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Android rootkit demonstrated

Written by Travis Burrell | Published on August 2, 2010

As the researchers demonstrated in their talk, this gives the attacker access to the Android phone’s SQLite database, allowing them to view, for example, a victim’s texts or contacts. It’s also possible to remotely read the device’s current GPS coordinates and to make outgoing calls without this being shown on the display.

Posted in Android, Mobile News | Tagged Android, Defcon, RootkitLeave a comment

AppBrain – the actual state of the Android Market

Written by Travis Burrell | Published on July 22, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Disclosure: I use AppBrain. I find it very useful to browse apps online & then easily sync/install on my Captivate. Looks like they’ve been pretty hard at work filtering out the crap, though, & have some interesting things to say on the state of the Android Market. Apparently, out of the total 70,000 apps that Google states are available, the number of craptacular apps has risen from 30% in March to 50% today. Yep, 20% increase in 4 months. Thankfully, they’re working to improve their search algorithm to filter these spam-tastic apps from their search results. My question is: why isn’t Google taking up the lead on this? Kudos to AppBrain for their efforts.

Posted in Android, Mobile News | Tagged Android, Android Market, AppBrain, Google, search, Spam, ToolsLeave a comment

Pwn2Own … IE8, Firefox and Safari (x2) … Hacked on day one.

Written by geekE Management | Published on March 25, 2010

Hackers exploited the 3 major browsers on day one of Pwn2Own. As expected, IE8, FireFox and Safari were all penetrated within minutes of the competition starting.

Most impressively, Peter Vreugdenhil, was able to exploit a vulnerability in IE8 on Windows 7 allowing him to bypass the operating systems DEP (Data Execution System) security mechinism designed to stop this sort of attack. Vreugdenhil, a first time Pwn2Own participant, earned a $10,000 prize for his efforts.

The only browser left standing after day one was Google Chrome.

[via ComputerWorld]

Posted in Browsers, Firefox, Google Chrome, IE8, Security, Software | Tagged Apple, Browsers, Exploit, Firefox, iPhone, Peter Vreugdenhil, Safari, Windows 7Leave a comment

WordPress.com Outage / 10.2 million blogs down

Written by geekE Management | Published on February 19, 2010

Yesterday, about 10.2 MILLION blogs fell off the face of the planet for just Under 2 hours when WordPress.com experienced it’s first major outage in four years. In all, about 5.5 million pageviews lost in those 110 minutes of downtime.

According to Matt Mullenweg, the downtime was caused by an unscheduled “core router” change at one of WordPress.com’s datacenter providers. I find it fascinating that a core router change at one data center broke failover mechanisms that should have shifted services over to another working DC. True to Automattic’s slogan, “Inspired by you, Striving to create good, Nothing is perfect.”, it seem someone was less than perfect in designing their failover system… and then forgot to test it.

Posted in Content Publishing, WordPress | Tagged Automattic, Blog, Data center, Downtime, Matt Mullenweg, Router, WordPress, WordPress.comLeave a comment

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 coming to AT&T

Written by geekE Management | Published on February 16, 2010

BGR has it on good authority that the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 will definitely be showing up at AT&T “Pretty Soon”. Expected to sell at $199 with a two year contract.

Size: 119 x 63 x 13 mm
Weight: 135 grams
Phone memory: Up to 1 GB
Memory card support: microSD™
Memory card included: 8 GB
Operating system: Google™ Android Donut, version 1.6
Processor: 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon™ QSD8250

I’m really impress by the TimeScape feature. It integrates several social media providers into one place.

Several more videos are available at Sony Ericsson.

Posted in Android, Mobile News, News Archives, Sony Ericsson | Tagged Android, business, Google, MicroSD, Searching, Snapdragon, Sony Ericsson, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, TimeScape, X10, Xperia | 1 Comment

WordPress 2.9.2 Security Upgrade

Written by geekE Management | Published on February 15, 2010

This one seems rather minor, but could be an issue for some sites. WordPress 2.9.2 fixes a problem with registered users being able to “peek” into your trash. Nothing I’ll be getting my panties bunched up over, but since the upgrade process is like 2 clicks and a password, just do it!

Posted in Content Publishing, News Archives, WordPress | Tagged Blog, upgrade, WordPress, WordPress 2.9.2Leave a comment

iPad Beta

Written by geekE Management | Published on February 2, 2010

Centercode, the guys behind OnlineBeta.com, have just announced a new community: iPadBeta.com.

iPad Beta

We’re pleased to announce iPadBeta.com, a new unique user community being offered by Centercode. Unlike other communities we’ve announced in the past which use our software, iPadBeta.com is owned by Centercode and will act as a sister community to OnlineBeta.com, but focused specifically on the Apple mobile platform

Very similar to the OnlineBeta.com project, iPadBeta will allow users to sign up to test new iPad/iPhone/iTouch apps. The site allows users to chat about the new product in forums, create problem reports and submit bug reports.

App developers will have FREE access to a wealth of knowledge and, what I’m sure will be, a huge tester community.

App Developers are each given their own private projects which include bug and feature tracking, custom surveys, discussion forums, custom wikis, build distribution, tester participation monitoring, reporting, and much more. iPadBeta.com will also recruit App Testers matching the Developers market; or they can invite their own friends and customers. Developers will also have access to market research materials on the App market, as well as the ability to request custom research. These services are all offered at no cost, with no ads.

Head on over to iPadBeta and join in!

Posted in News Archives, Tablets, iPad, iPhone | Tagged Apple, Handhelds, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, iTouch, SmartphonesLeave a comment

iPad Pics, dimensions and first impressions

Written by geekE Management | Published on January 26, 2010

Well, it finally happened… Way back in July, many speculated about a tablet coming from Apple, and now we get to see how close everyone came with their guesses.

Am I disappointed? Well … yes and no. It’s cool, it’s really f-ing cool. It’s almost exactly what I expected from Apple, but it’s not exactly what I wanted.

I think it’s evident by many of the speculative renderings that some additional connectivity was expected. We wanted, at the very least, a built in USB port. I think the other thing everyone wanted was a full-blown version of OS-X and not the iPod Touch software running on a large screen.

Oh, and can I just mention the name…. Uhm. iPad just sounds like a feminine product. I don’t know why, since crunchpad sounds like a great name and doesn’t bring tampax to mind, but I can’t shake the image….

Anyway — I can’t wait to get my hands on one for a little real-word play. Maybe it’ll be enough for me — at the very least, it’ll make a great little news-reader and e-book platform.