Database Users

Mobile Security Awareness

Dear all,
I am a Network Security Professional and I read numerous mobile technology blogs on a regular basis. I am dismayed at the total carelessness of most mobile technology users.
We all know the spill...most people adopt technology that they are not even remotely familiar with for the same reason people drive cars as long as it starts and has 4 wheels.
Kudos to all of these freelance developers out there providing these we so much enjoy. But who is regulating these folks? Check and balance, right!
You have just downloaded your favorite custom ROM by "El Supremo" (fictional)...who is spotchecking his ROM for possible malware?
Would you know if the custom ROM installed on your phone contains a "keylogger"?
Would you know if someone is using your phone as a listening device?
Would you know if all those confidential notes and messages you typed on your phone are being uploaded to someone's else server?
Do you know the difference between "whitehat" hacker vs a "blackhat" hacker?
I am all for creativity and innovation. However, it remains my primary responsibility to inform my fellow mobile tech aficionados about the existing security risks they face out there.
On your downtime, peruse the mobile security blogs and read for yourself. You will be blown away.
Check and balance.
Beware!

ma2ga said:
Dear all,
I am a Network Security Professional and I read numerous mobile technology blogs on a regular basis. I am dismayed at the total carelessness of most mobile technology users.
We all know the spill...most people adopt technology that they are not even remotely familiar with for the same reason people drive cars as long as it starts and has 4 wheels.
Kudos to all of these freelance developers out there providing these we so much enjoy. But who is regulating these folks? Check and balance, right!
You have just downloaded your favorite custom ROM by "El Supremo" (fictional)...who is spotchecking his ROM for possible malware?
Would you know if the custom ROM installed on your phone contains a "keylogger"?
Would you know if someone is using your phone as a listening device?
Would you know if all those confidential notes and messages you typed on your phone are being uploaded to someone's else server?
Do you know the difference between "whitehat" hacker vs a "blackhat" hacker?
I am all for creativity and innovation. However, it remains my primary responsibility to inform my fellow mobile tech aficionados about the existing security risks they face out there.
On your downtime, peruse the mobile security blogs and read for yourself. You will be blown away.
Check and balance.
Beware!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perhaps i am naive, although i do beleive that such people exist, i do not beleive them to be the people who cook the roms that i use. There are some great people on XDA i would never expect that from them.
There is also a large community of people on here who are knowledgeable, and i would think if your concern were valid it would have been spotted and handled by our wonderful moderators.

I agree with the previous poster. There are trusted developers and trusted ones as well. I believe the people here at XDA are of the trusted type. They have the know-how to catch that sort of thing. I would be more worried about ROMS that the carriers come out with (stiffling useful features, remote deleting of applications, location logging, etc).

KharmaKills said:
I agree with the previous poster. There are trusted developers and trusted ones as well. I believe the people here at XDA are of the trusted type. They have the know-how to catch that sort of thing. I would be more worried about ROMS that the carriers come out with (stiffling useful features, remote deleting of applications, location logging, etc).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah agree .. Right now the biggest invasion of privacy in the mobile phone world is , Android's and Iphone's, remote delete function ...
Not sure I want to give that power away to the OS provider .....

Cyanogen Hijacked?!

