Cell Phones

Sometimes it can be risky mixing business and pleasure. The International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM) is warning businesses such a risk could occur if employees download the insanely popular Pokemon Go app on company-owned devices.

The association has recommended corporations prohibit the installation and use of Pokemon Go on any devices used for business purposes. The group says that includes "bring your own device" (BYOD) phones/tablets with direct access to sensitive corporate information and accounts.

AITAM CEO Dr. Barbara Rembiesa goes so far as to call the new augmented reality game a “nightmare” for firms trying to keep their email and cloud-based information secure.

“Even with the enormous popularity of this gaming app, there are just too many questions and too many risks involved for responsible corporations to allow the game to be used on corporate-owned or BYOD devices,” Rembiesa said. “We already have real security concerns and expect them to become much more severe in the coming weeks.”

She said to be safe, organizations must keep the app off any device the connects to the organization's network. Here are her concerns:

Data breaches

Rembiesa says the original user agreements for the game allowed Niantic to access each user's entire Google profile, including his or her history, past searches, and anything else associated with a Google Login ID.

That is no longer the case in current versions, but Rembiesa says this meets the definition of a data breach for corporate-owned devices. It's also not clear to what extent data breaches took place before the change and what happened to the accessed information.

Risky knockoffs

Rembiesa says she has seen reports that some versions of the app that are on non-official download sites may include malware. The illicit software may allow cyber-criminals to take control of an infected phone or tablet.

Rembiesa worries that unsophisticated users might not be aware of the risks inherent in downloading from any third party provider, especially if the device is used on a corporate network. She says Proofpoint, an online security provider, has already reported knockoff Android copies of Pokémon Go in the wild containing a remote controlled tool (RAT) called DroidJack.

Encouraging bad behavior

Making an exception and allowing the use of a game app on a corporate-owned device sets a bad precedent, Rembiesa argues. She says employees need to understand the importance of sticking with approved software.

Despite its popularity, she says Pokemon Go must be considered a "rogue download," which is “any software program downloaded onto a device that circumvents the typical purchasing and installation channels of the organization.”

Another day brings another way hackers can wreak havoc on your life, this time for owners of Apple devices: security researchers from Skycure have discovered a vulnerability they call the “No iOS Zone,” which effectively lets attackers crash any mobile iOS device connected to a wi-fi hotspot.

Actually, it's even worse that: You don't have to actively connect your device to a hotspot in order to be at risk. No iOS Zone lets attackers crash your device if you are so much as in range of a hotspot, unless you've completely turned off the device (or at least its wi-fi).

Yet in a way this is not entirely surprising — and Apple devices aren't the only ones at risk from public wi-fi.

Last summer, for example, Ars Technica tried a little experiment and discovered that millions of customers of both Comcast and AT&T; were at risk of letting hackers surreptitiously get into their devices' Internet traffic and steal all sorts of personal data, because those two companies' hotspots proved particularly easy for hackers to “spoof” (which is hackerspeak for “impersonate”).

Simple explanation

Here's a very oversimplified explanation of why: Unless you specifically turn off that feature, or your device itself, your smartphone, tablet or other connectable device is always looking to connect with a familiar network.

Let's say you visited Starbucks to take advantage of their free w-fi. Now, every time you go there your phone automatically sends out a signal, basically saying “Hey, Starbucks w-fi, where are you?” and waiting for the electronic response “Here I am! Starbucks wi-fi, now connecting with you.”

But it's very easy for anyone to set up a wireless hotspot to respond under a false name: “Here I am, Starbucks wi-fi! Actually I'm a hacker up to no good, but I said my name is 'Starbucks w-fi' so I can connect with you.”

To guard against that particular danger, you must shut off the wi-fi connections on your mobile devices when you're not using them, and set each device so that it must ask before joining a mobile network.

Endless reboot

The “No iOS Zone” vulnerability is similar, except instead of letting hackers use wi-fi hotspots to spy on various iDevices, it “only” gives hackers the ability to make those devices crash and go into an endless reboot loop. And once that happens, you can't turn off your wi-fi connection and regain control since, of course, your device has to be booted up before you can change its wi-fi settings or do anything else with it.

The Skycure researchers presented their findings (available here in .pdf form) at today's RSA Conference (an annual cryptography and information-security conference held in San Francisco).

The researchers named this vulnerability the “No iOS Zone” because once attackers set up a malicious wi-fi network, any iOS mobile device within range of it would connect, get stuck in an endless reboot loop and thus be rendered useless, resulting in a literal no-iOS zone.

