Android market infected apps - Galaxy Tab General

Hi guys just heard that Google has pulled 21 infected apps from the AM.I think i may have downloaded one of these apps about a month ago,does anyone know how long these infected apps were on the market and when,like i say the app i downloaded was about a month ago(photo editor)i'm just hoping it was the legitimate one,problem is i uninstalled more or less immediately as it didn't suit my needs so i can't check the developers name. Thanks in advance for any responses.
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That sucks. The more popular an OS gets the more of a target it will become.

Trojaned Market apps
The fact that we don't have clarity on what apps were effected is disturbing.
I also read on Android Police that there maybe as many as 50 total apps that were "infected"
I'm going to wipe my GTab, re-root and load a smaller slate of apps from "trusted" devs
Good luck

Related

Realtime Privacy Monitoring on Smartphones Android sends out info without permission

Realtime Privacy Monitoring on Smartphones Android sends out info without permission
appanalysis.org
This is the very reason why i use adfree.
I buy my apps if there is an option, but i can't stand some of the adware associated with a lot of apps. it isn't the devs fault as they are probably unaware of the code they were given for the ads. for example there isn't a single reason why Connect4 needs to know my location!
All apps when installed from the market give a list of of all permissions. It's up to the user to not let a tic tac toe game that can access personal data to be installed. As users we need to check permissions for apps we download. Their is great security built into android but as users we must utilize it. Not Accepting suspicious looking apps is on us, but at least we know. Check it out when you get an app. It's give's a permissions list.
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linuxmotion said:
All apps when installed from the market give a list of of all permissions. It's up to the user to not let a tic tac toe game that can access personal data to be installed. As users we need to check permissions for apps we download. Their is great security built into android but as users we must utilize it. Not Accepting suspicious looking apps is on us, but at least we know. Check it out when you get an app. It's give's a permissions list.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Virtuous 1.7 through XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yup, i totally agree. the average android user needs to be more aware of their security than an average iphone user.
android users just need to be logical about the internet in general. I find it a GOOD thing. people need to start thinking about their privacy on the internet these days.
apple makes their users believe they have nothing to worry about.... i just find the long term philosophy of this strategy to be bad. i don't care how strict apples policy is for apps, in the end, the internet it becoming a huge part of society and no company will be able to stop exploitation.
i like android because it "should" teach users that the internet is NOT the safest place.