I read online that Cyanogen got hijacked, went to check it out.. And apparently it's true!
Some idiot they trusted held the site for ransom and now they're moving to cyanogen.org
This is taken from http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/psa-transition-to-cyanogenmod-org
We at CM are very trusting of our members, showed by both respect and permissions granted to those people we consider part of the team. Last month, this trust was violated in a substantial way. In the spirit of openness, here is what happened.
CM’s history is well established, with Cyanogen releasing his original ROM for the G1 on XDA forums. Back then, there was no “CyanogenMod” in terms of the organization and structure that we have today. The builds were hosted on Steve’s personal machine, the original server was a donation of spare kit from Phaseburn. And due to the small size (and lack of funds), the CyanogenMod.com domain was bought by a third-party back in 2009 and donated to CM, when CM was a much smaller project and had no online presence besides XDA.
Fast-forward 3 years, we have 3 extremely powerful build boxes donated by the community and an army of developers, contributors, and supported devices. But, a little over a week ago, things took a bad turn. The person owning the CyanogenMod.com domain was caught impersonating Steve to make referral deals with community sites. When confronted and asked to hand over control of the domain amicably, he decided he wanted 10K USD for it, which we won’t (and can’t) pay.
We contacted those he had established deals with, only to discover that the person tasked with maintaining our web presence was setting up deals under the CM name, and impersonating Cyanogen himself. Plenty of satisfying evidence was provided by those sites / entities to make us certain that this wasn’t a misunderstanding or one-time thing.
This leaves us at a critical impasse. Being trusted with CM’s web presence means this member had control over the CM social network accounts (Twitter/FB) as well as domains (cyanogenmod.com). We have changed ownership of the social media accounts. When asked again to make the transition nicely, he responded with the following
“Hi, so you think by removing all my access across the infrastructure was going to be a great idea? We had a chat yesterday, you’ve decided to end this bitter. How about I just change the DNS entries right now. CM will practically go down.”
Refusing to be extorted for funds, and then being threatened is “ending it bitter”? Today, it happened: all of our records were deleted, and cyanogenmod.com is slowly expiring out of the Internet and being replaced by blank pages and non-existing sites. @cyanogenmod.com e-mail is now being directed to a mailserver completely out of our control, too.
We have begun the dispute process with ICANN to reclaim our domain. In the meantime, please utilize CyanogenMod.org and all applicable subdomains.
As mentioned, this member also managed our Google Apps for Business account, and therefore our @cyanogenmod.com email addresses. These addresses should be considered discontinued until further notice. We will be contacting the Google team to reclaim rights to the apps account. In the meantime, please contact [email protected] for any devrel questions or other issues. A mailserver is being established to transition devrel and other support email addresses. We will provide those when they are finalized, and they will utilize the .org domain.
We don’t like how this played out, and we are deeply hurt. Likewise, we are deeply saddened at the confusion this may have caused the community. We will continue to be open about the what, when, how, but unfortunately, we may never know the ‘why’ – though greed comes to mind. The team itself has not made a profit off of CM and that is not our goal. But to have one of our own betray the community like this is beyond our comprehension. We will update you all as things progress.
Know that we are pursuing every available legal means to regain control over our domain.
Please note, all donations that were given directly to Cyanogen (aka [email protected]) did indeed reach their destination and are not affected.
If you are a company out there that believes they have also entered into agreements with “CM” by this person impersonating Steve, please contact [email protected]. We’d like to get a handle on how widespread this was before we file charges.
-The CyanogenMod Team
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Ah.. Nvm.. Got sorted apparently.. See below xD
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/domain-situation-has-been-resolved
Domain situation has been resolved
November 15th, 2012
Cyanogen
82
(ciwrl wrote this, I’m just posting on his behalf so this is resolved)
So earlier today we put up a post on what prompted us to transition to our new CyanogenMod.org domain. We refrained from identifying the ex-member out of respect for his privacy and career outside of CM. Suffice it to say you guys aren’t slouches, and figured it out on your own.
With that said, the ex-member in question contacted us and has agreed to hand over control of the CyanogenMod.com domain. This was done as amicably as these things can be, and CM did not pay the fee he requested.
We will still be using CyanogenMod.org as our primary domain, and the .com address will simply redirect to this new domain. Ironically enough, ‘.org’ is better than ‘.com’ as we are not a commercial entity, and is far more in line with how CyanogenMod is structured.
We received a common question, that we’d like to take a moment to answer. Some of you contacted us mentioning that you had previously donated to a different address. When the forum began, up until about 3 months ago, the forum utilized this other address as the mechanism for forum donations and establishment of the ‘Donator’ badge. Donations made to this address prior to three months ago were used for the CyanogenMod forum IPB licence and forum related costs and were not misappropriated.
On a side note, we have also gone through internal restructuring to make sure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. Nobody has control over everything, and there is no longer such a large single-point of failure. Our lessons have been learned.
We ask that you please not perform any vigilante actions, we do not condone any such thing; just let this fade.
We want to move on, get you the builds you expect from us, and not mess around with distractions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Wow. Some people...

