Recently, an Android developer found an app that it is used to spy on you without your permission. The application is called Carrier IQ and it is on most smartphones. It tracks your location and records your keystrokes. If you want to know it that little spy is on your smart phone you can get the app called Voodoo Carrier IQ detector from the market and scan your phone. Although it is not very reliable yet, this means it is not 100% accurate, you will get a hint if you have it or not. The source code is released and soon we will have a more accurate version of it. Keep in mind that Voodoo Carrier IQ detector does not delete Carrier IQ, it just finds it and informs you with a score.
Anonymous and Team Poison Together For OpRobinHood
Anonymous and Team Poison, two of the biggest hacking groups, join forces for the operation Robin Hood (OpRobinHood). The plan is to take money from banks using stolen credit cards and bank details and donate that money to charities and movements. Most of the stolen money will be given back by banks to their customers and hackers are relying on that. Now everyone should be more careful with credit cards and bank details. Forces merging is called p0isAnon and the following video is their press release. I can’t say if I agree or disagree with them but I can understand why they are doing this.
Father exposes online predators
People nowadays use the best tool to hunt and find victims, the Internet. This includes thieves, pedophiles and all sort of bad people you can think of. Several months ago I read about a thief that was searching facebook to find who are away from home in order to break into their houses. People, without thinking the consequences, tell to everybody who is using facebook that they will be on another country via status updates. They might also have in their profile where they live or that can be easily found from all the other info in their profile. If you tell someone that you are not home for days then you make it very easy to come and rob you. This is just an example and there are many more.
Prison guards to be replaced by robots
South Korea will try robots as prison guards for one month. Robotic prison guards are 150cm tall and have wheels. They are designed to be humane and friendly. If the trial is a success more robots will be added. The robotic prison guards will be used mainly at night and with their censors can check the condition of a cell and report to the officer in charge. They will not be used only as cameras, they have algorithms that analyze activities and can detect abnormal behavior. Inmates cannot bribe or threat robots but they might find a way to hack them or exploit any vulnerabilities. This will bring us one step closer to a world that machines rule.
Largest DDoS attack to Chinese company
A DDoS attack that targeted a Chinese e-commerce company lasted for a week. According to Prolexic this was the biggest attack launched so far, 3 times bigger than the second biggest. The attack had four waves and happened between November 5th and November 12th. The company will remember this attack on November 5th and not only V for Vendetta (“Remember remember the 5th of November”). The attack had a peak of 45Gbit/s which is more than the company can handle. The traffic can be translated to thousands of connections per second. Even though this was a huge attack I believe than soon we will have a bigger one.
Galaxy Nexus has problems
Google’s new mobile phone Galaxy Nexus launched on November 17 in U.K but has many problems. Most of the people who bought it complain about it. The most annoying of them is the volume bug. Volume goes up and down auto-magically and this happens almost in every action, when the user watches a video, makes a call or listens to music. You can watch the following video that demonstrates the problem. If you want to buy a good Android phone then I recommend the Samsung Galaxy S II, avoid Galaxy Nexus. Their specifications are very similar and Galaxy S II does not have all that software bugs of Galaxy Nexus.
Microsoft Socl – A new social network
It appears that Microsoft will launch its own social network called Socl, although the name might change (again). A quick pick from the source, Socl looks like other social networks (Facebook and Google+) with a three column interface. It has video parties where you can share a video from YouTube with friend and chat about is. It is basically the same as Google+’s hangouts. Socl is based on HTML5 and there is neither Silverlight nor Flash which is a big plus if you ask me. Socl started as, and still is, a research project but it will most probaply be publicly available for testing purposes. Microsoft is grounded and they know that they might never get close to the number of users that Facebook has.
The lightest solid material
Scientists from the University of California have developed a new metallic “micro-lattice” material and they claim that it is the lightest solid material on earth. This “micro-lattice” material has a density of 0.9 mg/cm3. The number might not mean something to you but it means that is about 100 times lighter than Styrofoam. It is so light that if you put it on a dandelion it will not damage it at all (picture). It is basically 99.99 percent air and 0.01 percent nickel-phosphorous tubes that are interconnected. The material has a wall thickness of 100 nm, about 1000 times thinner than a human hair. This is very impressive, scientists still creating smaller, thinner and lighter materials but I think they are touching the limits.
Anonymous: Operation Brotherhood Shutdown
Anonymous decided to take down the Muslim Brotherhood websites and they did. Anonymous hackers started their attacks and they will continue until Friday, November 18th 2011. They are attacking two websites, ikhwanonline.com and ikhwanweb.com. The Brotherhood said that attacks were coming from France, Slovakia, Germany and San Francisco (U.S.A). Attacks started with a range of 2000-6000 hits per second and later the attack escalated to 380.000 hits per second. Anonymous announced that both sites were down.
Lab-Grown Blood in Our Veins
Scientists on Pierre and Marie Curie University grow red blood cells, lab-grown blood. They recently had their first successful transfusion into human’s veins. This is a huge step to science because in the future we will not have to worry about blood transfusion as we will have unlimited artificial blood to keep us alive. In addition, some kinds of artificial blood don’t need refrigeration to stay fresh and usable. This will be very helpful in remote areas and in case of a natural disaster. After a natural disaster, hospitals require an enormous amount of blood and artificial blood is a great solution. I am glad that scientists are finding new ways to keep us alive, this gives us hope for a better future.