The problem with being private is that it increasingly means that you have to choose to drop out of society. You would never let the government put a tracking device on you, but you may be carrying a cell phone that tracks your location. You don’t want the government monitoring your internet usage, but Google collects data on you.
Since most people find they can’t live without a cell phone or Google, they grudgingly accept that they will lose their privacy and become trackable. That doesn’t sit well with Moxie Marlinspike, a security hacker with the Institute for Disruptive Studies. He is a common speaker at security events, and he spoke at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas today about how to give users more choices by allowing them to hide from both Google and cell phone carriers without losing access to their services. (See our roundup of all Black Hat and Defcon stories).
Marlinspike (pictured) has set up two experimental services that allow you to stay anonymous and still use the internet. One service circumvent’s Google’s data collection methods. Google itself “anonymizes” search engine data after nine months by deleting the last eight digits of Internet Protocol address data. But Google gathers a lot of data on you through Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Checkout, and Google Health. You have to be logged in to use Gmail, and so that gives Google the ability to track you for advertising purposes.
“Make no mistake,” Marlinspike said. “They are a surveillance business. Their intent is not the same as the government eavesdroppers. The effect is the same. Who knows more about citizens in their own country, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, or Google? Why is Google not scary? Because we choose to use it.”
To create anonymous access to Google, Marlinspike created an add-on for the Firefox web browser with a custom proxy server, which redirects you when you are using a Google application. If Marlinspike’s software detects a request for a Google service that does not require a login, it sends the request to the Google Sharing proxy server. That server anonymizes your identity and assigns a cookie to you that will work with the Google service. The link from you to the proxy server is encrypted using SSL technology.
You can then use the Google service without being tracked. It has been available for about six months and about 80,000 people are using it. Meanwhile, Marlinspike has also set up a way to do voice-over-internet-protocol VOIP calls on cell phones without being identified. The system, dubbed Whisper Systems, lets you make calls (via RedPhone) or send text messages (TextSecure) without being tracked. RedPhone creates encrypted phone calls so no one can listen into your conversation. TextSecure also encrypts your text messages.
The Whisper Systems service has been available for two months and has about 2,000 users. It is interesting and noble that Marlinspike wants to create a third path, which lets you participate in society without being tracked. But the sad truth is that many people probably won’t care enough to use these services.
There’s a good chance that your smart phone is loaded with root-level spyware installed—not by a malicious internet source, but by your phone provider. Find out how to detect and remove it to increase performance and privacy.
Background: the web has been abuzz for the last week with talk of Caller IQ, a root-level application installed on millions of smart phones including most Android smart phones, BlackBerry units, and iPhones. Not all phones are affected, and at least Verizon has denied using Caller IQ on any of their phones, but there are plenty of phones which are.
The above video is a demonstration by Trevor Eckhart, the Android developer that discovered the application and publicized what it was up to–watch the video to get a better feel for the reach this application has.
The application has sweeping privileges and can access everything you do on your phone. Although cell providers have denied using the application for anything malicious the reality is that the app is quite capable of enabling deep level surveillance without any indication to the end user that their privacy is being compromised.
We don’t know about you, but we’re not comfortable taking the word of a company that they’re not accessing our private data, text messages, and other phone contents when Caller IQ makes it trivially easy to do so–and to remain completely undetected in the process. So the best case scenario is that your provider is not actively collecting data on you, but the Caller IQ rootkit is wasting precious battery life and clock cycles; the worst case scenario is that, unbeknownst to you, it’s radically compromising your privacy in ways you never authorized.
iPhone users have it easy; they can simply navigate to Settings -> General -> About -> Diagnostics and Usage and then toggle it to “Don’t Send”. Android users will need to dig much deeper: if you’re ready to check your phone and remove the Caller IQ installation (something you can’t do simply by uninstalling an app from your system menu as the carriers have made the application invisible to the end user) we highly recommend checking out Lifehacker’s thorough write up covering detection and removal at the link below.
Carrier IQ: How the Widespread Rootkit Can Track Everything on Your Phone, and How to Remove It [Lifehacker]
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Tethering your phone’s internet connection, which allows users to share their phone’s data connection with other devices, is really useful if you’re out and about with no Wi-Fi, but some carriers block the feature from your phone. If you get an error message when you try to tether—something like “Account not set up for tethering”—here’s a fix.
