Data Security on Mobile Devices: Current State of the Art, Open Problems, and Proposed Solutions
http://securephones.io/ [securephones.io]
2020-12-24 21:38
tags:
android
iphone
opsec
paper
security
tech
In this work we attempt a full accounting of the current and historical status of smartphone security measures. We focus on several of the most popular device types, and present a complete description of both the available security mechanisms in these devices, as well as a summary of the known public information on the state-of-the-art in bypass techniques for each. Our goal is to provide a single periodically updated guide that serves to detail the public state of data security in modern smartphones.
source: green
Cameras and Lenses
https://ciechanow.ski/cameras-and-lenses/ [ciechanow.ski]
2020-12-10 22:20
tags:
article
best
graphics
interactive
physics
tech
visualization
Cameras and the lenses inside them may seem a little mystifying. In this blog post I’d like to explain not only how they work, but also how adjusting a few tunable parameters can produce fairly different results:
This is amazing work.
source: HN
This Tiny WiFi Camera Owns Kwikset SmartKey (LockTech LTKSD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGdsIrAjp3k [www.youtube.com]
2020-12-08 21:47
tags:
hardware
opsec
security
tech
video
Open a padlock (or probably any keyed lock) by taking a picture of the sliders inside, then cutting a key.
The video shows this in real time and is five minutes long. Open sesame!
Hasselblad, Kodak, & Apollo 11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVSA43cZRo [www.youtube.com]
2020-07-29 02:56
tags:
history
space
tech
video
A probably not entirely wrong history of cameras developed for the moon.
Something in the Air
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/05/great-5g-conspiracy/611317/ [www.theatlantic.com]
2020-05-18 02:37
tags:
article
policy
science
tech
wifi
The coronavirus pandemic is sparking baseless theories about the dangers of 5G. But the fear that wireless technology is slowly killing us isn’t new—and it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
Engineering and Technology History Wiki
https://ethw.org/Main_Page [ethw.org]
2020-05-17 03:46
tags:
archive
history
physics
reference
retro
science
tech
The ETHW is not a “how-does-technology-work” site. The scope of the ETHW is historical; instead of focusing on the inner workings of technology, it aims to explain how the technology was developed, who were the major players involved, and what long term significance the technologies have. The ETHW is not only an encyclopedia of the history of technology, but it also contains a full range of materials that relate to the legacy of engineering, including personal accounts, documents, and multimedia objects. In that sense, it is a combination reference guide, blog, virtual archive, and on-line community.
Touch And Go
https://tedium.co/2020/03/31/hp-touchpad-history/ [tedium.co]
2020-04-02 02:15
tags:
business
hardware
retro
tech
web
Pondering the disastrous fate of the HP TouchPad, an early tablet based on WebOS that’s best known for being the subject of a well-remembered fire sale.
Point Of Saturation
https://tedium.co/2020/02/27/aloha-pos-system-history/ [tedium.co]
2020-02-28 22:11
tags:
business
food
history
tech
75k - The number of restaurants around the world that use the Aloha point of sale system. Aloha is an industry stalwart that has managed to stay relevant while often still looking like it was designed in 1998.
Plus some NCR history.
The Fairey Rotodyne, the vertical takeoff and landing airliner time forgot
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/02/the-fairey-rotodyne-the-vertical-take-off-and-landing-airliner-time-forgot/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-02-17 02:46
tags:
flying
history
tech
transport
The phrase “Urban Air Mobility” (UAM) seems like it’s been with us for quite a while, but really it’s only been in widespread use for two or three years. NASA officially recognized UAM in 2017, calling for a market study of remotely piloted or unmanned air passenger and cargo transportation around an urban area. Most people would probably call this the “air taxi” idea—a vision of hundreds of small, unmanned electric multi-copters shuttling two or three passengers from nearby suburbs or city spaces to vertiports at about 100 mph (roughly 161 km/h).
But if things had worked out differently in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we might have a very different understanding of UAM—something more like mass-transit. We might have had a city-center to city-center 55-passenger vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) airliner shuttling between urban heliports at 180 mph (289 km/h).
Actually, we did have that, it’s just few people remember. It was called the Fairey Rotodyne.
source: ars
I went to see a movie, and instead I saw the future
https://m.signalvnoise.com/i-went-to-see-a-movie-and-instead-i-saw-the-future/ [m.signalvnoise.com]
2020-01-15 21:54
tags:
essay
future
tech
This is the future, I’m afraid. A future that plans on everything going right so no one has to think about what happens when things go wrong. Because computers don’t make mistakes. An automated future where no one actually knows how things work.
source: E
I broke Giant’s handheld scanner system by only buying two things
https://arstechnica.com/staff/2020/01/how-i-broke-my-grocery-stores-app-by-not-buying-enough-stuff/ [arstechnica.com]
2020-01-15 05:01
tags:
business
ioshit
life
tech
The employee interface verified that my cart contained two (2) items. She scanned both. It verified that those two items were ones I had scanned. And then it told her that she needed to scan five more items to complete the audit, because the audit requires seven items to be scanned.
source: ars
Ironies of automation
https://blog.acolyer.org/2020/01/08/ironies-of-automation/ [blog.acolyer.org]
2020-01-11 23:45
tags:
development
dupe
paper
tech
turtles
The central irony (‘combination of circumstances, the result of which is the direct opposite of what might be expected’) referred to in this paper is that the more we automate, and the more sophisticated we make that automation, the more we become dependent on a highly skilled human operator.
