Google will soon release a software development kit (SDK) for adapting its Android mobile operating system to wearable technology such as smart watches, according to statements by Sundar Pichai, Google’s Senior Vice President of Android, Chrome and Apps. Pichai was speaking over the weekend at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. He said that the SDK for wearables will be available sometime in the next two weeks and is intended to help flesh out the company’s vision for how wearable technology should work. The news was first reported here by The Guardian. Wearables are just another “platform” on which small, powerful sensors will be deployed, he said. “Sensors can be small and powerful, and gather a lot of information that can be useful for users. We want to build the right APIs for this world of sensors,” he is quoted saying. [Read more Security Ledger coverage […]
Technologies
RSA Perspective: Outrage With A Side Of Salsa
Let the record show that one of the most dramatic expressions of discontent over rampant government surveillance of U.S. citizens and private companies during last week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco went down at a taco joint. As the world’s cyber security elite gathered in San Francisco’s Moscone Center for the RSA Security Conference, a group of privacy and online rights activists that go by the name “Vegas 2.0” used donated funds to rent out Chevy’s, a popular Mexican food restaurant located next to the exhibit halls and frequented by conference goers. As reported by ZDNet’s Violet Blue, paying RSA attendees and speakers – identifiable by red badges – were refused entry to Chevy’s and handed flyers explaining the protestors’ grievances against the Conference’s parent company, RSA Security, which is alleged to have colluded with the NSA to weaken encryption standards in its products. Among those reported to have been […]
Repo Scan: License Plate Readers Fuel Private Surveillance Industry
The privacy issues surrounding the use of license plate scanners isn’t exactly a new story. After all, none other than the ACLU published a report on the topic last year. The title of that report: “You Are Being Tracked” left little to the imagination. But The Boston Globe presents a troubling picture of how far and fast license plate scanning has come, and how the combination of super-efficient scanning with cloud based applications and Big Data analytics are empowering private companies to surveil law abiding citizens across much of the country. OnTuesday, reporter Shawn Musgrave reported on the phenomenon of automobile repossession firms in Massachusetts using powerful, car-mounted license plate readers to troll mall parking lots and commuter stations for cars whose owners are behind in their payments. The cameras scan the plates of all vehicles that they pass – delinquent or not – and send the images to […]
SOHOwned: 300K Home Routers Hacked
A string of reports in recent weeks has focused a spotlight on rising attacks against an often-overlooked piece of equipment that can be found in almost every home and business: the wireless router. Just this week, the security firm Team Cymru published a report (PDF) describing what it claims is a widespread compromise of small office and home office (SOHO) wireless routers that was linked to cyber criminal campaigns targeting online banking customers. Cymru claims to have identified over 300,000 SOHO devices (mostly in Asia and Europe) that were compromised. According to the report, the compromises first came to light in January, after Team Cymru analysts noticed a pattern of SOHO routers with overwritten DNS settings in central Europe. The affected devices are from a range of manufacturers, including well-known brands like D-Link, Micronet, Tenda and TP-Link. The devices were vulnerable to a number of attacks, including authentication bypass and cross-site […]
Security and The Internet of Things: An RSA Roadmap
The RSA Security Conference starts next week in San Francisco: the central event of a week-long orgy of IT security wheeling and dealing in the Bay Area. Though its roots are as a small and clubby gathering of cryptographers, RSA long ago stopped being that, and started resembling a kind of speed dating event for technology and IT security firms. Sure – there are plenty of interesting talks at RSA, but the important work takes place in private suites of adjoining hotels and chance encounters in the halls of the Moscone. If there’s a big IT security deal in the offing – like IBM’s $1 billion acquisition of Trusteer, or FireEye’s purchase of the firm Mandiant – chances are good that the conversation started at RSA. Long and short: RSA is a snapshot of the security industry at a particular place and time. As such, it tends to be a […]
