Forget big brother tracking you via your phone, anyone with a bone to pick can stalk you via ad supported apps on your phone for around $1000. Researchers conducted some disturbingly effective experiments where they created a banner which displayed geo-targeted ads and went through the usual process of paying to have it displayed inside an app, in this case Talkatone. If the app was left open for more than four minutes, or opened twice in that same amount of time, they were able to pinpoint that phones location within 25 feet. That let them map out a daily route, work and home addresses as well as many of the locations visited by the person bearing the phone. Read the full article over at Wired and reconsider this the next time you are pondering installing an ad supported app on your phone.
"They then used that DSP to place a geographic grid of location-targeted ad buys around a three-mile square section of Seattle, which for their tests they set to appear on the popular ad-supported calling and texting app Talkatone."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Microsoft's Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is borking Razer machines @ The Inquirer
- Windows 10 Fall Creators Update: Lots of small changes—and maybe the revolution @ Ars Technica
- The Internet Is Ripe With In-Browser Miners and It's Getting Worse Each Day @ Slashdot
- Microsoft's Snapdragon laptops will have multi-day battery life @ The Inquirer
- Nanya ramping 20nm process output @ DigiTimes
- Release the KRACKen patches: The good, the bad, and the ugly on this WPA2 Wi-Fi drama @ The Register
- Inside Two-Factor Authentication Apps @ Hack a Day
- The best tech and gadgets to buy in October @ The Inquirer
- uBlock Origin ad-blocker knocked for blocking hack attack squawking @ The Register
- SwiftStream Z-9 Camera Drone @ Benchmark Reviews
Ad supported apps that are
Ad supported apps that are “Free” and you become the product and that same holds true for OS’s and such on more than phones/tablets. Hell even websites that are mostly ad driven have their issues with ads constantly trying to script their way around any HTTPS privacy features. I’ve had to stop going to WCCFTech(Just to view the freak show and enjoy some popcorn) because the of amount of scripted nefarious ad content was constantly crashing the display drivers on my laptop. But now folks have to be carful for those coin mining scripts pushed out to all sorts of devices to take over some CPU/GPU cycles for that coin nonsense.
It’s to the point where ad/script blockers need to be baked into the browsers and the OS/Browser APIs offering script metering services so users can limit the amount of processor usage of any ads to a minimal amount. That location tracking needs to be regulated and the device users given an OS one setting option to disable any tracking not related to 911 services/emergency notification.
Android needs some telementry tracking functionality that logs all the apps that are issueing reguests for location/other reguests to a log file so users can monitor their device’s actitvity and a single OS option to disable all the tracking funcionality with simple OS(on/off) setting.
Web Browsers need to be relegated to a VM instance/sandbox where all activity is kept isolated inside a virtual OS/file system environment to limit access via the CPU’s/SOC’s virtulalization hardware/instructions VM fumctionality just to protect the users privacy. And it’s getting to the point to where software needs to be memory encrypted and all devices come with Type-1 hypervisors/VM software so users can install more than one customizied OS/Image on the device and have the OS instances/applications running under that OS instance encrypted in memory so no information can be obtained via any cracks in the defences.
Users could keep one OS image just for personal email/banking usage and have another OS instance for all the rest with the OS/Instance totally unaware of the other OS/instance’s existance on the device and each OS Instance and its installed software running in a fully encrypted memory environment done through a platform security processor in via its own hardware/software isolated domain.
That’s what the cloud services are doing to protect the individual users of their services so PCs/Laptop/Tablets/Phones are going to need full Hardware/OS VM functionality built into their devices and the ability to run isolated OS instances that are individually in memory encrypted(with different encrypted keys generated via a platform security processer) to add to the security and privacy protection.
The Platform Security Processors are going to be needing some source code auditing ability so spywere can not be baked in to that functionality also by the devices’ makers and the 3 letter agencies.
Edit: reguests
To:
Edit: reguests
To: requests
Damn my Brain’s wiring is full of bugs!
Ha many real Linux OS distros
Ha many real Linux OS distros on a Samsung Phone(1), and more than one OS at the same time!
“Samsung has announced it will soon become possible to run actual proper Linux on its Note8, Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones – and even Linux desktops.
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” “Whenever they need to use a function that is not available on the smartphone OS, users can simply switch to the app and run any program they need to in a Linux OS environment,” Samsung says. The app also allows multiple OSes to run on a device. “(1)
Maybe even a Xen/KVM hypervisor sort of arrangement and plenty of security for one OS instance for banking and such and another for all the other risky stuff with the OS image for the risky stuff on a write restricted partition.
I want Blender 3d running on a Tablet and maybe this can happen on a Samsung Tablet in the future, those Tablet GPUs are getting plenty powerful so maybe some Blender Mesh modeling on a tablet and some lighter weight rendering on the Tablet’s GPU. That DeX dock looks intresting also Provided it can work with a portable USB monitor nad the LCD in a convinent hard protective case for on the go in the backpack storage.
“The DeX dock has a clever design. Tip the lid forward to open it, which reveals the USB Type-C port and a speaker built into the lid. It features an HDMI socket, two USB Type A sockets, an Ethernet socket and the USB Type-C socket for the power supply.” (2)
(1)
“Samsung to let proper Linux distros run on Galaxy smartmobes”
Even penguintastic desktops when lodged in DeX dock”
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/19/samsung_linux_on_galaxy/
(2)
“DeX Station: Samsung’s Windows-killer is ready for prime time”
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/15/samsung_dex_deep_dive/
Cheeki Breeki
Cheeki Breeki