Teach ‘em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance

A Report "Teach ‘em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance" Details How Powerful Governments Are Supporting Smaller Nations In Surveillance

According to a report from Privacy International, the world's most powerful governments are today accused of bankrolling surveillance kit and training for smaller and dubious nations, and tech industry stands to benefit. These countries with the most extensive security and military agencies are transferring electronic surveillance capabilities, practices, and legislation around the world. 

The countries named include US, Europe, China. Methods include training foreign personnel, donating and providing loans for equipment, and directly financing security and military agencies. Implementation involves numerous donors, international organisations, countries, government agencies and departments, implementing partners, and contractors.

Question is why these powerful countries willingly share their technologies with other countries, what do they get in return? This question is worth pondering.



Cheap Android Devices Ship With Pre-installed Malware Again

There is a new finding on cheap Android phones following the last post on May 2018, Cheap Android devices ship with pre-installed malware.

Upsteam has discovered new low-end Android smartphone devices being sold to consumers in developing markets such as Myanmar, Cambodia, Egypt, Brazil and South Africa, contain pre-installed unwanted software (apk name: com.rock.gota by GMobi company). This embedded app can commit digital ad fraud, collects users’ personal information, depletes their mobile data allowance and triggers fraudulent charges to their pre-paid credit, without their knowledge or consent. If you read the details on this app from Dr.Web Antivirus analysis, you should be shocked by what it can do in your phone. This is clearly exploitation (and considered unlawful) and it is probably why it does not target countries like the United States and the European region.

The issue is not whether the app is a malware; the issue is the ability of the app to do unwanted things on the phone without users' knowledge or consent.

As usual, our own Quick Check App will be updated to inform users if their phones contain this specific unwanted software. If your phone is found to have this app, there is probably nothing much you can do to remove it because it is embedded in the phone's firmware.

Quick check and scan for RottenSys, Trojan.AsiaHitGroup, Trojan.SMS.AsiaHitGroup, Adware.AsiaHitGroup, APT-C-23 , Cosiloon malware files in your Android Phones, Tablet, TV.
Quick Check for RottenSys, AsiaHitGroup, APT-C-23, etc.

Closer to Singapore, Product Director at Singapore-based Singtech, Andy Ng, clarified that his company stopped using GMobi’s services in 2017, though he said approximately 1 million of his company’s devices containing the app is likely remain on the market in Myanmar and Cambodia. GMobi said users are asked to consent to data collection by clicking an end-user license agreement when they first activate their phones. The probability of any user reading and understanding the license when they first turned on their phone is nearly zero (unscientific and totally biased opinion of us here).

Refer here for more information on protecting your phone.
Refer here for more information on Android App, Android Development and Security Advisory. 
Refer here for more information on why your data is interesting to others.

We will continue to monitor and update this "supply chain contamination" trend.

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Top Three Android Development Sites

Top Three Android Development Sites

The necessary and sufficient sites for us

We leverage and rely on many online resources in our Android development journey. The following are the top three sites that we used almost on a daily basis.

1. Android Developers Blog

The site description declares "The latest Android and Google Play news and tips for app and game developers.". This site has a global rank of 3,409 and a daily visitor count of 38.5 thousands. It produces on average 2 posts per week since November 2007. We like this site for the latest news on Android development straight from the source. It appeals to both Android users and Android developers.

2. All Top Android

The site description declares "Best Android Blogs 2018 - Popular Android News Sites & Blogs". This site has a global rank of 88,999 and a daily visitor count of only 129. It is a news aggregator site, supported by Ads. We like this site for providing in one page all the latest posts for popular Android sites such as Android Authority, Android Police, Android Headlines etc.

3. NewsNow

The site description declares "For up-to-the-minute Android news from the world's best sources, visit NewsNow.co.uk. No other aggregator does Android news better.". This site has a global rank of 2,227 and a daily visitor count of 544 thousands for all the covered news categories. It is a news aggregator site, supported by Ads. We like this site as we agreed it is the best almost realtime news aggregator.

Summary Table for Top Three Android Development Sites

Android Developers Blog

All Top Android

NewsNow

Global Rank of 3409

Global Rank of 88999

Global Rank of 2227

Daily visitors of 38.5K

Daily visitors of 129

Daily visitors of 544K

Average of 2 posts per week

News aggregator

News aggregator

Started in Nov 2007

Started in Jan 2018

Started in July 2013

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