When I am at work, I get this feeling that mobile payment always uses NFC. Nokia supports NFC, but they are not going to wait a few more years for this technology to be widely available. So, here comes Nokia Money, a mobile payment service that works with the Obopay platform (a company in which […]
Back to work with a cool gadget
It’s been a while … In the meantime, a good vacation, with no WiFi connectivity and the perfect excuse to leave the laptop in its bag and enjoy the sun and the sea. So, unlike last year, no multiple tutorial entries. Back at home and at work this week, and slowly adapting to this new […]
HTC Magic: A nice Android workout application
One of the cool applications of having a GPS in your phone is that I can map your bike rides, and then try to figure out where I took a wrong turn. I live in a semi-urban area with lots of woods, and lots of tracks in these woods, not all of them present on […]
Should we sign malware?
The distribution of mobile applications heavily relies on digital signatures. Applications must be signed before they are distributed. The problem with signatures is that we have often been warned that “we should not trust applications that have not been signed”. Although this is absolutely true, and although anybody who has followed a Logics 101 class […]
HTC Magic, Month 1: Still not an iPhone
I guess that the title says it all. After a few weeks, the conclusion is simple: The HTC Magic is not an iPhone, and it lacks a few things. That may sound like a good thing for Apple, but I am not sure that things are that simple. First, let’s come back to the issues […]
HTC Magic, Month 1: Back to geek world
After a few days of enthusiasm, I stopped sharing my thoughts about the HTC Magic. What happened? Two things. First, there was work, eating my time. And then, there was something else, that seems to happen to all the Android phone owners I know: I downloaded the SDK. So what? Well, I started programming something, […]
Thank you for the wonderful threat, M. Hadopi!
I work for a company that sells security technology and consulting for smart cards and mobile devices. Although we would most likely deny it, we take new threats as opportunities. We don’t go as far as writing viruses ourselves (because we don’t do such things, and also because we don’t sell antivirus), but a good […]
Buying on Internet with fake card numbers
One would think that buying real goods on Internet with fake card numbers is not possible today. After all, there are many countermeasures that are quite hard to defeat, among which: You need to provide a 3/4 digit security code that is written on your card, and that is some kind of digital signature of […]
Show or hide passwords
Bruce Schneier has written a blog about the fact that passwords should not be hidden, which has stirred quite an intense controversy (over 100 comments in a few hours). Some of the issues and solutions pointed in the comments are in fact quite interesting. Let’s make a little synthesis here.
Android security from a user’s point of view
I have loaded a few applications on my Magic phone, and this has allowed me to test some of the security features from the end user’s point of view. When I install an application, the screen displays a few warnings, indicating the privileges/permissions requested by the application. Let’s consider a small example, based on Google’s […]