Skycure's presentation also offered a list of “potential areas that may be attractive for attackers,” which includes “political events, economical & business events, Wall Street [and] governmental and military facilities.”

Apple is currently working with Skycure to develop a fix for this problem. Meanwhile, iOwners should keep their wi-fi turned off unless and until they actually plan to use it, and be extra-wary of any public wi-fi hotspot – which, come to think of it, is good advice regarding any mobile device, regardless of who manufactured it.

Pandora was one of the first music apps to allow you to create your own radio station, simply by selecting an artist, song or genre of music. It has had many imitators since, most recently Apple Music.

Meep is an app following in Pandora's footsteps, but with one huge difference. Instead of music, the iPhone app creates a radio station delivering news about a user's particular interests.

Meep launched this week for iOS with an Android version soon to follow.

Personal stations

According to the creators, the app instantly creates personal stations that play the latest audio stories about topics that users choose. There might also be short clips of ancillary content like music and local weather thrown in for good measure.

The app's developers make it sound simple. Users just pick a subject and start listening, without having to dig through podcasts or blog posts. Once a user skips a story, Meep makes a note of that – just like Pandora – and doesn't offer content along that subject line again.

Meep also has a feature to allow users to record their own content, in the form of short comments about a particular story. These short audio bites are then shared among friends.

Content you don't have to look at

"Meep selects and plays content you're passionate about while you're running, driving, or simply can't look down at your phone," said Mark DiPaola, founder and CEO of Meep. "Now you can use your commute to keep up with your favorite technologies, celebrities, sports teams, companies, cities, and over a million other topics. Want a station dedicated to Asteroids and Alpacas? Presto! We won't even ask why."

Meep is currently lining up a stable of news-readers, who will turn web-based text articles into audio content. If you're interested in trying out, click here. We have no idea what they pay.

Meep is also trying to line up publishers, who would like their content turned into audio. However, print copy is seldom written to be spoken. Radio copy is written for the ear – at least, once upon a time it was.

The Internet is the perfect laboratory for bold and creative ideas. That said, this new app will face some pretty stiff competition.

There are plenty of actual radio stations and thousands of podcasts available from apps like TuneIn and IheartRadio. The most listened-to podcast in the country is This American Life, a compelling NPR show with a talented staff that excels at the art of storytelling.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Hotels, miffed by guests who used their own wi-fi hotspots instead of paying $12 or more to use the hotels' in-house systems, decided to try blocking personal hotspots.

It didn't work out too well. It turns out it's illegal to interfere with legal radio transmissions and the Federal Communications Commission fined Marriott $600,000 for blocking guests' wi-fi at a Nashville Marriott.

Stung, Marriott, Hilton and hotel trade groups then petitioned the FCC asking for a waiver that would let them soak guests without fear of fines.

No dice, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a strongly-worded statement.

“Consumers must get what they pay for," Wheeler said. "The Communications Act prohibits anyone from willfully or maliciously interfering with authorized radio communications, including Wi-Fi. Marriott’s request seeking the FCC’s blessing to block guests’ use of non-Marriott networks is contrary to this basic principle."

Wheeler warned that future infractions will be dealt with harshly.

"Protecting consumers from this kind of interference is a priority area for the FCC Enforcement Bureau. The Enforcement Bureau recently imposed a $600,000 fine on Marriott for this kind of conduct, and the FCC will continue to enforce the Communications Act if others act similarly."

Censors beware

The prohibition, of course, does not apply only to hotels. Churches, schools, theaters and other venues have been known to block -- or jam -- cell phone and wi-fi transmissions, hoping to prevent phones ringing and iChats bleeping during sermons, cantatas, lectures and so forth. 

Some had argued that jamming wi-fi and cellphone calls is permissible because such devices are not licensed. It's true that you don't need a license to use a cellphone but the wireless carriers are licensed and the use of the devices is legal under the Communications Act, meaning it's protected from jamming by those who think they should have total control of their guests, congregants, students and what-have-you. 

As long as there have been cellphones, there have been complaints about cellphones’ short battery life. Not only do batteries never seem to last long enough, they invariably die in the middle of an important call.

Researchers at Ohio State University are riding to the rescue. They are announcing a technology they claim will extend your battery life by 30%.

You don’t have to buy a new battery and you don’t need a special kind of cellphone. With modifications, their invention is said to work with any device.

Harnessing radio signals

It works like this: special circuity converts some of the radio signals produced by the device into direct current (DC) power which is routed back to the battery to recharge it. The researchers say the new technology can be built into a cell phone case, without adding more than a small amount of bulk and weight.

