Hacker’s App Automates Over-The-Shoulder iPad Spying

forbes.com
Shoulder surfing, the simple act of leering over a computer users’ shoulder to spy on passwords and other sensitive info, may not seem like the most advanced hacker trick. But when it comes to shoulder surfing Apple’s iPad, Haroon Meer has it down to a science.

Earlier this week, the South African security researcher announced that he’d built shoulderPad, an app for Mac OS, jailbroken iPhones and iPads that’s designed to auto-snoop on iPad users’ passwords by watching their touchscreen keyboards. Simply pretend to be fiddling with your phone or tablet a few meters away from an iPad user while he or she enters their PIN or password, and shoulderPad can uses your device’s camera to read and interpret the target’s keystrokes.

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Apple and Developers Sued Over Alleged 'Spying' Apps

prlog.org

Apple and several developers are facing two separate lawsuits filed for allegedly allowing apps on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch to gather information on users and allowing third-party advertisers access to personal information. The collection and unauthorized sharing of private user data was the subject of the first lawsuit, Freeman vs. Apple, filed in northern California federal court, which targets such applications as Pandora, Dictionary.com, the Weather Channel, Toss It, Text4Plus, Talking Tom Cat and Pimple Popper Lite.

The second lawsuit, Lalo vs. Apple, filed in Federal court in San Jose, CA, seeks a class-action status for anyone who has downloaded an allegedly offending app between December 2008 and last week. Lalo vs. Apple targets Pandora, Paper Toss, the Weather Channel and Dictionary.com. Apple wasn't the only party sued. The developers who made the aforementioned applications were also named in the lawsuits.

Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/apple-and-developers-sued-over-alleged/#ixzz19tDCnp3r

iPhone and Android Apps Breach Privacy

foxnews.com

Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name—even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off.

These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

An examination of 101 popular smartphone "apps"—games and other software applications

for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.

The findings reveal the intrusive effort by online-tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to flesh out detailed dossiers on them.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/18/apps-watching/#ixzz18ZIr0vyk

Bugged Phone Tripped Up Apple Leaker

srimeenakshimobiles.com
An employee at an Apple parts supplier has been caught on tape selling inside information [pdf] about Apple to a hedge fund broker. The information, potentially worth millions to the broker, was sold by Walter Shimoon for a mere $22,000. Shimoon has since been fired by camera and charger component maker Flextronics International, and was arrested by US law enforcement this morning. Among other things, he was recorded leaking sales information, details about the iPhone's cameras and about a mysterious product known only as "K48."

Shimoon, who played a role in contract negotiations with Apple, is alleged to have passed information via phone calls with clients of Primary Global Research, an expert-networking company based in California. One of the people he was talking to, however, was a government witness who was recording the phone calls. According to the recordings, Shimoon revealed third quarter 2009 sales figures for iPhones and fourth quarter 2009 sales figures for iPods during a phone call in October 2009. During this call, Shimoon also let drop the news that the 2010 iPhone would have two cameras. "We're working with them on the camera," Shimoon said, according to the complaint against him. "You know, they're very secretive."

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Apple boss charged with spying

techeye.net

Apple's secret police have discovered that a senior executive was filing secrets to East Asia and after questioning in Room 101 have dragged him to court to confess.

Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager at technology company Apple since 2005, has been charged in California with taking kickbacks he received after leaking corporate secrets to Asian companies that supplied iPhone and iPod accessories.

His name was given to the federal authorities by Jobs' Mob who is also suing him for receiving more than $1 million in payments and bribes over several years.

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What your phone app doesn't say: It's watching

(AP)

LAS VEGAS — Your smart phone applications are watching you — much more closely than you might like.

Lookout Inc., a mobile-phone security firm, scanned nearly 300,000 free applications for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and phones built around Google Inc.'s Android software. It found that many of them secretly pull sensitive data off users' phones and ship them off to third parties without notification.

That's a major concern that has been bubbling up in privacy and security circles.

The data can include full details about users' contacts, their pictures, text messages and Internet and search histories. The third parties can include advertisers and companies that analyze data on users.

The information is used by companies to target ads and learn more about their users. The danger, though, is that the data become vulnerable to hacking and use in identity theft if the third party isn't careful about securing the information.

Lookout reported its findings this week in conjunction with the Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas.

Lookout found that nearly a quarter of the iPhone apps and almost half the Android apps contained software code that contained those capabilities.

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You Too Can Have An iPad Spy Suit !

cg

"Q" meets Armani?

So you decided to jump on the bandwagon and buy an iPad. Now what? You can’t just slip it into your pocket like the rest of your electronics, but it just seems odd to carry it in a laptop bag. The iPad just doesn’t have a category so it’s trying to attempt to find the proper way to carry it around. Thankfully one suit maker is more than happy to create a custom suit that has a giant pocket on the inside just for your precious iPad.

Rush out and get yours Here