Android respawn horror: Hacker says hackers' phones hacked

Claims that both CDMA and 4G networks were compromised at the recent Defcon security event in Las Vegas have raised little surprise, but the vulnerability of handsets is hotly debated. The claim was made by coderman, a stalwart of security conferences, who reports that he witnessed an advanced man-in-the-middle attack …

[Anonymous Coward]

I see what you did there.

You stuck Android in the title, so idiots think this is all about Android, when it's actually about cellular networks...

It's it hate Google year this year or something? It's so hard to stay fashionable. Is Sony now cool again? Please tell me what to think..

Regards

A Moron

[Gordon 10]

Aptly named mr moron

The point was being made that although it was the network was being compromised - updates were made to android phones presumably because it supports OTA updates.

Still don't let your insecurities get in the way a good rant eh mr fanboi?

[Barry Tabrah]

Android has an opportunity here

Trying to get anything added to the iPhone or Windows phone is near impossible, and we won't even mention Symbian. However surely it should be relatively trivial to persuade Google to add a minimum security option to Android without too much effort. If you could prevent the phone from dropping to a lower encryption level, particularly in an environment where the phone never leaves a particular country, then that's all for the good, right?

[Dave Murray]

"the usually-desperate groups Anon and Lulz"

Are they big fans of Desparate Dan? Eat a lot of cow pies?

Or did you mean disparate?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think the right word was used

They are usually fairly desperate for attention...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dis pirate, dat pirate, dem hackers is all pirates!

Erm.... yarrrr?

[Naughtyhorse]

tres

droll

take the weekend off my man!

[Matt Brigden]

This isnt a hack

Android [device] at full charged plugged in, but dropping to <50% charge once unplugged . Thats a bug present in 2.3.4 . Once charged the phone turns off the charging circuit . Battery drains while the display reads 100% and the power plug icon . Unplug and it changes to whatevers left in the battery . Not so helpful for people who use the phone as a hotspot or gps device! .

[Destroy All Monsters]

Weird stuff

"He witnessed an advanced man-in-the-middle attack operating on both CDMA and UMTS networks and masterminded by an amalgam of Anon and Lulz."

I don't know why but this sentence caused dissociative disorder in my brain.

[Mark Greenwood]

Normal

All the things you describe happening are normal behaviour on my Android handset since new. I've never had a less reliable phone in my life.

[sabroni]

it's windows all over again..

...all the various oem flavours of android lead to lots of weird bugginess as manufacturers try to stamp their own branding and user interfaces on devices. Microsoft have this problem with windows, though now it's nothing like as bad as when they started out.

Saying that, the boy has what's supposed to be a vanilla version of Android on his San Francisco and it's still pretty flakey. It can't maintain a wifi connection when idle, for example...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...

Maybe the feds are after you?

[Wize]

"Android services that immediately respawn when killed"

That will be the Stocks app then. Has permission to do just about anything it wants and will not stay dead.

[brym]

Respawning apps

This happens already on my 1.6 Tattoo. Several apps restart on their own. Happens at least every night shortly after midnight, and usually about an hour or so after I've forced them closed with Astro. Mostly seems to affect apps wanting Internet access.

[MegaZone]

'The United States" doesn't call HSPA 4G

Don't paint us all with the same brush, just because some idiots at T-Mobile's marketing department, and to a lesser extent AT&T's, call HSPA '4G' in their ads doesn't mean all of us yanks call HSPA 4G. Some of us do know better. ;-)