“When we communicate with a cell tower or Wi-Fi router, so much energy goes to waste,” said Chi-Chih Chen, research associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and one of the inventors. “We recycle some of that wasted energy back into the battery.”

The inventors who came up with this system are all researchers at Ohio State. They’re now working with a spin-off company to fine-tune the technology and will launch a Kickstarter campaign in June to bring the idea to market.

Not a new idea

This isn’t necessarily a new idea. There are already some products that capture stray radio signals to charge tiny devices like temperature sensors. But it hasn’t been tried on this scale before, and not to charge a common consumer product like a cellphone.

And there are other differences. For one, the cellphone charger is working with considerably more power.

“These other devices are trying to harvest little bits of energy from the air,” said Robert Lee, professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Our technology is based on harvesting energy directly from the source. They can capture microwatts or even nanowatts, but cell phones need milliwatts or higher.”

Lee estimates that nearly 97% of cellphone signals never get to their destination and are simply lost. While not all can be recaptured, some can.

Battery extender

He says the objective is to reduce power consumption by retrieving some of that lost power. Rather than call the technology a battery charger, Lee prefers to think of it as a battery “extender.”

The inventors actually look at their technology as something based on a fairly simple principal, something they should have thought of a long time ago. The basic technology is almost as old as commercial electricity. It relies on the fact that radio waves are actually just a very high-frequency form of electric current.

If you are not using the phone for voice or data – instead, playing a game or listening to downloaded music – the new technology won’t be of any help. The phone needs to be transmitting through the airwaves for the technology to work.

But that’s exactly how most people, in fact, use their phones. Chen and his colleagues believe their as-yet unnamed technology will soon be an indispensable part of everyone’s cellphone, reducing the number of complaints about short battery life.

When you download a popular app to your Android smartphone, make sure you know the source.

Lookout, a mobile security firm, has found widespread examples of extremely dangerous adware getting onto consumers' phones when they download what they believe is a legitimate app.

Lookout says there are a number of things that make this development worrisome. First, this new generation of malware roots the device when the user installs it, making it, for all intents, a system application.

“Adware, which has traditionally been used to aggressively push ads, is now becoming trojanized and sophisticated,” Lookout's Michael Bentley writes in the company blog. “This is a new trend for adware and an alarming one at that.”

And it gets worse. Consumers are downloading this dangerous new form of adware because it has been integrated into many legitimate and popular apps, including Candy Crush, Facebook, GoogleNow, NYTimes, Okta, Snapchat, Twitter, and WhatsApp.

Third-party source

Bentley says hackers simply repackage and inject malicious code into these popular applications, and then later publish them to third-party app stores. He says many of these apps are actually fully-functional, providing their usual services, in addition to the malicious code that roots the device. That means the user has no way of knowing his or her device has been compromised.

Lookout says it has found thousands of these trojanized apps in third party app stores. When a consumer downloads one of these hijacked apps, it usually means having to buy a new phone, since the malware often can't be removed.

The company says the developers of apps that have been hijacked are also victims, since their brands may suffer with the spread of the malicious adware.

Meanwhile the danger is likely to increase.

“We expect this class of trojanized adware to continue gaining sophistication over time, leveraging its root privilege to further exploit user devices, allow additional malware to gain read or write privileges in the system directory, and better hide evidence of its presence and activities,” Bentley concludes.

Internet advertising is both a curse and a blessing. It's frequently an annoyance to consumers, who complain about ads popping up all over their favorite sites. But it's also a blessing in that it pays the bills to support those sites, which would most likely not exist without the revenue from ads.

One solution a lot of consumers have adopted is ad-blocking. A simple app or browser extension is all that's needed to block most ads from appearing on your smartphone or laptop. But ad-blocking, if it becomes widespread, threatens to kill free content on the web.

Brendan Eich wants to change all that. He sees a brave new world that uses his new browser, called Brave. It blocks "regular" ads and inserts its own ads, funneling revenue from those ads both to the website that's being viewed and to the consumer who's doing the viewing.

It's a guilt-free way to block ads, in other words.

Not born yesterday

Will it work?

Well, it might. Eich was not exactly born yesterday. Though not a household name, he is nevertheless a notable figure in the software biz. He's one of the major backers of Mozilla, which makes a pretty good browser of its own. He also invented the JavaScript programming language that runs pretty much everything on the Web today.

With his tiny, 10-person start-up in San Francisco, Eich is setting off to change the world by improving privacy protection, building a faster browser, and blocking those nasty ads. 

