Not yet – but with a bit of inspired app design, it could help.
We all know how annoying it is to lose your mobile phone, especially if you never did get round to backing up those valuable contacts. But with location-based services becoming ubiquitous, isn't there a way to track down your lost or stolen handset?
That was exactly what San Francisco-based Nick Strada thought when he realised he left his Nokia E71 in the back of a cab: he'd activated Google's Latitude location service a few days earlier, so surely he could track down the culprit?
When he logged into Latitude online, he was surprised to see his phone floating around a good 3,000 miles away – in central Boston. When phoning and texting his own number failed, Strada realised the phone's keypad had probably locked, and eventually the phone's battery died, taking its location with it. Surely there's some interesting potential here to help retrieve, or at least protect, a stolen handset?
Thousands of application developers have begun to flex their creative muscles, and some have already started to address the problem.
Apple's App Store offers Password Trap, which tries to identify a thief's location while luring them with false personal data; the optimistic Owner Information, which is supposed to makes it easy for whoever finds you phone to return it to you; and GPS Thief Tracker, which, if the thief happens to open it, will send a discreet email with the phone's location.
On Google's Android platform, meanwhile, there's plenty of inspiration for a stolen phone tracker that could be "plugged in" to Latitude.
Textecution is designed to stop drivers texting, and so disables the phone if it moves faster than 10mph. Could a new app disable the whole phone if it is taken more than five miles from your home location? Or maybe Latitude's regular security alert messages could be reconfigured remotely so that your thief is bombarded by infuriating alerts every 15 seconds? Or how about a simple remote lock, that makes the phone unusable?
The more severe the repercussion, the more you'd have to trust the application. Strada's fantasy about a remote mobile detonator may be taking things a bit far, but this is a fascinating creative challenge and, for the developer that cracks it, could be a lucrative business.
And however you find out where your phone is, you will still end up with a more practical problem: how do you confront the thief? We don't know how seriously the police would take GPS "evidence", so you may just have to borrow some muscle.
Source: Guardian.co.uk
2/19/2009
Conficker Worm Gets an Evil Twin
The criminals behind the widespread Conficker worm have released a new version of the malware that could signal a major shift in the way the worm operates.
The new variant, dubbed Conficker B++, was spotted three days ago by SRI International researchers, who published details of the new code on Thursday. To the untrained eye, the new variant looks almost identical to the previous version of the worm, Conficker B. But the B++ variant uses new techniques to download software, giving its creators more flexibility in what they can do with infected machines.
Conficker-infected machines could be used for nasty stuff -- sending spam, logging keystrokes, or launching denial of service (DoS) attacks, but an ad hoc group calling itself the Conficker Cabal has largely prevented this from happening. They've kept Conficker under control by cracking the algorithm the software uses to find one of thousands of rendezvous points on the Internet where it can look for new code. These rendezvous points use unique domain names, such as pwulrrog.org, that the Conficker Cabal has worked hard to register and keep out of the hands of the criminals.
The new B++ variant uses the same algorithm to look for rendezvous points, but it also gives the creators two new techniques that skip them altogether. That means that the Cabal's most successful technique could be bypassed.
Conficker underwent a major rewrite in December, when the B variant was released. But this latest B++ version includes more subtle changes, according to Phil Porras, a program director with SRI. "This is a more surgical set of changes that they've made," he said.
To put things in perspective: There were 297 subroutines in Conficker B; 39 new routines were added in B++ and three existing subroutines were modified, SRI wrote in a report on the new variant. B++ suggests "the malware authors may be seeking new ways to obviate the need for Internet rendezvous points altogether," the report states.
Porras could not say how long Conficker B++ has been in circulation, but it first appeared on Feb. 6, according to a researcher using the pseudonym Jart Armin, who works on the Hostexploit.com Web site, which has tracked Conficker.
Though he does not know whether B++ was created in response to the Cabal's work, "it does make the botnet more robust and it does mitigate some of the Cabal's work," Support Intelligence CEO Rick Wesson said in an e-mail interview.
Also known as Downadup, Conficker spreads using a variety of techniques. It exploits a dangerous Windows bug to attack computers on a local area network, and it can also spread via USB devices such as cameras or storage devices. All variants of Conficker have now infected about 10.5 million computers, according to SRI.