Admit It: You Have a Box of Cords You’ll Never, Ever Use Again
https://www.wsj.com/articles/admit-it-you-have-a-box-of-cords-youll-never-ever-use-again-11578590154 [www.wsj.com]
2020-01-10 02:06
tags:
life
tech
There’s a box that moved with Sarah Loveless and her husband from San Diego to Charleston, S.C., from Charleston to Dallas and from Dallas to Richland, Wash. The box, never unpacked, went into a closet or the garage each time. Contents: 20 to 30 electronics cords.
Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html [www.nytimes.com]
2019-12-20 23:43
tags:
android
best
investigation
iphone
opsec
tech
visualization
Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times Privacy Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists. It holds more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Each piece of information in this file represents the precise location of a single smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017. The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so. The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.
source: L
Welcome to the age of the avatar
https://www.ft.com/content/8ca2f72a-1b4d-11ea-9186-7348c2f183af [www.ft.com]
2019-12-12 07:54
tags:
future
graphics
hoipolloi
social
tech
Imagine Being on Trial. With Exonerating Evidence Trapped on Your Phone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/business/law-enforcement-public-defender-technology-gap.html [www.nytimes.com]
2019-11-25 01:39
tags:
android
hoipolloi
investigation
iphone
opsec
policy
tech
Public defenders lack access to gadgets and software that could keep their clients out of jail.
This tech gap has two basic forms. First, law enforcement agencies can use warrants and court orders to compel companies to turn over emails, photos and other communications, but defense lawyers have no such power. And second, the government has access to forensic technology that makes digital investigations easier. Over the last two decades, the machines and software designed to extract data from computers and smartphones were primarily made for and sold to law enforcement.
To successfully defend its clients, the Legal Aid Society, New York City’s largest public defender office, realized in 2013 that it needed to buy the same tools the police had: forensic devices and software from companies including Cellebrite, Magnet Forensics and Guidance Software. Not only does the expensive technology unearth digital evidence that is otherwise hard or impossible to find, it captures it in a format that can hold up in court, as opposed to evidence that could have been tampered with or forged.
source: green
Motorola Brings Back The Razr: Flip-Phone In 2020
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15106/motorola-brings-back-the-razr-flipphone-in-2020 [www.anandtech.com]
2019-11-14 16:52
tags:
android
tech
Motorola has today announced a modern successor to one of the most iconic phones ever released: the Razr V3. The popular flip-phone was first released in 2004 and had been a huge success for the company as it went on to sell over a 100M units. The clamshell design was immensely popular as it was a lot thinner and had a unique design. The new Razr takes the core aspects of this design and ports it over to the latest 2019 technologies. At the heart of the new smartphone lies Motorola’s take on foldable displays, giving the new Razr a proper modern “full body screen” experience.
A nice look at how they got the fold to work. We’ll see.
History of Information
http://www.historyofinformation.com/ [www.historyofinformation.com]
2019-11-08 20:51
tags:
compsci
history
language
reference
tech
Lots of little facts organized in various ways.
source: grugq
The July Galileo Outage: What happened and why
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/galileo-accident/ [berthub.eu]
2019-11-08 05:09
tags:
development
investigation
space
systems
tech
This post is an excerpt of a far longer post on Galileo, its structures and the cause of the outage. Here we’ll only focus on the outage - the potential underlying reasons behind it are described in the full article.
Since the week-long outage in July I’ve been fascinated by Galileo and, together with a wonderful crew of developers, experts and receiver operators, have learned so much about what I now know are called ‘Global Navigation Satellite Systems’ or GNSS. This has lead to the galmon.eu project, which monitors the health and vital statistics of GPS, Galileo, BeiDou and GLONASS. More about the project can be read in the full article.
I totally missed the fact that there was an outage, but some interesting commentary.
source: HN
Light Commands
https://lightcommands.com/ [lightcommands.com]
2019-11-06 18:32
tags:
exploit
ioshit
opsec
paper
security
sidechannel
tech
Light Commands is a vulnerability of MEMS microphones that allows attackers to remotely inject inaudible and invisible commands into voice assistants, such as Google assistant, Amazon Alexa, Facebook Portal, and Apple Siri using light.
In our paper we demonstrate this effect, successfully using light to inject malicious commands into several voice controlled devices such as smart speakers, tablets, and phones across large distances and through glass windows.
source: grugq