I know this is a touchy subject, and there are two sides to this argument. On one side, you’ve got the “if it’s blocked by the carrier, then you shouldn’t be able to bypass it” crowd, and on the other, you have the “but I pay for this data and want to use it how I see fit! crowd. While I can appreciate both sides, tethering is sometimes necessary—regardless of the situation.
Paradise city burnout pc download. Some phones allow you to tether right out of the box, even if your carrier technically doesn’t allow it in your plan. But some newer devices—like the Nexus 5X and 6P—actually prevent you from using this feature if your carrier requests it. When you try to enable the personal hotspot, you get a message saying that you should contact your carrier to enable the feature.
Get Your Phone Ready
RELATED:How to Tether Your Android Phone and Share Its Internet Connection with Other Devices
You have a few options for bypassing this error. You could use a third-party tethering app like PdaNet+, which—while a little janky—does the trick on many phones. If you’re rooted, though, you have a much better option: re-enable Android’s built-in hotspot features.
Unfortunately, the solution isn’t an “install this app and you’re done” kind of thing. You’re going to need to meet a couple of requirements first:
Once you’re rooted and all set up with Xposed or Magisk, you’re only a few taps away from bypassing tethering verification.
Bypass Tethering Restrictions With Xposed
The first thing you need to do is jump into the Xposed Installer app, and then go to the “Download” option. In the “normal” Xposed interface, it’s the third option on the main screen (the image on the left). If you’re using the Material Design version of Xposed, open the hamburger menu in the top left to find the “Download” option (the image on the right).
In the “Download” menu, tap the magnifying glass in the upper right corner, and then search for “tether.” Scroll down until you see “X Tether”—that’s the option you want, so tap it.
You can read the description here if you want, but otherwise just switch over to the “Versions” tab, and then tap the “Install” button for the newest version (in our test case, that’s version 1.4). You should jump straight to the installation menu. If it kicks back an error, make sure you have the “Unknown Sources” option enabled in Settings > Security, and then try again.
Data Usage Calculator
It’s also worth noting here that the application is actually called “Moto Tether” upon installing. Don’t worry about that—it should work just fine on non-Motorola devices, too.
Once the download has finished installing, Xposed pushes a notification saying that you need to reboot the device to active the module. Go ahead and tap the “Activate and Reboot” button.
Bypass Tethering Restrictions with Magisk
If you’re using Magisk, the process is nearly identical to Xposed. Open the Magisk Manager, slide open the menu, and then choose the “Downloads” option.
Tap the magnifying glass in the upper right corner,and then search for “tethering enabler.”
When you’ve found the “Tethering Enabler” module, go ahead and tap the arrow next to the name to start the download. A dialog box asks if you want to download or install it—go ahead and install.
The zip file should download and automatically flash. Assuming everything goes well, this should only take a few seconds. You’ll need to reboot to activate the module, but after that you’re done.
How to Use These Tethering Tools
Neither of these tweaks actually provide a user interface—they just unblock Android’s built-in tethering features. After the phone is finished rebooting, jump into Settings > More > Tethering & Portable Hotspot to verify that tethering is indeed working. A quick tap of the “Portable Wi-Fi hotspot” button is all it takes—the tethering connection should fire right up.
Just remember: use it, don’t abuse it.
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I have to remove the app from the Data usage list to ensure that it is shown after it is launched.The only way i could figure to achieve this is by doing a factory reset. (App in question here is the google maps app). Is there any other way to achieve this?
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closed as off-topic by Chris Haas, laalto, rink.attendant.6, hichris123, UnihedronAug 22 '14 at 1:03
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Network usage is stored in a file on android, if you are working on rooted device you should be able to update this file and it should update your Data usage on screen too. I used to peek into this file to get some data, never tried to update it though.
This might help in finding correct file - Tracking an application's network statistics (netstats) using ADB
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Shivam GuptaShivam Gupta
Got a question that you can’t ask on public Stack Overflow? Learn more about sharing private information with Stack Overflow for Teams.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged android or ask your own question.Hide your things outside. Hiding items outside gives you a much larger area to work with when hiding items and makes tracing items back to you more difficult. Take care when hiding items outside that someone else doesn’t find and take the item – your parents aren’t the only ones to worry about if you choose this route.
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