Source: Yahoo!
The new variant, dubbed Conficker B++, was spotted three days ago by SRI International researchers, who published details of the new code on Thursday. To the untrained eye, the new variant looks almost identical to the previous version of the worm, Conficker B. But the B++ variant uses new techniques to download software, giving its creators more flexibility in what they can do with infected machines.
Conficker-infected machines could be used for nasty stuff -- sending spam, logging keystrokes, or launching denial of service (DoS) attacks, but an ad hoc group calling itself the Conficker Cabal has largely prevented this from happening. They've kept Conficker under control by cracking the algorithm the software uses to find one of thousands of rendezvous points on the Internet where it can look for new code. These rendezvous points use unique domain names, such as pwulrrog.org, that the Conficker Cabal has worked hard to register and keep out of the hands of the criminals.
The new B++ variant uses the same algorithm to look for rendezvous points, but it also gives the creators two new techniques that skip them altogether. That means that the Cabal's most successful technique could be bypassed.
Conficker underwent a major rewrite in December, when the B variant was released. But this latest B++ version includes more subtle changes, according to Phil Porras, a program director with SRI. "This is a more surgical set of changes that they've made," he said.
To put things in perspective: There were 297 subroutines in Conficker B; 39 new routines were added in B++ and three existing subroutines were modified, SRI wrote in a report on the new variant. B++ suggests "the malware authors may be seeking new ways to obviate the need for Internet rendezvous points altogether," the report states.
Porras could not say how long Conficker B++ has been in circulation, but it first appeared on Feb. 6, according to a researcher using the pseudonym Jart Armin, who works on the Hostexploit.com Web site, which has tracked Conficker.
Though he does not know whether B++ was created in response to the Cabal's work, "it does make the botnet more robust and it does mitigate some of the Cabal's work," Support Intelligence CEO Rick Wesson said in an e-mail interview.
Also known as Downadup, Conficker spreads using a variety of techniques. It exploits a dangerous Windows bug to attack computers on a local area network, and it can also spread via USB devices such as cameras or storage devices. All variants of Conficker have now infected about 10.5 million computers, according to SRI.
Source: Yahoo!
2/04/2009
Google launches software to track mobile users
Google Inc released software on Wednesday that allows users of mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.
Users in 27 countries will be able to broadcast their location to others constantly, using Google Latitude. Controls allow users to select who receives the information or to go offline at any time, Google said on its website.
"Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we've built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application," Google said in a blog post announcing the service.
"You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see."
Friends' whereabouts can be tracked on a Google map, either from a handset or from a personal computer.
Google's new service is similar to the service offered by privately-held Loopt.
Companies including Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, already offer Loopt's service, which also works on iPhone from Apple Inc.
Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd's Blackberry and devices running on Symbian S60 devices or Microsoft Corp's Windows Mobile and some T-1 Mobile phones running on Google's Android software.
The software will eventually run on Apple's iPhone and iTouch and many Sony Ericsson devices.
In 2005, Google acquired, but subsequently shut down, a location-finding service that used text messaging to keep mobile phone users aware of their friends' proximity.
Source: Yahoo News
Users in 27 countries will be able to broadcast their location to others constantly, using Google Latitude. Controls allow users to select who receives the information or to go offline at any time, Google said on its website.
"Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we've built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application," Google said in a blog post announcing the service.
"You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see."
Friends' whereabouts can be tracked on a Google map, either from a handset or from a personal computer.
Google's new service is similar to the service offered by privately-held Loopt.
Companies including Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, already offer Loopt's service, which also works on iPhone from Apple Inc.
Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd's Blackberry and devices running on Symbian S60 devices or Microsoft Corp's Windows Mobile and some T-1 Mobile phones running on Google's Android software.
The software will eventually run on Apple's iPhone and iTouch and many Sony Ericsson devices.
In 2005, Google acquired, but subsequently shut down, a location-finding service that used text messaging to keep mobile phone users aware of their friends' proximity.
Source: Yahoo News
9/02/2008
Google launches internet browser
Google is launching an open source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox.
The browser is designed to be lightweight and fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.
Called Chrome, it will launch as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.