New Market and refunds

So there is a 15 minute limit on refunds now in the new Market app.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't someone just copy the .apk off the phone while in clockwork, then reboot, and refund? You'd still have the copied .apk to reinstall.
This isn't a test of piracy whatsoever, but a test of how low the security is on the device. I'm just curious if this is how it really works! If so, I think it needs fixed asap.
kaschenberg said:
So there is a 15 minute limit on refunds now in the new Market app.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't someone just copy the .apk off the phone while in clockwork, then reboot, and refund? You'd still have the copied .apk to reinstall.
This isn't a test of piracy whatsoever, but a test of how low the security is on the device. I'm just curious if this is how it really works! If so, I think it needs fixed asap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for hashing out the obvious, even if you're going all about it the wrong way.
Let me restate what you tried to say:
Google has changed the market refund window to 15m from 24h, screwing real customers without actually affecting piracy at all.
This made my day xD
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khaytsus said:
Thanks for hashing out the obvious, even if you're going all about it the wrong way.
Let me restate what you tried to say:
Google has changed the market refund window to 15m from 24h, screwing real customers without actually affecting piracy at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's be real here, they could fix the piracy issues easily if they wanted to - we all know Google is smart! I'm just curious as to why they made it this easy to do the "obvious"...
Google already provides provisions for this, the developers just have to use them. Titanium backup pro phones home to run a check for example and won't run.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
Gingerbread is supposed to add a lot of support for game developers in it's SDK with that I think google is trying to make the Android Market a bit more appealing to third party game developers. Making the refund window 15 minutes, now assures that you won't be able to download a game beat it in a few hours and then uninstall and refund the game.
Because yes obviously this doesn't thwart piracy and that's why I dont think it's supposed to be an anti piracy feature. Plus the average smart phone user is not going to start pulling apk's in clockwork or adb.
Plus I think we have just been spoiled with a 24 hour refund window, at least we'll HAVE a refund window unlike the iphone users. Hopefully this overall will actually make the market better, people will write better reviews and stuff. I personally don't think it is a huge deal, whenever I purchase something in the Market I base my decision mainly on the Market comments and the star rating, usually one knows wether a purchase was worth it within the first 10 minutes.
pcruz said:
Gingerbread is supposed to add a lot of support for game developers in it's SDK with that I think google is trying to make the Android Market a bit more appealing to third party game developers. Making the refund window 15 minutes, now assures that you won't be able to download a game beat it in a few hours and then uninstall and refund the game.
Because yes obviously this doesn't thwart piracy and that's why I dont think it's supposed to be an anti piracy feature. Plus the average smart phone user is not going to start pulling apk's in clockwork or adb.
Plus I think we have just been spoiled with a 24 hour refund window, at least we'll HAVE a refund window unlike the iphone users. Hopefully this overall will actually make the market better, people will write better reviews and stuff. I personally don't think it is a huge deal, whenever I purchase something in the Market I base my decision mainly on the Market comments and the star rating, usually one knows wether a purchase was worth it within the first 10 minutes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hehe i'd have to agree that I also base my downloads based upon reviews. Even though, they do seem a bit biased or imastupidkidwithbadgrammar-ish-like...
I guess if you have a free version, then there's no real need to have a refund window. You can do all your testing in free.
It's a bit annoying to see many 'refunds' from people who are just pirating the apps. It would be nice to have devs set the refund time.
15 minutes is neither fish nor fowl.
I'm happy you have the option to at least get a refund. I have a 5 year old with Autism and forgot to disable the app store on his iPad and within ten minutes I was the proud new owner of about 5 bowling apps Luckily it was only about $10 but it could have been a lot worse had he navigated to a different screen *face/palm*

[Q] the market's ranking system

Is the ranking system of "top apps" based entirely off of active installs OR are there other factors involved?
I would assume by rating and the number of downloads
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I think also the rate of new installs is taken into account. What I can tell you is that the featured app criteria is "corrupt" for lack of a better word. For example, the app which reminds you to call your parents was featured when it had <50 downloads. The next day, it was still featured despite not so great reviews.
By corrupt I am not trying to imply malicious intent by Google. Rather, unfairness?
@Chalup - lol tell me about it, I'm pretty sure that the "one fish, two fish" dr. zeus book that is featured is purely infringing on it (unless they actually have the rights to it)
This is one of my biggest hates about Android. I like how on the iTunes app store the top apps drastically change like every week to give people some new apps to download compared to the Market where they only change once in a blue moon. I hate having to look around the Market for ages looking for some apps that interest me.
the ranking system is definitely messed up
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Amazon App Store Rocks

