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Apparently, there has been a compromise at HTC or Vodaphone. There are rumors on the web that a Vodaphone “HTC Magic” came pre-installed with multiple malware programs. How would someone slip a file onto a phone before it enters an end user’s hands? Any way you look at it, this seems like a hack.

A quick analysis of the malware reveals that it is in fact a Mariposa bot client.

Every android phone *can* be plugged into any PC or Mac via USB. Under windows it works just like any other insert digital medium (CD, DVD, Flash Drive). Upon being plugged in, it opens the folder and executes the file specified in autorun.ini. This would be the vector a bot herder/malware researcher would use to launch it’s “spread” and stay infected. As long as nobody notices the files on the phones, users would just keep getting re-infected every time they plug in their phone to download their photos. One speculation that may be responsible is: “the SD card” since all that someone would need to do is put “files” in the root of the SD card for them to execute. So the question might be instead be: “How would someone slip a file onto a flash card before it’s inserted into a phone?”.

Interestingly enough, the Mariposa bot is not the only malware I found on the Vodafone HTC Magic phone. There’s also a Confiker and a Lineage password stealing malware.

Why did it take so long for a person to notice malware on the phone? The HTC Magic is one of the most popular smart-phones in the UK. In the US, T-mobile branded this product as the “myTouch 3G“, and that phone has a massive pop. Where is the supporting evidence on the phone? The only “proof” we have so far is a few windows screen shots. I’m intrigued by this and it will be interesting to see what comes to light. I’ll keep you updated when I hear more.

In a move to stop CPU waste from processing bloated content, Virgin Airlines has trash-canned all of their FLASH content. I commend them on this move; someone needed to start the movement. Flash is bloated. End of story. There is no standard, there is no open source, and there is no relief. As soon as you start adding flash to a site, you’ve degraded the ability of the browser.

“Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy… Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash…The world is moving to HTML5.” — Wired

(HAHA!). But flash has it’s place, it is the best medium to deliver video on a web page and play web-games.

Hopefully, HTML5 can fix the web game problem.

Adding my own flavor to this post:

Over the technology years, flash has been metaphorically turned into a baseball bat by business owners and web publishers. This proverbial baseball bat has been beaten across every web developer’s face (repeatedly) for the last 11 years and there hasn’t been anything that the developers can do about it. You MUST specialize in flash, to make flash.

New personal hero: Ravi Simhambhatla

He has some sweet open source ideals as well.

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

So hilarious but; your own hope at remaining off the web…

[thanks SD]

A launch promotion for ‘Assasin’s creed 2: multiplayer’ is going on now at the iTunes store. You can grab this game free for 48 hours here on iTunes.

Assassin’s Creed 2: Multiplayer, an exclusive game for iPhone & iPod touch and the first game in the series that allows you to compete against your friends.

Features:

LIVE MULTIPLAYER ACTION
Assassin’s Creed 2: Multiplayer is a REAL-TIME ONLINE multiplayer game using a WI-FI connection letting you compete against up to 3 other player- controlled assassins.

KILL OR GET KILLED
The ultimate goal of the game is to hunt down other players and assassinate them before they kill you.

BLEND IN THE CROWD
Escape other players taking advantage of your environments & blending into the crowd of citizens.

MULTIPLE ENVIRONMENTS
Play in 3 different environments from Assassin’s Creed 2 inspired by Italian cities from the Renaissance.

LETHAL POWER-UPS
Use up to 6 different power-ups to get an edge over your opponents.

BECOME THE MASTER ASSASSIN
Increase your notoriety by defeating other players, and fight your way up to the top to become the Master Assassin. The notoriety system uses a dynamic ranking system to position you on the leaderboards.

ACHIEVEMENTS
Collect up to 24 achievements and post your records on Facebook.

CHALLENGE YOUR FRIENDS
Manage your list of friends and send them live invitations to join your game sessions and find out who amongst you is THE best assassin.

This looks kind of fun. Get it, load it up, and hit me up for some game.

Good news! I’ve been working a lot on my site features recently. Today I’ve included an update that adds 47 languages to the entire site. To select a different language, scroll to the bottom and click the appropriate flag (this will probably move to the top). Site page translation is an ongoing process so it may be slow at first. Page requests also include Google translator for instant page translation.

Oh, heads up!

I’m in the process of starting a new web hosting solution for my friends, family, and colleagues. The service is dedicated to providing quick  customer support response times and easy to use web hosting tools (this alleviates headaches of most hosting providers). Starting out, I will be the sole person managing the servers, applications, and support. Your questions, comments and concerns will go straight to me. The best part about this service is that I can now offer you any web related service (ruby on rails, postgresql, ad serving, social network integration, endless etc.).  If you would like some solid, secure, and highly customizable hosting on my managed dedicated servers then please contact me at fantomstranger.net. Keep an eye out here for web hosting discounts by subscribing to the fantom-stranger.com facebook fanpage.