Android Wallpaper App Stole Scores Of Users’ Data, Sent It To China

Here’s one alarming news article from DailyTech. If you download Jackeey Wallpaper from Google’s Android Market for your smartphone, you might want to start worrying just about now. The popular app has been exposed as potentially being a piece of malware designed to steal your personal info and send it to China.

John Hering, chief executive, and Kevin MaHaffey, chief technology officer at Lookout, a mobile security firm, revealed the stunning news at their presentation at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas today. States MaHaffey, “Even good apps can be modified to turn bad after a lot of people download it. Users absolutely have to pay attention to what they download. And developers have to be responsible about the data that they collect and how they use it.”

Jackeey Wallpaper was downloaded millions of times (between 1.1 million and 4.6 million to be precise). It offers popular wallpapers, such as My Little Pony and Star Wars. Other apps by developer iceskysl@1sters are also collecting similar info.

The app collects your phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and even your voicemail password and sends it to www.imnet.us — a website owned by someone in Shenzhen, China.

The app warns when attempting to access your “phone info”, but many users have reportedly ignored this vague warning. If you do have this app, steer clear for now. Who knows how your personal information will be used.

iPad Too Expensive? Get An iPed!

The iPad has gone international but the Asian market will be faced with a choice of two very similarly named options: the United States’ iPad or China’s new product, the iPed. And when I say similar, they really do almost look similar in looks.

The packaging looks almost the same, the tablet casing looks almost the same. Man … almost all looks the same except for maybe the operating system that runs it and the name of the product. The iPed is also heavier than the iPad but what the heck, it sells for around $105 while Apple’s iPad goes for a whopping $536 in nearby Japan (where the iPad just launched).

The iPed ironically, runs the Google Android operating system. The price difference is astounding and unless someone finds a fatal flaw with the iPed fast, there could be some real intense tablet competition. And we all know Android is one stable operating system.

So, which would you buy? An iPad with even no USB slot? Or an iPed (which actually has one).

Will The Digital Download Be Dead … Soon?

Let me know what you think about this article I read in ABC News. While the iPod has come to symbolize the digital music age, it is iTunes that has allowed Apple to control the musical marketplace.

iTunes has a nice interface, it is easy to learn, and it is ubiquitous: it ships with every Mac, and it is one of the most downloaded Windows programs around (well … people are forced to anyway as it is the only medium to sync your iphone, itouch and ipods). Other companies may make great phones and music players, but they do not have the desktop software to sync your music, apps, and photos.

That is why Palm worked up a hack last year to connect its phones to iTune, and why Apple quickly shut down the workaround. So iTunes users are required to download music from iTunes then sync it to their music. That is how it goes. But pretty soon, the digital landscape may change.

Google Android phones already do lots of stuff wirelessly because the OS is tied to your Google account, most of your data flies over the Internet and you do not even need to plug the phone into your computer to upgrade its operating system (which you have to do with an iPhone).

Soon Android will be completely untethered. An upcoming version will let you buy apps and music from any computer: the files will then appear instantly on your phone. The best part, though, is that Android will let you play all the music on your computer without syncing your hard drive to your phone.

You can do this by installing a small app on your desktop that will send your music – whether it is in iTunes, Windows Media Player, or anywhere else – to the Internet. (This only works with non-copy-protected music, which means pretty much everything except audiobooks.) Once the files are online, your phone will have access to your entire music library whenever you’ve got an Internet connection.

Google always impresses me with their innovations. Apple does too, but lately, their arrogance has disappointed me. Their actions as of late resembles what Microsoft does. Closeness, rather then openness.