Android Malware hijacks the smartphone during the “shutting down” process.

A new Android Malware has been discovered by AVG which can be “spying” on the user even when the phone is in “Switch off mode”

Mobile Malware Research Team AVG have discovered a new bug which is of great concern to all the Android smartphone users.
Usually when user shuts down or puts off the Android phone a dialog box opens asking for 3 options: Power Off, Airplane Mode or Mute. Usually user would select the Power Off option and then the Android phone would shut off. Mobile security AVG team discovered that this Malware captures the “root permission” level of the Power Off process. Once this is done the malware will inject the virus so that the entire Power Off process is locked.
With the malware taking over the Power Off process, whenever the victim clicks the Power Off button an artificial dialog pops up and then the entire fake shutdown process takes place which would resemble as if actually the phone is shutting down. However in reality the phone is still active and working.
The Malware can then use the phone to click photos, even make some outgoing calls and anything that it wants to do using the phone. As of now the security team has acknowledged this virus as an “unknown Android Malware” (no name suggested yet) and all the Android users have been warned against this virus. Also the only remedy which can be applied as a safety measure would be to remove battery from the Android phone to ensure 100% switch off of these phones.
Security service providers should come up with a suitable anti-malware for this menace as removing the battery every time to shut down the Android smartphone would not be feasible, if some is infected with the malware.

Attempts to stay anonymous on the web will only put the NSA on your trail

 

Janet Vertesi's attempts to use large amounts of gift cards on Amazon, run by Jeff Bezos 

When searching for an adjective to describe our comprehensively surveilled networked world – the one bookmarked by the NSA at one end and by Google, Facebook, Yahoo and co at the other – "Orwellian" is the word that people generally reach for.
But "Kafkaesque" seems more appropriate. The term is conventionally defined as "having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality", but Frederick Karl, Franz Kafka's most assiduous biographer, regarded that as missing the point. "What's Kafkaesque," he once told the New York Times, "is when you enter a surreal world in which all your control patterns, all your plans, the whole way in which you have configured your own behaviour, begins to fall to pieces, when you find yourself against a force that does not lend itself to the way you perceive the world."
A vivid description of this was provided recently by Janet Vertesi, a sociologist at Princeton University. She gave a talk at a conference describing her experience of trying to keep her pregnancy secret from marketers. Her report is particularly pertinent because pregnant women are regarded by online advertisers as one of the most valuable entities on the net. You and I are worth, on average, only 10 cents each. But a pregnant woman is valued at $1.50 because she is about to embark on a series of purchasing decisions stretching well into her child's lifetime.
Professor Vertesi's story is about big data, but from the bottom up. It's a gripping personal account of what it takes to avoid being collected, tracked and entered into databases.
First – and most obviously – she determined that there would be absolutely no mention of her new state on social media. She phoned or wrote individually to friends and family members to give them the good news, and asked them not to mention it on Facebook. But an uncle in Australia sent her a congratulatory message via Facebook. "I then did," she said, "what any rational person would do. I deleted the thread of all our conversations and unfriended him." He replied plaintively: "But I didn't put it on your wall", apparently unaware that chats and other messages aren't private in the sense that he assumed.
In preparing for the birth of her child, Vertesi was nothing if not thorough. Instead of using a web-browser in the normal way – ie leaving a trail of cookies and other digital tracks, she used the online service Tor to visit babycenter.com anonymously. She shopped offline whenever she could and paid in cash. On the occasions when she had to use Amazon, she set up a new Amazon account linked to an email address on a personal server, had all packages delivered to a local locker and made sure only to pay with Amazon gift cards that had been purchased with cash.
The really significant moment came when she came to buy a big-ticket item – an expensive stroller (aka pushchair) that was the urbanite's equivalent of an SUV. Her husband tried to buy $500 of Amazon gift vouchers with cash, only to discover that this triggered a warning: retailers have to report people buying large numbers of gift vouchers with cash because, well, you know, they're obviously money launderers.
At this point, some sobering thoughts begin to surface. The first is Melvin Kranzberg's observation that "technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral". Our technologies have values built into them, which is why Vertesi in her talk cites someone's observation that "the iPod is a tool to make us moral" (because it encourages people to buy music rather than download it illicitly) and philosophers argue about whether surveillance encourages moral – ie socially approved – behaviour (think speed cameras).
Even more sobering, though, are the implications of Professor Vertesi's decision to use Tor as a way of ensuring the anonymity of her web-browsing activities. She had a perfectly reasonable reason for doing this – to ensure that, as a mother-to-be, she was not tracked and targeted by online marketers.
But we know from the Snowden disclosures and other sources that Tor users are automatically regarded with suspicion by the NSA et al on the grounds that people who do not wish to leave a digital trail are obviously up to no good. The same goes for people who encrypt their emails.
This is why the industry response to protests about tracking is so inadequate. The market will fix the problem, the companies say, because if people don't like being tracked then they can opt not to be. But the Vertesi experiment shows that if you take measures to avoid being tracked, then you increase the probability that you will be. Which is truly Kafkaesque.

How to unlock your Samsung Galaxy after Too many pattern Attempts or Forgotten Password

So you finally did it, you locked yourself out of your Samsung Galaxy. You knew you should have used a simple pattern or a password you could remember easily. So what do you do now?, nothing works and you need to use your phone again. The worst thing is you did not associate a
Google account at the first sign in and that option of regaining access to your device has failed.
Well you have come to the right place we have the solution you need.

What will this Fix DO?

Note this method will allow you full access to your Samsung Galaxy after too many pattern attempts or aforgotten password, however this hard reset will wipe the phone clean, so all data on the phones internal memory will be wiped. The contents of your SD card and  SIM card will however remain intact. This will not damage or hinder the functionality of the device in any way.

Which Devices will this work on?

Now this fix will work on all Samsung Galaxy smart phones including the: Samsung Galaxy S3 and theGalaxy Y and many other variants of the galaxy line.

We will be using the Samsung Galaxy Y to demonstrate the procedure,but remember this works with other Galaxy devices as well.

How to Unlock the Samsung Galaxy After too many pattern attempts or forgotten password.

1. Power down the device.

2. Hold down the: up volume key,the home button and the power button all at the same time.

The device should power on into the Recovery  mode shown below:

Recovery Mode

3.Using the home button to select and the volume up and down to navigate either up or down select the third option as shown above which says : Wipe Data/Factory Reset.

4. You should now see the following recovery screen:

Select Yes-Delete all user to wipe all data on the device. Allow the device to do its thing and finally when it gives the options again-  Reboot.

5. That's it the device will boot up similar to the first time you bought it, simply configure it and the device should boot up and not ask for the password.

Be sure to leave a comment if this was helpful and solved your problem.

Enjoy Guys! and don't forget to post your comments. © Comrade Pyrate