Cheap marketing for your app with @Apps_and_Game

Heya guys, im here to share some news with you all.
I started working with a Marketing Company a month ago, and one of their branches does marketing services for Apps and Games developers, specially for Indies... They have a big community in Instagram with over 20.000 users, being one of the biggest Apps Page on Instagram, their page is called @apps_and_Game.
I proposed to my Boss to do a special offer to our community developers since im from this community and so on, I've found it usefull and could be useful for you guys as well, to shoutout about your games and projects... but more important than that, to do it CHEAPLY.
From my personal point of view as a Game Developer, I've found this Advertising option incredibly good for us around here, specially for mobile developers.... why?
-Instagram is a Mobile Social Network... This means if the user is checking the @apps_and_Game page, and reading about your game, they are doing it through their mobile devices, and if they like your App they will directly download it since they have the device on hand! Its a different effect than getting the advertising while surfing on their PCs.... People are more likely to jump to the Appstores and get the app they just saw in the palm of their hands, even if its awesome or kinda good since there is no need of a big effort.
- Instagram is a combination of Visual and Textual Advertising (since you publish pictures and images) but also text and information can be added, so its a quick method to catch attention of any kind of public.... and you can even ask to publish videos of your app!
- Followers are from your niche.... This means that if you like a page on instagram, you click to "Follow that page", that way the 20k+ community they have on @apps_and_Game are all people that are APP HUNGRY, they want to receive news about...well, apps and games to install them right away
- But the most important... Its economical dude. When i was in my pursuit to advertise my game i found tough options, coming from 50$ to up to 500$ to get a featuring, which is a hard investment when you are starting on this business, but this guys have friendly prices for developers, and much more with the nice discounts i proposed for our community, being as low as 5$ for publishing and talking once about your Product, and you can repeat it as many times as you might need, adapting your strategy to your budget since they show different prices and offers.
Hope this info is useful for you guys, ill also keep you informed around here the following weeks!

I've seen this work well with Instagram and Vine influencers extremely well. However it's more for LIfestyle/Social apps, but still another channel that definitely is underutilized.

GarrettThalamus said:
I've seen this work well with Instagram and Vine influencers extremely well. However it's more for LIfestyle/Social apps, but still another channel that definitely is underutilized.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats pretty accurated! by other side , we have looked and performed to have followers from an active gaming niche as well, thanks to the partnering with other influencers and to the hashtags smart strategy.

I am interested. How to get connected with you?

[email protected] said:
I am interested. How to get connected with you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Feel free to send an email to [email protected]
Add basic information of what you want to promote so they can reply you with the plans and packages

joraanpe said:
Heya guys, im here to share some news with you all.
I started working with a Marketing Company a month ago, and one of their branches does marketing services for Apps and Games developers, specially for Indies... They have a big community in Instagram with over 20.000 users, being one of the biggest Apps Page on Instagram, their page is called @apps_and_Game.
I proposed to my Boss to do a special offer to our community developers since im from this community and so on, I've found it usefull and could be useful for you guys as well, to shoutout about your games and projects... but more important than that, to do it CHEAPLY.
From my personal point of view as a Game Developer, I've found this Advertising option incredibly good for us around here, specially for mobile developers.... why?
-Instagram is a Mobile Social Network... This means if the user is checking the @apps_and_Game page, and reading about your game, they are doing it through their mobile devices, and if they like your App they will directly download it since they have the device on hand! Its a different effect than getting the advertising while surfing on their PCs.... People are more likely to jump to the Appstores and get the app they just saw in the palm of their hands, even if its awesome or kinda good since there is no need of a big effort.
- Instagram is a combination of Visual and Textual Advertising (since you publish pictures and images) but also text and information can be added, so its a quick method to catch attention of any kind of public.... and you can even ask to publish videos of your app!
- Followers are from your niche.... This means that if you like a page on instagram, you click to "Follow that page", that way the 20k+ community they have on @apps_and_Game are all people that are APP HUNGRY, they want to receive news about...well, apps and games to install them right away
- But the most important... Its economical dude. When i was in my pursuit to advertise my game i found tough options, coming from 50$ to up to 500$ to get a featuring, which is a hard investment when you are starting on this business, but this guys have friendly prices for developers, and much more with the nice discounts i proposed for our community, being as low as 5$ for publishing and talking once about your Product, and you can repeat it as many times as you might need, adapting your strategy to your budget since they show different prices and offers.
Hope this info is useful for you guys, ill also keep you informed around here the following weeks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope it helps

