MasHD Blog

Boeing has announced a new Android smartphone called the Boeing Black with security and modular design in mind. The hardware and the software on the phone is built from the grounds up for securely storing and transmitting data especially for the US defense and security community. You get features like disk encryption, hardware root of trust, hardware crpto engine, embedded secure components, trusted platform modules and secure boot to safeguard your data. The phone will even go as far as to delete the data if it detects some is trying to br eak open the casing of the device. The design is also modular to some extent, so you can remove the back cover and attach various modules such as extended battery, satellite transceivers, advanced location tracking sensors, etc. On the specification side, the Boeing Black has a 4.3-inch, qHD display, 1.2GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, microSD card slot, dual SIM support, Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR, 1590mAh battery and an unspecified version of Andro...

The security-heavy Blackphone which was officially announced last month is now available for pre-order with a price tag of $629. Orders of the device will begin shipping in June. Developed by Silent Circle and Geeksphone, the Blackphone runs a heavily modified Android build called PrivatOS. The OS allows users to take full control of their communications’ privacy and security. A quick look at the listed specs of the Blackphone reveals that its pricing carries a notable premium for the added privacy and security features. They include 4.7” HD IPS display, 2GHz quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage, and 8MP camera. Connectivity options include LTE, HSPA+, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS. GSMArena

Apple has released a patch for its iOS mobile operating system, which runs on iPhones and iPads, after security researchers uncovered a major vulnerability that could allow hackers to intercept encrypted emails and other communications. The flaw, which was first identified by security firm Crowdstrike, meant that critical checks on the validity of a website’s security (SSL) certificate were overlooked when users tried to establish a secure connection. This meant that a hacker could potentially masquerade as a trusted site, such as Gmail or Facebook, and intercept encrypted traffic or modify the data in transit, in addition to breaching financial data or finding other sensitive information. "It's as bad as you could imagine, that's all I can say," Johns Hopkins University cryptography professor Matthew Green told Reuters. In a statement on its support website, Apple admitted that the software "failed to validate the authenticity of the connection". The ...

Google has been the subject of some protesting ire in San Francisco in recent times, something that resulted in one company bus being vandalized via slashed tires and a rock being thrown through a window. It seems the tech giant has responded to this in the form of bus stop-located security guards, which keep roost at employees' bus stop in San Francisco's Mission District area, and possibly others. Google has declined commenting on the matter, but reports have surfaced regarding men wearing plain clothes and ear pieces standing at one of the bus stops where Google employees board the company shuttle. These individuals reportedly don't board the shuttle, but instead remain present as the other company buses show up. Witnesses have reported seeing one bus driver wave to one of the individuals, receiving a wave back, and another has been seen writing notes on a yellow pad. The men were approached and asked if they are security guards for Google, at which point one reque...

One of the biggest problems in recent times is the digital surveillance by that invades our personal privacy. Well, with the upcoming smartphone named Blackphone, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Silent Circle in association with Geeksphone has announced Blackphone, which according to the firm is the world's first smartphone that gives you full control over your privacy. So, what platform does the smartphone run on? Blackphone is powered by a custom build security oriented operating system called PrivatOS that is based on the popular Android software. The new secured version of the Android OS allows you to receive phone calls, exchange texts, transfer and store files and video chat without having to compromise any of your data stored on the smartphone. The newest invention is said to be a result of several careers' worth of effort. Phil Zimmermann, who is one of the creators, said "I have spent my whole career working towards the launch of secure telephony products....

Three days before President Barack Obama will allegedly announce major changes to the NSA's surveillance programs, The New York Times has a story addressing one particularly controversial practice: intercepting laptops purchased online to insert bugs that can phone home — or even give remote access — to the US government. According to the Times, not only does that practice take place, but the bugs are now installed in nearly 100,000 computers around the world as part of a program code-named Quantum. However, the publication's government sources say they aren't being used inside the United States, but rather to spy on allleged Chinese and Russian military hacker groups, Mexican drug cartels, European "trade institutions," and alleged terrorists. Since the devices have their own radios, they can allegedly tap into computers that aren't connected to the internet. While officials reportedly told the Times that the devices are mainly intended for defense, their...

In yet another disclosure from Edward Snowden's pile of leaked NSA documents, The Washington Post has revealed that the US surveillance agency may be using Google's advertising cookies to track and "pinpoint" targets for government hacking and location-tracking. According to Snowden's leaked presentation slides, both the NSA and the British equivalent, the GCHQ, are using a Google-specific ad cookie (know as "PREF") as a way of honing in on specific surveillance targets. While Google's cookie doesn't contain personal information like a name or email address, it does contain numeric codes that uniquely identify a user's browser. That identifier reportedly helps the NSA and the GCHQ single out a specific machine and send out its software to hack Into the user's computer. Google's PREF cookie reportedly gets loaded onto a computer when they use Google's products, like Search or Maps — it can also be loaded through sites that host...