It's not just intrusive ads Eich is out to eliminate but also the tracking that underlies today's advertising infrastructure. When you see an ad for running shoes, chances are it's because you have conducted searches for running shoes, purchased running shoes, or frequented websites that deal with fitness and sports. 

Lots of people hate being stalked by marketers in that way. If Eich has his way, it won't happen anymore. His ads won't be based on personal profiles, he says. 

"We have to disconnect the bad system. I talk about putting chlorine in the pool," he said, according to CNET. 

Eich also promises his browser will be faster -- up to four times faster than other smartphone browsers and 1.4 times faster than other laptop browsers.

A pre-release version of Brave is making the rounds today. When a public version is ready, Eich promises it will work on all major operating systems.

Whether publishers, advertisers, and consumers will get on board is the big question. The advertising industry is concerned by the growth of ad-blocking and is openly looking for new models. Many publishers, on the other hand, are relatively happy with the current system, having built their sites around catering to behavioral ads. They may be reluctant to change.  

Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome is well-known to viewers of the AMC series "Better Call Saul," in which the main character's brother believes he suffers from the supposed disorder.

There's some controversy about whether the syndrome really exists because of the lack of scientific verification so far. But those who say they suffer from it demand accommodation, among them a 12-year-old boy and his parents who are suing the Fay School, a private boarding school in the Boston area, claiming the school's wi-fi system has aggravated their son's debilitating sensitivity to wi-fi emissions.

According to the lawsuit the Fay School installed a high-powered wi-fi system in spring 2013. A short time later, the child -- referred to as "G" -- began coming home with headaches, itchy skin and rashes, which would disappear over the weekend and holidays, Courthouse News Service reported.

The situation worsened during the 2014 academic year, when G frequently had to leave school early, the lawsuit charges. 

"Exposure to Wi-Fi emissions at the levels emitted by the type of Wi-Fi to which the children are exposed in Fay classrooms causes, in those persons affected, most notably children, the symptoms of EHS, which include severe headaches, fatigue, stress, sleep disturbances, skin symptoms such as prickling, burning sensations and rashes, muscle aches, nausea, nose bleeds, dizziness and heart palpitations," the lawsuit states.

ADA invoked

The parents sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying the school refused to accommodate their son's condition.

"G's continued exposure to the high-density Wi-Fi emissions, without any attempt at a reasonable accommodation by Fay to avoid or minimize them, violates the ADA," the complaint states.

The suit includes a statement by Martin Blank, a Columbia University professor who has researched the issue.

"I can say with conviction, in light of the science, and in particular in light of the cellular and DNA science, which has been my focus at Columbia University for several decades, putting radiating antennas in schools (and in close proximity to developing children) is an uninformed choice," Blank wrote.

But a National Institutes of Health 2009 double-blind study found that when both the researchers and the test subjects were not aware whether or not they were actually being exposed to electromagnetic activity, symptoms of electromagnetic hypersensitivity vanished.

Let's acknowledge up front that this story is an Apple publicist's dream. A young iPhone owner is looking death in the face until Siri – the disembodied and ever-present voice on iPhones -- comes riding to the rescue.

The story is actually told by publicists at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, where 18-year old Sam Ray was brought in last month with broken bones and internal injuries. But doctors says he might just as easily have made a trip to the morgue instead.

The recent high school graduate was working on his truck in his driveway. Ray had jacked up the vehicle so he could work beneath it.

Needing advice, Ray pulled out his phone and called his father, who advised his son to get out from beneath the truck and wait for him to come home. Ray agreed and put his phone in his back pocket and proceeded to slide out from under the truck. Just then the jack gave way and the 5,000 pound vehicle came crashing down on the young man.

Arms pinned down

The situation was all the more dire because Ray's arms were trapped, making it impossible to access his phone. The phone, however, was in his back pocket so Ray maneuvered his hip as best he could until he managed to push the button to summon Siri. The next thing he knew, a 911 dispatcher was on the line, her voice coming from his back pocket.

“When I heard a woman talking from inside my pocket, I just started shouting,” Ray said. “I didn’t know if she could hear me or not, but I heard her say that help was just around the corner.”

It wasn't long before responders with Rutherford County, Tenn.'s Emergency Medical Services, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department, the Rutherford County Fire Department, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol responded to the 911 call. They were able to move him out from under the vehicle and then transported him to the Vanderbilt LifeFlight base in Murfreesboro, where he was then flown to Vanderbilt.