In case you haven't heard they give out a free paid app every day! Yesterday was Picsay Pro and today is Wolfram Alpha! Both great apps! I high suggest installing the app store and checking every day I'm not really sure what happens when the app get's updated by the developer though.
I uninstalled it because I was offended that it was notifying me about updates even though I hadn't run the app since a reboot...
I hate that presumption that my cpu and bandwidth is free for the taking, or that I even care that an app that I haven't run for a few days has been updated...
Also, I had installed a free app from amazon app store, and it wouldn't run after I uninstalled amazon app store (reasonable I suppose).
Otherwise, I buy a lot of stuff from amazon - I'm a loyal customer of theirs...
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I think the Amazon Appstore is a great alternative to the Android Market, but I'm glad we have both.
The Appstore is much more like Apple's App Store (and not just in name only). Amazon reviews and tests all applications, and if they don't work as advertised, are buggy, or have security issues, they get denied. One one hand, it's nice to know you can trust your app downloads, especially when there have been some rather notable security problems with Market apps.
On the other hand, there's nothing stopping Amazon from denying legitimate apps like Apple has a habit of doing. That said, I haven't seen any evidence they're doing that, and generally speaking I think Amazon is a rather trustworthy company (see the platform-agnostic Kindle software and their willingness to go toe-to-toe with record labels to give us Cloud access to our own music).
Oh, and ironically, the Appstore's search engine is about a bajillion times better than the Market's. I'll never understand why Google's Android Market search engine is so awful.
Of course, the free apps -- which are just discounted to $0 from the full price for a day, so they're handled exactly the same as a real purchase as far as updates go -- are just the cherry on top. But what a cherry. At first, I was worried they would just go the easy route and give out ****e apps. But that definitely hasn't been the case (with the exception of some "meh" games). In the slightly over two weeks the Appstore's been available, I've nabbed legitimately top-shelf apps like Shazam Encore, SoundHound Infinity, SwiftKey Keyboard, PicSay Pro, Wolfram Alpha, Weatherbug Elite, and a whole bunch of games, many of which are pretty darn good, like Fruit Ninja and Backbreaker Football. That's a lot of money saved (like $30 for apps I've listed here alone).
Amazon App store is GREAT
We need a second option from Google
I like how there aren't problems downloading apps and apps will correctly queue for download. With the Android market on 2.2 it will sit there and try to download multiple apps only to either error out on the download or do a continuous installing thing that you have to cancel anyway.
Darn I missed picsay!! How did that happen!!
One bad thing about Amazon...yesterday I went to play Angry Birds Rio, and it gave me an error saying that it didn't have a network connection to verify my purchase.
So if you are in Airplane mode, or don't have a connection, it sounds like the apps from Amazon won't run. Not an issue most of the time, but annoying nonetheless.
My morning ritual now involves checking the Amazon App Store.
does anyone know if you can transfer apps already purchased onto the same phone if we flash a new rom? i'm assuming you can, but the data saves might disappear
Apps can be installed on unlimited (I'm not sure about that, but I've got it going on 2) phones. Data might be transferable through Titanium but I've not actually tried.
ah cool. hopefully TiBU data restoring won't cause force closes because i know it sometimes does

[Q] Android viruses

Is anyone else concerned about the fact that Google found 50 apps with a Trojan virus?
I’m starting to wonder if I made a good move from the iPhone. It looks to me like the Android OS is quickly becoming the Windows of the mobile market.
Nope, no concern here unless you download any of those "SEXY" apps.
So they are not in the general apps/games? How do you know?
Bit of common sense helps, noticed one developer which put me off when looking at battery save apps, had the same app listed about 12 times all with different icons, I wonder why he wanted his app used
lots of different anti virus apps if you are worried about it.
Coming from iPhone I had a look at LookOut as the pro version is like everything I had from Apple - remote wipe, find phone etc etc.
Several other big name there as well like Norton, AGV, Kaspersky etc.
I have very little space and don't want to be bothered with virus apps and updates. I don't even use them on my PC. On the PC I just don't visit poker or porn sites. On the phone I only have the market option for my games so it should be trust worthy. I get what you mean about common sense but if a hacker wanted to they could simply make a cool free app for something as simple as camera enhancements and put a virus in it. Lots of people download free apps.
And that's where common sense makes its entrance. Unlike Windows, any malicious code ran in Android needs your consent to run.
Enviado desde mi R800i
Ok, Didn't know that.
There not viruses more like exploits. Like any OS I'm afraid.
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I'm pretty sure they said it was a download Trojan.
This is old news...Google already took em out and the market is safe and I think they already upgraded security? this is just assumption.
They can remove one and ten more replace it. It is a cat and mouse game really.

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