Back in the dark days of March 2012, we told you about Nokia's patent application for a removable ferromagnetic ink tattoo that would send you haptic feedback whenever your phone receives a call. Different callers could be tied to different vibration patterns so that you could tell who is calling without having to look at your phone. Now, Motorola has received a patent for a similar, but functionally different idea. Motorola's idea is to place a skin tattoo sticker on your neck to be used as a microphone, sending signals to your Motorola Moto X or the latest version of the Motorola DROID. The microphone would be able to send a clearer sound to your handset as it would eliminate background noise. The tattoo would come with its own transceiver, antenna, microphone and signal processor. For some reason not explained, the tattoo would also come with a screen even though the placement of the sticker would preclude you from looking at it. The Moto sticker tattoo will also have a po...

A CNET reporter recently tracked down the meaning and nature of a barge moored to Treasure Island, a former Navy base in San Francisco Bay. The barge, which has been built up with shipping containers to resemble a floating, mostly windowless, four-story building, largely matches a Google patent for a floating data center filed in 2009. The investigative report corroborates widespread suspicions the secretive project realizes that patent. The evidence is tantalizing. Late last year, a company named By and Large started working on the project inside Hangar 3 of Treasure Island. That company is widely believed to be a subsidiary of Google, as evidenced by local witnesses spotting Google-identified employees working in relation to the Hangar 3 project, along with reporter Daniel Terdiman’s contact with By and Large and Google employees. The 250-foot long, 72-foot wide, 16-foot deep barge can be viewed via Google Maps and in person, even though the construction site is cordoned off by...

It doesn’t matter if you’re a parent or a pet owner, one of the things that both groups want to do is keep track of their kids and their pet. A company called Wonder Technology Solutions has launched a new product called the Trax: GPS Tracker for Children & Pets. The smart device works in conjunction with an app on your smartphone or tablet allowing you to locate your kid or your pet anytime from anywhere. The Trax sensor is able to provide indoor navigation capability and precision real-time outdoor tracking. The Trax sensor is durable and enclosed in a waterproof silicone case able to withstand drops, accidental washing machine trips, water, mud, snow, and other environmental factors. Trax sends push alerts to connected devices when a child or pet leaves a designated area. The sensor will also alert users when the battery is low or if the device is dropped or exceeds a predetermined speed. The GPS tracker is located using a free application that features real-time tracking, s...

Researchers at the Stanford Security Laboratory have discovered a series of security vulnerabilities in the sensor arrays endemic to most smartphones. They found that accelerometers, speakers and microphones can all be uniquely identified with specific devices, functioning the same way cookies do except they cannot currently be turned off. The security vulnerability in accelerometers—the tiny motion detectors found in most mobile devices—lies in the fact that each one has unique imperfections that differ from device to device. A website can read an accelerometer’s motion, identify its “fingerprint”, and assign it a tag which the website can store on its own servers, allowing it to track the device. The method may or may not already be in use by any advertising companies, spy agencies, or other parties, but the fact that the Stanford team has discovered it means it is likely that others have discovered the weakness. There is currently no mass-produced way to delete or mask the ide...

Just yesterday, we got hold of some leaked photos of the upcoming Pantech Vega Note. That smartphone has become official today and we’re discovering that the stylus-enabled Pantech Vega Secret Note sports some rather intriguing features indeed. It is unsurprising that the Pantech Vega Secret Note runs on a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. However, it comes with a RAM size of 3 GB, which is not that common but is quite in line with its rival, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. And indeed, this device also sports an almost similar looking stylus which Pantech calls, unsurprisingly, the V Pen. The Vega Secret Note does sport a larger 5.9-inch display that still keeps the 1920×1080 Full HD resolution. It sports a 13 megapixel camera at the back and a 2 megapixel one on the front. It has 32 GB of storage but, quite surprisingly, also has USB host mode right off the bat, giving it access to external storage capacities of up to 2 TB. Of course, the Pantech Vega Secret Note’s utt...

Well, it looks Samsung is following in HTC’s footsteps and finding ways to make it hard for users to root and flash custom software on its devices. According to well-known developer Chainfire, the Galaxy Note 3 comes with eFUSE technology for the KNOX security suite. What is eFUSE? Well, it’s a technology that allows reprogramming a read-only memory chip in real-time, even though such chips come with hard-coded code that cannot be generally changed after manufacturing. When flashing unofficial software on the device, the status of the system and KNOX is switched to CUSTOM while increasing a binary flash counter, which helps Samsung find out whether the device has been tampered with. However, while Chainfire’s TriangleAway app has let users switch the status back to official and reset the flash counter until now, the KNOX status is based on eFUSE – basically, once you flash custom kernels or root the Note 3, the KNOX code gets rewritten, and this constitutes hardware damage. Apparen...

