Free stuff, TVs, and hacking

Free stuff, TVs, and hacking

If you use email and the internet then you will have been bombarded with offers for free stuff. These offers take various forms, but the most common one is the chance to win something for free, where your chances increase with the more friends you get involved with and then there are the mandatory pages of offers that you need to say "no" to, in order to complete the application.

In almost every case these offers serve two purposes: a greater range of emails and contacts for the owner of the competition based on how many friends you involve and your details being sent to everyone on the "no" list. Every time I have filled one of these out within a day I have received calls from at least a few of those companies on the list although I had declined their offers. So if you are a real friend and want to go for the free goods then don't involve your friends and remember that "no" may not mean what you think it does. As a general rule if they say it's free and you have to jump through hoops to get it done, then remember that excessive use of your time is hardly free either.

Remember those Samsung TVs that capture what you say and then send it via an encrypted network? According to the security company Pen Test Partners that encrypted bit is more like "clear". Inspecting the network to see what was being sent the company did find at least one positive. For the moment the TV only sends what is said after the wake up command is given, so it is not always in record mode. Now for the bad news, the destination server receives the data in plain text, so it is not in fact encrypted, not even via SSL, though it is sent over what should be a typically encrypted channel. This oversight allows for easy man-in-the-middle attacks to mess with both incoming and outgoing data. So yes, in a sense, your TV is spying on you.

On the subject of hacking, Kaspersky has found a major hack aimed at financial institutions. The culprit is the malware known as Carbanak. Like the example of Stuxnet before it, the software was carried in by unsuspecting employees quietly giving the hackers a couple of years of access before it was finally discovered recently. The suspected take so far is $300 million (10 billion baht), but could be as much as three times that amount when the digital dust settles. The source seems to be in Europe, Russia and China.

The system worked by temporarily adding $10 million to an account, then wiring that amount to another account before the bank's normal account verification processes were run. The malware also allowed for ATMs to dispense cash to waiting recipients. Banks in a number of countries were targeted. So far the culprits are still at large but with this amount at stake you can bet the hunt is on.

Apple's new smartwatch is going to be a little less smart after plans were dropped for any health monitoring. Complicated processes and some regulations necessitated the scaling back of the originally expected functionality. This puts the health aspects of the unit back to basic pulse monitoring just like everyone else does. The watch is still scheduled for release in April.

Microsoft has Windows Phone 10 out as a preview. Only a few devices can be used to test it for the time being, such as the Lumia 630. According to early testers, the current version is somewhat jittery but then the Lumia is a lower-end device in terms of a CPU, and new Windows versions typically require more power than previous ones. The current version is also feature-light since the early focus is on the platform itself. There is also no Windows 10 SDK out yet, so we will have to wait until the end of April to learn much more. The aim for Microsoft is to have all devices including phones, tablets and computers using the same Windows 10 operating system so that all applications to be used across all platforms. This is a noble goal and one they have tried before with limited success.

I think someone forgot to tell Sony that the glasses-based devices don't do so well. The Japanese giant has announced a new "augmented reality headset" called SmartEyeglass that is estimated to be retailing for around $850.

In addition to the glasses themselves, that look a little retro, a controller will be carried by the wearer that will link to Android or later 4.4 devices. Apple is also working on a similar concept and has, yes you guessed it, another patent out. Like many others, I am not really enamoured with the idea of wearing glasses to get this functionality. What I really want is direct-to-optic-nerve technology that I suspect is still a number of years away yet. I predict that Apple and Sony will face the same fate that Google did with their users being called "glassholes".


James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com

James Hein

IT professional

An IT professional of over 30 years’ standing. He has a column in Bangkok Post tech pages and has been writing without skipping a beat every week all these years.

Email : jclhein@gmail.com

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