Guardian angel

“We’re always concerned with crush injuries, and the longer a patient is trapped, the more problems they can have,” said Kirk Krokosky, one of Vanderbilt's flight nurses. “He could have been there for hours, but as fate would have it, Siri was sort of his guardian angel.”

Doctors say during the estimated 40 minutes the teen was under his truck, he sustained three broken ribs, a bruised kidney, a cut on the forehead, and second- and third-degree burns to one arm that was under the exhaust pipe.

However, an accident like this could have easily had a very different outcome, said his doctor, Richard Miller, M.D., Chief of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care and professor of Surgery at Vanderbilt.

Very lucky

“He’s very lucky. He ended up sustaining injuries that are easily recoverable, but it could have potentially been very serious,” Miller said. “A tool like Siri is a modern-day rescue item that we didn’t have in the past and potentially saved him from more serious or long-term complications from his crush injury.”

Of course, the iPhone isn't the only device with a voice-activated interface. Android phones have a similar feature as well. As a safety precaution, perhaps all of us should learn the art of butt-dialing to summon our phones' helper, so that if we find ourselves immobilized we can summon help.

And maybe Apple should think about changing Siri's name to Lassie.

Verizon has announced a change to its method of pricing prepaid wireless services, saying the new plan will be simpler for consumers.

The pricing applies to tablets, hotspots and connected devices. Current rates apply for smartphones.

Under the new arrangement, consumers can choose from five new prepaid data plans, giving customers connectivity with no annual contract and no credit checks.

Weekly rate available

In fact, consumers can get Internet access for just a week, receiving 500MB of data for $15. Service for the month is just $5 more, giving a consumer 1GB of data for the month at a rate of $20.

There are three plans when you prepay for two months. You can get 2GB of data for $35, 5GB of data for $60 or 10GB for $100.

Customers may select the option to auto-renew their account or just purchase data when they need it.

“There is no obligation to pay every month,” Verizon said in a release. “For even more flexibility, customers can now replenish data on their devices, online at MyVerizon or by using refill cards.”

The new prepaid data device plans are available on 3G and 4G-enabled tablets, mobile broadband and connected devices.

Growing trend

The movement to prepaid service is relatively new for the major carriers, who have clung to the two-year service contract for years. Two-year contracts are now pretty much a thing of the past.

TracFone and Cricket Wireless pioneered prepaid, no-contract cellular service, finding a ready source of customers who either had less-than-stellar credit or simply didn't want to be committed for two years.

By 2013, one-third of all smartphone sales were operated on prepaid plans, a 42% jump in 12 months, according to the NPD Group.

Texting has long been considered a threat to the safety of teens who drive, but another smartphone-related risk has recently come to light.

Nearly 70% of teens report using apps while driving, according to new research by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD). And it seems teens may not have a clear understanding of just how dangerous app use while driving could be.

When asked to rank risky driving behaviors from most to least dangerous, teens said posting to social media apps or checking a notification while driving was significantly less dangerous than texting and driving or driving under the influence.

Researchers surmise that teens may perceive music and navigation apps as “utilities,” which may cause them to see apps as less of a driving danger.

Beliefs Vs. Actions

To uncover teens real thoughts on issues pertaining to app usage while driving, researchers used implicit association testing -- a method that employs fast-paced word associations to unveil gut-level reactions.

It may or may not surprise parents to learn that what teens believe is often quite different from what they say and how they act. For instance, 41% of teens stated that using a GPS app while driving is dangerous, but 58% reported using them while in the driver’s seat.

The case for music apps was no different; more than half of teens (64%) agreed that using music apps while driving is dangerous, but 46% still reported using them while driving.

Eliminating distractions

Experts say music and navigation apps aren’t inherently dangerous, but how teens interact with them behind the wheel may be. Perusing a playlist or typing in an address on a navigation app, for example, may cause teens to become distracted.

To help mitigate the risk of app-related distraction on the road, it’s important for parents to talk candidly with their teens about driving habits. 

Additionally, parents of teen drivers may consider taking the following precautions before handing their kids the keys.

• Hide the phone. Teens may not be great at ignoring the siren song emanating from their phone (which is nearby while driving for 73% of teens). Parents can ask teens to keep their phones out of reach and on silent while driving.
• Set directions in advance. Navigation apps can be invaluable tools in helping teens get where they need to go, but 42% of teens say they text while driving to get directions. Ask teens to chart their course prior to starting the engine or to pull over if they need to program their navigation app.
• Set expectations. Having teens sign off on a Teen Driving Contract may help family members stay on the same page when it comes to driving rules.