This one's useless
The majority of their subscribers are bots, you can see it from the likes amount on all the posts being incredibly low.

keenmobi said:
The majority of their subscribers are bots, you can see it from the likes amount on all the posts being incredibly low.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bots? how can u say that by the likes? engagement comes from content type, not from users amount... and if it was the case, still an average of 600likes and more than 4k views in videos for only 5$ per post is WAY TOO ECONOMICAL for any developer, a single instal costs around 2$ depending the country so do your maths my friend

I do understand all that instagram thing, the average likes per subs percentage is around 5% however yours one is 10 times lower. But yeah perhaps it still provides a bit of effect to your client.
I didn't intend to post more negative things, don't know why you are willing to continue this discussion.

keenmobi said:
I do understand all that instagram thing, the average likes per subs percentage is around 5% however yours one is 10 times lower. But yeah perhaps it still provides a bit of effect to your client.
I didn't intend to post more negative things, don't know why you are willing to continue this discussion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im not continuing the "discussion" im just replying your post because it did seem as a negative post and may affect an honest business reputation, specially if coming from you under a -dont really understand the instagram thing- state, just chill! Only making sure things are clear enough im sure you might understand hehe

Best Type Of Ad To Promote Mobile Apps

Best type of ad to promote mobile apps
When advertising your app to other countries start from the grass roots level which is pinpointing the countries which you will advertise first. This is important so will have a much clearer picture on who you would will to sell you app to.
Once you establish the list of countries the next thing that you should do is to localize your app. English may be the medium where individuals from different countries understand each other but what else could you do to attract more people to your app? Incorporate their local language in your app. Not all people can thoroughly understand English and are drawn to pay more attention to things that they could understand.
Now after doing all those things, you need to find a DSP (demand side platform) which has self-serve RTB(real time bidding) capabilities like Bluagile and start creating mobile web and in app campaigns. This is the most affordable, convenient and efficient way to run your campaigns. Using a DSP lets you connected with more or less 30 differennt ad exchages which means accessing more traffic than you can ever imagine over 200 countries worldwide. The cost wouldn't be a problem since it's a self-serve RTB you can bid whichever rate you would think would be best suitable for the campaign. Another great thing about this is that they have a brand safe inventory which is accessible through static banners. DSPs usually providereportings on their platform which is far better than getting separate reports from various blogs, article and sites. Creating a buzz in the world wide web is the best way to get more people interested in something new and investing in CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) is the perfect fit to achieve that goal.
To sum it all up, you're creating a mobile campaign using static banners to ensure bot free traffic at a very cheap and affordable cost and you can view the reportings on one area which is very convenient. Learn more about Bluagile by visiting the site:
bluagile . com

Dear colleagues!
In this text below, I want to warn you about the scam danger from "Advertze" company.
We signed the traffic purchase agreement, made the prepayment of $2000 and after that Advertze disappeared.
I'll give you a summary of the situation that happened while negotiating with Advertze.
Our company, Hotger, is the user of MyMediaAds platform, which was the reason of finding and choosing Advertze.
We contacted Aaron Lopez, a manager of the company and the dialogue was started right away.
We have signed the document and received signed invoice for $2000. We did the payment for this invoice by bank transfer and sent the Swift payment confirmation, then we asked them to confirm the payment receiving. After that our partners disappeared, no one answered the phone or email.
We decided to contact Advertze the other way. Our manager added Aaron Lopez( the one who disappeared after payment) on skype. He answered surprisingly quick, started asking about work details and about prepayment!during the discussion Aaron Looez asked for email address. Because we all have same domain it was probably familiar to him. As soon as he saw the email address Aaron disappeared within 2 minutes and deleted our manager from skype and never contacted us again.
This second situation left no doubt, that Advetze is a scam company. They steal not only money but your precious work time.
This is why we want to spread this information as much as possible. Dear colleagues, our company Hotger is warning you, to avoid any contact with Advertze company. Beware of scammers never discuss any prepayments. We, Hotger company, strongly believe that this text should be spread as much as possible in order to avoid the same situation that happened to us.
Wishing you peace, happiness and good honest partnerships.