Fame has its price, making you a bigger target than the kid down the street, as exemplified by this latest demonstration involving the newly released iPhone 5s and its much advertised fingerprint sensor. Hackers from Germany’s Chaos Computing Club (CCC) have shown how they were able to deceive Apple’s latest security feature into believing they’re someone they’re not. Apple‘s iPhone 5s, which just became available in stores last Friday, features a new biometrics-based security system that involves analyzing a user’s fingerprint and using that to unlock the phone. You can read up on how the technology works, as well as our overall impressions of the iPhone 5s, in our detailed review. While Apple is hardly the first to introduce such a security system, the iPhone 5s is probably the first to distribute it to such a massive market. Naturally, not everyone is happy about it or even believes that the technology is a more secure alternative. CCC member Starbug released a video as well as ...

As shipment numbers have shown many times, vast quantities of the technology-using public own or have owned an Android smartphone or an Android tablet, and as such have used Google’s operating system to log onto their own and likely other WiFi networks. What isn’t so commonly known is that those WiFi passwords are stored by Google as part of its backup feature, giving Google the passwords to many of the world’s wireless networks. As the folks over at Computerworld point out, this feature isn’t widely known because it is bundled in with Android’s settings backup feature, and until recently, it was never mentioned that WiFi passwords were parts of the backup feature. In Android 4.2, the feature under Settings > Backup and reset then lists WiFi passwords as part of the data that is stored, but earlier versions merely say “Back up my data” or “Back up my settings.” One can find out what precisely is being backed up by digging into the Users Guide Google makes available, but such i...

According to a set of secretive documents reportedly authored by the NSA and delivered to the public by Der Spiegel, the security agency is or has been able to access vital data on three of the world’s most popular operating systems with relative ease. These documents suggest that Apple iPhones, Google Android devices, and BlackBerry devices are all able to be tapped by the NSA. These documents suggest that NSA taps of these devices are able to reveal “most sensitive data” including SMS traffic, location information, notes, and contact lists. It’s important to note that Der Spiegel suggests that their data does not point to widespread hacking of smartphones by the NSA. They say that these documents suggest targeted, “individually tailored” cases of smartphone tapping, generally “without the knowledge of smart phone companies.” This would indicate that BlackBerry, Google, and Apple had nothing to do with it, so to speak. This program spoken of by the NSA suggests that the iPhone i...

People sending email to any of Google's 425 million Gmail users have no "reasonable expectation" that their communications are confidential, the internet giant has said in a court filing. Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that uncovered the filing, called the revelation a "stunning admission." It comes as Google and its peers are under pressure to explain their role in the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of US citizens and foreign nationals. "Google has finally admitted they don't respect privacy," said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director. "People should take them at their word; if you care about your email correspondents' privacy, don't use Gmail." Google set out its case last month in an attempt to dismiss a class action lawsuit that accuses the tech giant of breaking wire tap laws when it scans emails sent from non-Google accounts in order to target ads to Gmail user...

If you recall, earlier this month the encrypted email service Lavabit abruptly shutdown, killing the service for over 400,000 users in one swoop. Following that, another encrypted email service run by Silent Circle was preemptively shutdown. Although Ladar Levison, the creator of Lavabit, is under a gag order that prevents him from talking about the particulars of the situation, he isn’t keeping silent on the matter. Lavabit, an encrypted email service that has been around for many years, shutdown on August 8 with a note on the home page from its founder stating that he’d been entangled in a legal issue for weeks before the decision, and that he was not authorized to discuss what it concerned. He did say, however, that he made the decision to shut down the service to avoid being “complicit in crimes against the American people.” He wrapped it up with a rather ominous warning that users should avoid trusting their private data to US corporations. Although he still has not given any ...

Philips kind of blew our minds with the hue, which is an LED lightbulb that can be controlled with your smartphone or computer. Of course, though, there had to be a catch, and it seems like that catch is that the lightbulb is easily hackable, allowing users with a dark mind to put the lights out on an unsuspecting Philips hue owner. How does the hack work, exactly? Research by Nitesh Dhanjani reveals that hue’s control system uses a less-than-secure authentication system that’s used to communicate with devices in order to turn on and off lights. How secure is this authentication system? Well, it just uses the MAC address, which is highly easy to breach into. All it takes is a little bit of malware to be installed into the control system and hackers will be able to reveal the lightbulb’s MAC address. From there, they can turn the lightbulb on and off without having the owner’s device on hand. Of course, the hack won’t steal any personal information (unless you store your personal i...

Almost every phone in existence uses a SIM card, especially GSM-based devices. It turns out, that while SIM cards are encrypted, they can easily be breached with just a couple of text messages, and it apparently takes only a couple of minutes. The hack allows someone to listen in on calls and steal mobile data from a phone The hack consists of cloaking a text message so that it looks like it was sent from the carrier, and about a quarter of the time, an error message is sent back containing information about the SIM card that can be used to break into it. After that, another text can be sent that officially finishes the job, allowing hackers into your phone. Security researcher Karsten Nohl of Security Research Labs discovered the exploit and says that up to 750 million handsets could be vulnerable to the hack. However, he notes that only SIM cards using older data encryption methods are at risk, while SIM cards using the newer Triple DES encryption are safe. Out of all the mob...