MIAMI – There’s a new device that lets you be James Bond. It’s called DetectiGo. DetectiGo can track someone anywhere in the world and listen to what they’re saying.
It’s small enough to be hidden in a backpack, a briefcase or in a glove compartment, according to founder Esteban Delaossa. Gustavo Roldan was one of the first people to own one of the devices. He wants to know where his teenage kids are.
“I use it for safety for my kids. It gives me an opportunity to know where they’re at, what they’re doing and when they’re doing it,” Roldan said.
“Why shouldn’t you have the right to know what you need to know?” said Delaossa.
If you set the device with a maximum speed, it can also alert you if the driver goes over it.
Soon it will give you constant, almost instant, GPS tracking and you will be able to set up a perimeter to notify you if the person you are tracking travels outside that zone.
“The typical average response by women is ‘I need this.’ The response of men is ‘You’re killing us,’ said Yesenia Hernandez of DetectiGo.
Legal expert David Milian says it’s not breaking the law to track someone. The legality of listening in on someone depends on where the person is located, he said.
“If it’s just tracking location, it’s the same thing you can do if you are watching someone and following them as long as you don’t do anything else,” said Milian.
DetectiGo costs $149 plus the cost of an air card to cover the cell charges.
Android phones, or at least some of them, contain a serious glitch that an attacker could exploit to steal data, eavesdrop on your calls or even wipe your phone clean.
A team of computer science researchers from North Carolina State University discovered the flaw on eight smartphones from HTC, Motorola, Samsung and Google. In their paper, “Systematic Detection of Capability Leaks in Stock Android Smartphones,” the researchers explain that the issue stems from coding bugs, called “capability leaks,” within Android’s permission-based security system.
An attacker that exploits a capability leak on a targeted phone could also obtain a phone’s geo-location data and send premium-rate text messages, all without the victim’s knowledge.
“Several privileged (or dangerous) permissions that protect access to sensitive user data or phone features are unsafely exposed to other apps which do not need to request these permissions for the actual use,” the researchers wrote.
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Image: Flickr via Joe Howell
North Carolina State University researchers have uncovered a malicious little flaw in the Android mobile OS, reports The Register. Turns out its pretty easy to build and distribute an app that can do all kinds of terrible things users won’t want it to – including call recording.
When you install a new Android app, you set its “permissions” — you get to tell it what it can and can’t do. Google Maps should be able to access your location, for example, but Angry Birds has no business recording your phone calls.
This backdoor works by skipping this essential step. Upon installation, an app can potentially not tell you what it’s actually doing.
To demonstrate the bug, researchers created an app that was successfully able to do all kinds of things you’d never want an app to do without your knowledge — record phone calls, send unauthorized text messages, and track the phone’s (your) location.
The EVO 4G proved most susceptible to the problem while the Nexus S and Nexus One proved most secure.
Manufacturers say they are aware of the problem and should be addressing it shortly. Until then, be extra careful while installing your Android apps!
On Sunday, President Bush signed a law that expands the government’s surveillance abilities on foreign terrorist suspects. The new law is an expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and allows the government to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a warrant.
The surveillance can be approved by either the attorney general or the director of national intelligence.
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SpyDialer.com has launched a new free website that lets users eavesdrop on the outgoing voicemail message of cell phones to learn who the user of the phone is. The free cell phone search has ignited concern about its use.
A controversial new website created by a Los Angeles private investigator has Internet users debating its use. The website, Spy Dialer, is a free cell phone search that lets users legally eavesdrop on the outbound voicemail message of any U.S. based cell phone number. Now, web users are asking, “Is it cool or is it creepy?”
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