Hackers find exploit in Android phones

[Verahta]

Yikes, this would suck:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -live.html

[Chris]

Nothing new. iOS has worse flaws you can bruteforce iOS through Bluetooth.

Don't jailbreak your iPhone 5s cause I'll get your fingerprint

[Jackolantern]

Maybe I am just cynical, but I always have a tendency to not trust traditional media when they start talking about technology. They just get so many things horribly wrong, and they take small details and blow it up to make it look scary. They also get tricked so often with things that simply aren't true. I think it was for the iPhone 5 that many news agencies were duped into running a story that the new model would have a projected keyboard and other similarly stupid things that anyone with any tech experience would have known were a joke.

There may be some truth here, but I have strong doubts whenever any news agency uses the phrase "the app can take control of the device", because Android runs each app in isolation as a restricted Linux user. So the software doesn't even exist in the OS for an app to take control of the phone without tons of Intent pop-ups, asking how you want to allow the app to take control of the camera, etc. Every time one of these stories shows up, it always ends up being that the researchers had to have a specific app installed already that was given broad permissions access when it was downloaded, and then they can script through a vulnerability to send an Explicit Intent to the app to start it up. But if you aren't downloading random, no-name apps that come with a fleet of permissions, you are fine. The news always seems to downplay the fact that you needed the malicious app installed first.

[Callan S.]

Very good point, Jack! They could use you as a technical advisor. Apart from sensationalism, it's probably a good deal to do with ignorance as well.

[Sharlenwar]

But that doesn't minimize the fact that most people who use technology are unaware of what potentially could be done with it. I believe the internet was designed as a surveillance tool for the military. Just with the basic fact that everything you do from your computer is tracked. Of course there are ways at hiding this information, but to those who don't understand won't. At work here, we subscribe to something called Act-On. And man, it is basically big brother for your website. You are able to track when people open their emails, what they click, even on the websites that have the tracker code in them will track how long you have been on the pages, where you've clicked, etc.

It is an amazing marketing tool, but scary at how much information you can actually pull from a connecting IP.

Understand the world we live in, and understand the technology that helps it run.

[Jackolantern]

Actually, the Internet was designed to be a highly tolerant communications network, unlike the phone and other communication networks. Also, the way the Internet is designed actually makes tracking extremely difficult because it is not centralized. The Internet is made up of tons of hardware, most of which is in the private sector. And tracking things would mean getting a subpoena to every piece of that private sector hardware, which just isn't going to happen. That is how people in Anonymous can stay...well...anonymous, even with the government wanting to track down their big fish. Once you have gone behind a couple of anonymous proxies with hardware in different nations, no one will be able to track you down.