A group of Android hackers are currently pondering over the idea of coming up with a specialist app store featuring applications built for rooted handsets alongside many other offerings that Google currently does not allow in its Android Market.
Everyone believes the Android platform is more secure compared to other mobile platforms such as Windows Phone or Symbian. However, hackers can still find their way to penetrate a platform’s sturdy wall.
Recently, we wrote about the progress the folks over at CyanogenMod were making on baked ROMs for the extinct HP TouchPad. Today the super hackers released CM9 for the TouchPad, but in alpha form. This is awesome for owners who are stuck with a tablet that’s no longer receiving any major firmware updates for its webOS platform. Here’s a quick break down of what to expect with this alpha build:
Things that DO NOT WORK:
The National Security Agency (NSA) has released SE Android, a security-enhanced version of Android, which provides and enforces stricter access-control policies than those found in the popular mobile operating system by default.
SE Android is based on NSA's previous research into mandatory access controls (MACs) that gave birth to the Security-Enhanced Linux project back in 2000. SE Linux is a collection of Linux kernel security modules and other tools that provide a flexible mechanism for restricting what resources users or applications can access.
Matias Duarte is a man who loves a challenge.
It’s part of why he took his current job at Google, leading the Android operating system team as head of user experience. In a nutshell, he is the man tasked with making sure Android looks, feels, and performs as smoothly as possible. And it is not an easy job.
Remember the pre-Christmas Carrier IQ controversy where hidden tracking software was found to be installed on Android handsets? Well now security researchers have found smartphone malware posing as removal tool for Carrier IQ spyware.
According to Symantec , the French hackers behind Android.Qicsomos have modified their malware from an open source project designed to detect Carrier IQ software so that handsets are now programmed to dial a premium rate SMS number.
Do you have mad Android hacking skills? Put them to good use and you might just earn $5,000--or more.
N2A Cards LLC, best known for transforming Barnes & Noble Nook Color e-readers into full-blown Android tablets, has thrown down the gauntlet to the development community: first person to create a bootable Android microSD card for the Nook Tablet (the Color's successor) gets $2,500.
And if you do it before midnight on January 22, you get a $2,500 bonus.
A new project aims to make it easy to distribute Python applications for Android. The newly launched Python for Android project is a tool which takes a Python application and, after ensuring the Android SDK/NDK is installed, creates a Python distribution containing the runtime and the set of modules needed to run the application, packaged as an Android APK file.
Researchers at security firm ViaForensics have built an Android app that could enable hackers to install and run corrupt code on your Android device.
Exposing yet another area of weakness in our favourite smartphone operating system, the app demonstrates just how Android’s permissions set up can be compromised, a feature which was originally intended to put security in the hands of the customer but that has been bypassed to allow unscrupulous coders a ‘backdoor’ into your Android’s inner sanctum.
Google's Android 4, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), debuts later this month on the much-anticipated Galaxy Nexus smartphone. This major new version of Android includes a redesigned user interface that promises a uniform experience across tablet and smartphone form factors, and it delivers new features and a wide range of improvements across the core application stack.
We already gave you a look at the Galaxy Nexus earlier this month in a hands-on review of the hardware. Now it's time to take a close look at the operating system and the ICS user experience.
