The Tech Corner
The Tech Corner is a weekly technology news and advice column presented each week courtesy of Melvin McCrary at Ga. Computer Depot in Cedartown.
IPhone Secretly Sends Your Call History to Apple Even If iCloud Backups are Turned Off
A report from Russian digital forensics firm Elcomsoft suggests Apple's online syncing service secretly stores user logs of private information and call history to company servers for as long as four months — even when iCloud backup is switched off.
"There is no way to turn syncing off, apart from disabling iCloud Drive completely. In that case, many applications will stop working or users lose iCloud-related features completely."
Android smartphones and Windows 10 mobile devices also sync users' call logs to the cloud as part of backup. EBay adds One Time Passwords
The new One Time Password system lets you log into your eBay account on mobile or the desktop via a one-time use code that's sent via SMS to your phone. On Android Wear, the eBay app can now search and see basic information about items before pulling it up on your phone, as well as receive alerts about auctions.
You can download the latest version of the eBay app for Android from the Google Play Store right here.
Pokémon Go
Pokémon Go hits 100 million installs on the Play Store. It took just over a month, but the most popular mobile game of all time has
just surpassed 100 million installs on Android. Having recently expanded to 15 new countries, the game has been attracting a steady stream of new players. Google Chrome will block all Flash content by December 2016
An update to Chrome 53 in September will block all non-essential Flash content on webpages by default, and in December Chrome 55 will go a step further by blocking all Flash content entirely. Only pages that rely on Flash content to display the page properly will be allowed through.
Antivirus for smartphone
That said, it is possible to install software from other sources online the web, but to do so you must purposely relax security restrictions on the phone and tick a check box to "accept the risks" when installing software not from Google Play. When you do install a program not from Google Play, you will once again have to tick a box to "accept the risks", otherwise the program won't install. Doing this however is dangerous for obvious reasons.
The Android operating system is locked down in such a way it is nearly impossible to install malware onto the system because the smartphone user doesn't have "administrator" rights like a Windows PC does. So, even if you did download something malicious, it would be extremely difficult for anything bad to happen - but, once again, that is not always
the case. The reason is that operating system exploits are discovered in smartphones much like any PC (because the operating system is simply software), so if your phone isn't up to date and if you managed to install something bad, then there's a chance something could go awry.
Installing antivirus for your smartphone will surely slow your phone down because everything you do on the phone will now be second-guessed through the antivirus. This eats up your CPU and memory resources, resulting in slower response times on apps, plus it will drain the battery because you're effectively doing things twice over. Smart devices are a 'major threat' when it comes to cyber warfare
Most of the security stories around the Internet of Things have centered on the possibilities of attackers remotely accessing or controlling such devices, causing mischief or worse. However, last month hackers were able to take advantage of unsecured devices and turn them into a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which then brought down several major websites.
Schneier told two Congressional subcommittees that the nature of the smart device market means its unlikely people will improve security on their own. He notes that most of the devices are produced cheaply and with low profit margins (with a large volume of sales turning profits), and thus manufacturers are wary of spending too much on bossing security on these devices.
Meanwhile buyers often don't know when their devices are compromised and have no easy way to patch the device. Schneier also noted that because household devices tend to be used for much longer before being replaced than phones and tablets are, the chances are that they'll stay compromised for much longer. Office Depot, OfficeMax claim computers have malware to sell useless removal services
One of the common problems the less computer-savvy face are inevitable malware infections. A number of companies like Best Buy, Office Depot, and OfficeMax all offer computer services that will scan and remove malware from an infected system, but often only at a steep price. Separate investigations into Office Depot and OfficeMax, however, have shown that both companies will diagnose a brand-new computer that’s never been connected to the Internet as infected with malware. If you want the “malware” removed, that’s $180.
An investigation by KIRO 7 in Seattle took six brand-new computers to Office Depots in Snohomish, King, and Pierce counties. They visited six separate stores and were told at four of them that their computers showed symptoms of malware, despite having never been connected to the Internet. The software Office Depot uses to scan for malware is called PC Health Check and is manufactured by Support.com, a company that paid $8 million dollars to settle a deceptive advertising case in 2012.