may be missing the big picture here. Regardless of carrier-introduced data capturing apps or malware, etc on the device itself, carriers already store all user data and wireless data transmissions, texts, etc. This data is accessed by whomever has the "authority" to access it. If you are a suspect in a homicide for example, the homicide detectives will get a quick signature from a judge to retrieve all of you phone records including gps, tower pings, internet, incoming & outgoing texts, etc. Who's to say who phone carriers share your regular data with? You can't prove if they do or don't.
Within the last few hours of Obama's presidency, he did the unthinkable by legalizing the sharing of intelligence and sensitive data between numerous intelligence agencies so they can all share sensitive data between one another at their whims. The obvious reason for this was to better mask the source of the information and blur the lines of responsibility for the data retrieved. Data not only from citizens, but from anyone in the government, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc is able to be retrieved at any time and used for legal purposes and even illegal purposes if you have been paying attention lately. We now get to enjoy complete invasion of privacy in our daily lives. Not just with our cell phones. I find this topic useless at this point. So I have to say... unless you're doing something illegal, you have nothing to be concerned about and electronic privacy is non-existent these days so don't let that fool you. Someone posted that my last sentence instantly infurates them... well this is the facts so be infurated my friend because it's the truth. Nobody is able to defeat the electronic data that is stored and accessed by those who have the "authority" to access it. Get over it.
As for defeating ads and stuff like that, well that's a different topic all together.
tx_dbs_tx said:
All of this concern over potential "spyware" on our devices is laughable because some of you may be missing the big picture here. Regardless of carrier-introduced data capturing apps or malware, etc on the device itself, carriers already store all user data and wireless data transmissions, texts, etc. This data is accessed by whomever has the "authority" to access it. If you are a suspect in a homicide for example, the homicide detectives will get a quick signature from a judge to retrieve all of you phone records including gps, tower pings, internet, incoming & outgoing texts, etc. Who's to say who phone carriers share your regular data with? You can't prove if they do or don't.
Within the last few hours of Obama's presidency, he did the unthinkable by legalizing the sharing of intelligence and sensitive data between numerous intelligence agencies so they can all share sensitive data between one another at their whims. The obvious reason for this was to better mask the source of the information and blur the lines of responsibility for the data retrieved. Data not only from citizens, but from anyone in the government, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc is able to be retrieved at any time and used for legal purposes and even illegal purposes if you have been paying attention lately. We now get to enjoy complete invasion of privacy in our daily lives. Not just with our cell phones. I find this topic useless at this point. So I have to say... unless you're doing something illegal, you have nothing to be concerned about and electronic privacy is non-existent these days so don't let that fool you. Someone posted that my last sentence instantly infurates them... well this is the facts so be infurated my friend because it's the truth. Nobody is able to defeat the electronic data that is stored and accessed by those who have the "authority" to access it. Get over it.
As for defeating ads and stuff like that, well that's a different topic all together.
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The main issue is the blatant disregard by our government to even acknowledge the American people's privacy. Of course this all comes down to money and corruption as usual. For a simpler solution to a lot of these issues is remove all of the lobbyists, but I digress.
Look at it this way people. No one is pointing a gun at your head making you use cell phones social media, etc. If you don't want to be spied on buy a house in the mountains with no outside connections and enjoy life.