"We realised... we needed to completely rethink the browser," said Google's Sundar Pichai in a blog post.
The new browser will help Google take advantage of developments it is pushing online in rich web applications that are challenging traditional desktop programs.
It's certainly the biggest news in the browser space since Firefox started to dent Internet Explorer's lead and many people see this as a re-ignition of the browser wars
Darren Waters
dot.life blog
Google has a suite of web apps, such as Documents, Picasa and Maps which offer functionality that is beginning to replace offline software.
"What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," Mr Pichai, VP Product Management, wrote.
Competition
The launch of a beta version of Chrome on Tuesday will be Google's latest assault on Microsoft's dominance of the PC business. The firm's Internet Explorer program dominates the browser landscape, with 80% of the market.
Those already in the browser space were quick to respond to the news.
Writing in his blog, John Lilly, chief executive of Mozilla was sanguine about the new rival.
"It should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here — their business is the web, and they’ve got clear opinions on how things should be, and smart people thinking about how to make things better."
Chrome will be a browser optimized for the things that they see as important, and it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves," he wrote.
He welcomed the competition and said collaboration between Mozilla and Google on certain projects would continue.
Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, was more bullish.
"The browser landscape is highly competitive, but people will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online," he said in a statement.
The browser is designed to be lightweight and fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.
Called Chrome, it will launch as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.
"We realised... we needed to completely rethink the browser," said Google's Sundar Pichai in a blog post.
The new browser will help Google take advantage of developments it is pushing online in rich web applications that are challenging traditional desktop programs.
It's certainly the biggest news in the browser space since Firefox started to dent Internet Explorer's lead and many people see this as a re-ignition of the browser wars
Darren Waters
dot.life blog
Google has a suite of web apps, such as Documents, Picasa and Maps which offer functionality that is beginning to replace offline software.
"What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," Mr Pichai, VP Product Management, wrote.
Competition
The launch of a beta version of Chrome on Tuesday will be Google's latest assault on Microsoft's dominance of the PC business. The firm's Internet Explorer program dominates the browser landscape, with 80% of the market.
Those already in the browser space were quick to respond to the news.
Writing in his blog, John Lilly, chief executive of Mozilla was sanguine about the new rival.
"It should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here — their business is the web, and they’ve got clear opinions on how things should be, and smart people thinking about how to make things better."
Chrome will be a browser optimized for the things that they see as important, and it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves," he wrote.
He welcomed the competition and said collaboration between Mozilla and Google on certain projects would continue.
Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, was more bullish.
"The browser landscape is highly competitive, but people will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online," he said in a statement.
8/27/2008
Microsoft's newest browser may block ads
SEATTLE - The next version of Microsoft Corp.'s Web browser makes it easier for people to surf the Internet without leaving a trace. Companies that sell advertisements online — including Microsoft — can electronically gather tidbits about Web surfers' habits, and then use that information to help decide what kinds of ads to show. However, in the newest "beta" test version of Microsoft's forthcoming Internet Explorer 8, which was made available Wednesday, a mode called InPrivateBrowsing lets users surf without having a list of sites they visit get stored on their computers.
The program also covers other footprints, including temporary Internet files and cookies, the small data files that Web sites put on visitors' computers to track their activities.
Both Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's current browser, and Mozilla's recently released Firefox 3, already allow users to block cookies. The top two browsers also let users delete private information such as temporary files and browsing history after the fact. But they can't turn off that collection entirely.
The beta also introduces an additional InPrivateBlocking mode, which can block third-party content from appearing on Web sites. For example, a news site might carry stock quotes from one company and weather information from another. Companies that provide such content may also be collecting and sharing information about what people do online. But users who turn on InPrivateBlocking won't see that content or be exposed to such data collection without their consent.
InPrivateBlocking can also keep some types of ads from appearing — including those served up by Microsoft's own advertising platform, whose success is considered critical to the software maker's future.
Link
Source: Yahoo News
The program also covers other footprints, including temporary Internet files and cookies, the small data files that Web sites put on visitors' computers to track their activities.
Both Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft's current browser, and Mozilla's recently released Firefox 3, already allow users to block cookies. The top two browsers also let users delete private information such as temporary files and browsing history after the fact. But they can't turn off that collection entirely.