Calling LOS ANGELES Android/Samsung Users

Hey folks,
Long time user (and prior to that, long time lurker) on these forums - but today, I'm posting with a random, unusual request.
I'm trying to find Android fans in Los Angeles who may be available to help me with a little TV filming this coming Monday (26th June).
Long story short - my day job is as a TV reporter in Los Angeles.. I work for a global news channel called CGTN America (we broadcast out of Washington DC, Beijing and Nairobi to around about 1.2 billion homes worldwide.. including in the US on cable and satellite, though most of our viewers tend to come internationally)..
Since I'm a huge tech-head, I'm filming a story to go out later this week on ten years of the iPhone. But I want to make it different. What often happens with these stories is some networks get reporters who know nothing about technology to do them, and you end up with something that is just saying 'the iPhone is the most amazing device ever invented.'
Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on, it is an amazing device. And it did have a revolutionary impact. But there is so much to the story other than that.
One of the angles I really want to explore is the battle between iOS and Android. The way that the iPhone almost set the lines for a war. You see it on forums like this and XDA and Apple-related forums - people trying to outdo each other.. and people getting really irate as they nail their colors to the mast of their OS of choice.
I wondered if there may be some Android fans in the LA area who I could meet up with on Monday, if we can arrange a convenient time and we film a little sequence (details of which, I'm still to work out in my head) but talking about the iOS vs Android wars. This may be just Android users or it may an Android user and an iPhone user both debating what's best about their relevant OS.
It's still a germ of an idea. But I wanted to throw it out there and hope it gets seen over the weekend.
I'm gonna post this over on Android Central as well to try to maximize the number of people who see it and also on the General Android Chat Forum here. The reason for the double post is that in my experience, the real ire is often between Samsung and Apple fans (reflecting the companies, almost) and so there may be people in that board that this really appeals to..
Anyway, please do reply to me on here, or via DM, or via twitter @phillavelle.
Thanks for looking and have a great day!
Phil

Hi Phil,
I’d be happy to offer some of my time to you forthis endeavor. I’ve lurked on these forums since long before iOS or Android even existed. If you are indeed serious about this I can provide you with my full name which you can then quickly google to see my credentials.
I can play either side of the discussion as I have been a mobile technology consultant for about two decades and have owned (and still own and use both iOS and Android) devices from all major manufacturers.
- Luca

atomic.flip said:
Hi Phil,
I’d be happy to offer some of my time to you forthis endeavor. I’ve lurked on these forums since long before iOS or Android even existed. If you are indeed serious about this I can provide you with my full name which you can then quickly google to see my credentials.
I can play either side of the discussion as I have been a mobile technology consultant for about two decades and have owned (and still own and use both iOS and Android) devices from all major manufacturers.
- Luca
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Luca, yes please, that would be great..

Thread closed.
This is a duplicate of this one below you already posted in General discussion > Off-topic:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/ge...droid-fans-t3626634/post72789901#post72789901
So, please continue the discussion in the above linked thread.
This is not allowed to post twice (or more) the same message on XDA by forum rule #5:
5. Create a thread or post a message only once.
As a large forum, we don't need unnecessary clutter. You're free to edit your message as you like, so if you do not receive an answer, revisit your message and see if you can describe your problem better. Not everyone is online at the same time so it might take a while before you receive an answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Full list of the rules here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/announcement.php?a=81
Thank you for your understanding.
Regards,
Wood Man
Forum Moderator