The beta also introduces an additional InPrivateBlocking mode, which can block third-party content from appearing on Web sites. For example, a news site might carry stock quotes from one company and weather information from another. Companies that provide such content may also be collecting and sharing information about what people do online. But users who turn on InPrivateBlocking won't see that content or be exposed to such data collection without their consent.
InPrivateBlocking can also keep some types of ads from appearing — including those served up by Microsoft's own advertising platform, whose success is considered critical to the software maker's future.
Link
Source: Yahoo News
8/12/2008
Google resolves Gmail access problems
Google Inc said on Monday it has resolved an issue with its contacts system that caused many users of its Gmail service to have trouble accessing their online e-mail.
The problems began at about 5 p.m. EDT and an announcement on the company's Gmail "Help Center" site said the issue is now resolved.
Google said an outage in the contacts system used by Gmail prevented the e-mail system from loading properly. The company also said that there may be minor delays in deliveries even though all mail is safe.
Users across the United States, Canada and India reported problems with Gmail and a Google employee also reported that the company's own corporate e-mail account was down.
Source: Yahoo News
The problems began at about 5 p.m. EDT and an announcement on the company's Gmail "Help Center" site said the issue is now resolved.
Google said an outage in the contacts system used by Gmail prevented the e-mail system from loading properly. The company also said that there may be minor delays in deliveries even though all mail is safe.
Users across the United States, Canada and India reported problems with Gmail and a Google employee also reported that the company's own corporate e-mail account was down.
Source: Yahoo News
7/27/2008
'World's Cheapest Laptop' Now Available
A company is now selling what it calls the "world's cheapest laptop," which at US$130, is not a bad deal if you can bear some hardware limitations.
The Impulse NPX-9000 laptop has a 7-inch screen and comes with the Linux OS. It has a 400MHz processor, 128M bytes of RAM, 1G byte of flash storage and an optional wireless networking dongle. It includes office productivity software, a Web browser and multimedia software.
There's a caveat though-- it has to bought in bulk, in units of 100. The laptop is available on Alibaba.com through the online store of Taiwanese company Carapelli Ltd.
The cheapest laptop to date was known to be One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop, available at $188 for a limited time late last year. While a technological landmark, it had some hardware limitations like a slow processor and limited graphics capabilities.
The laptop hints towards a trend of lowering PC prices. Last week, a company called CherryPal introduced a $249 mini-desktop, also running a 400MHz processor, with 256M bytes of RAM and 4G bytes of internal flash storage.
In a recent interview with the IDG News Service, former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen said she would bring out a $75 laptop by 2010. Now running her own company, Pixel Qi, she cited the falling prices of RAM and components as a way to bring down laptop prices.
The low-cost laptop industry's poster child is Asustek Computer's Eee PC, which was introduced last year and sold 350,000 PCs in its first quarter. The cheapest Eee PC, for $300, has an 800MHz Intel processor, 512M bytes of RAM and 2G bytes of flash storage.
The Impulse NPX-9000 laptop has a 7-inch screen and comes with the Linux OS. It has a 400MHz processor, 128M bytes of RAM, 1G byte of flash storage and an optional wireless networking dongle. It includes office productivity software, a Web browser and multimedia software.
There's a caveat though-- it has to bought in bulk, in units of 100. The laptop is available on Alibaba.com through the online store of Taiwanese company Carapelli Ltd.
The cheapest laptop to date was known to be One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop, available at $188 for a limited time late last year. While a technological landmark, it had some hardware limitations like a slow processor and limited graphics capabilities.
The laptop hints towards a trend of lowering PC prices. Last week, a company called CherryPal introduced a $249 mini-desktop, also running a 400MHz processor, with 256M bytes of RAM and 4G bytes of internal flash storage.
In a recent interview with the IDG News Service, former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen said she would bring out a $75 laptop by 2010. Now running her own company, Pixel Qi, she cited the falling prices of RAM and components as a way to bring down laptop prices.
The low-cost laptop industry's poster child is Asustek Computer's Eee PC, which was introduced last year and sold 350,000 PCs in its first quarter. The cheapest Eee PC, for $300, has an 800MHz Intel processor, 512M bytes of RAM and 2G bytes of flash storage.
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