The Four-eyed Journal » Mobile phones

Cyber-criminals moving from attacking PCs to Mobile Devices

jhay — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:23:42 +0000

It’s probably a relief that I still don’t have a smart phone yet. My trusty 4-year-old Sony Ericsson K800i is still working fine so the idea of upgrading to a smart phone has been easily pushed to the back burner since last year.

I say this is some relief, well for me, because reports are saying that cyber-criminals are now moving from attacking PC users to targeting smart phone users more as their numbers steadily increase.

eWeek.com got hold of Cisco’s Annual Review for 2010 and drives home this point:

In what may be good news for Microsoft, if not for anyone else, cyber-criminals may be turning to other platforms to exploit and make money because the improved security in Windows 7 makes it “tougher” to “infiltrate” networks and applications and files, according to the report. “Having reached the Windows vulnerability ‘tipping point,’ they have moved on,” to other operating systems, services and mobile devices, the security team wrote in the report. Scams in 2010 targeted select groups of mobile users, such as customers of a specific bank or specific smartphone applications, the report found.

With the increasing trend of enterprises using mobile devices, there are “even more opportunities for intrusions and theft,” Cisco wrote.

Mobile device security would definitely be something to consider when I finally get a smart phone. So it’s more likely that we’re going to see the same security apps on mobile devices like firewalls, anti-malware/virus etc. as part of the ‘must-have’ apps in the near future.

Expanding the memory of my SE K800i

jhay — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:41:17 +0000

Yesterday, I finally had enough money to do my K800i a favor by buying a 2GB Memory Stick Micro M2. Yes, that’s a whopping 2GB of storage space all packed within that tiny black chip which is almost the size of my thumb’s fingernail.

Aside from the awesome storage capacity, another mind-blowing attribute of this tiny storage media is its price tag. Most dealers I visited are selling the 2GB M2 at almost Php4,000!!

Even my friends and a fellow professor who also use Sony Ericsson phones where kept at bay and frustrated by the price tag. It finally made me realize that there’s really something unique to owning a Sony Ericsson phone, aside from the good quality of its Cyber-shot and Walkman phones, the price tags on its accessories do set SE users in a different class. A class that must really dig deep into their pockets if we want to ‘pimp’ our phones or extend and enhance its already cool features.(Curse Sony’s adherence to proprietary technologies and gadgets )

So after months of saving up on my earnings, I finally braved to scour the malls for a good bargain on the M2. My obsessive-compulsiveness didn’t help me much as I was hell-bent on getting the 2GB version of the M2 so that “it would be the last M2 I’d ever buy.”

3 Phone shops in SM City Dasmariñas offered the M2 on the same price range, which was the near dreaded Php4-k level. I was nearly heart-broken and was about to resign my self to getting the 1GB M2 which was offered at Php1,900 at CD-R King. Luckily, I had a last-minute change of mind and sudden renewal of hope. I went out again in search of store that had the 2GB M2 on price I could afford.

It seems the fates were on my side as I found my way into City Telecom and there it was, a 2GB M2 on sale!! From it’s original price of Php3,000 it was brought down to Php2,100 which was well within my budget. I wasted no more time as I told the saleslady that I was going to buy that M2.

I left that store with a big smile on my face and a 2GB M2 in my pocket. I couldn’t wait to get home, plug it in my K800i and put all the photos, music, games and apps I’ve been saving up ever since I decided to upgrade my phone’s memory.

At the moment I have over 500MB worth of compressed music, 10MB worth of games and apps and almost 5MB of photos. Speaking of which, it is the desire to increase the number of photos I could take and store in my phone before it needs to be transferred or the bad ones deleted in order to make space for more photos that I was determined to get the 2GB M2. Just point-and-shoot the K800i now, delete the not-so-good shots later.

What’s the use of a 3.2 megapixel Cyber-shot phone if the number of photos one could take is quite limited right? Now that my phone’s memory has been greatly expanded, storage space or the lack thereof would no longer be an inhibition to my budding interest in digital-photography. (even though I only have 3.2 megapixel camera-phone to take photos with)

Aside from more photos, more music, more apps and games I could fit in my K800i, I’m beginning to like the idea of using the phone as my primary portable storage device, instead of my aging Creative MuVo thumb drive/mp3 player.

Oh my, I see techie experiments brewing in the horizon. I just hope my phone would not end up broken or screwed up.

A short history of SMS trends: from porno to emo to Inday

jhay — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:30:11 +0000

I’m not sure whether the Philippines is still the texting or SMS capital of the world, but I have doubts that another country has been given that title. All thanks to our mobile phones and the short-messaging system or SMS or texting as we refer to it here in the Philippines.

Just like music and fashion, texting or sending SMS has gone through various ‘trends’ over the past years. I recall back in my highschool days, the first time I owned a mobile phone, that thanks to SMS, ‘green’ or naughty jokes became the first staple of the SMS airwaves. Every hour or so, a friend or someone in my phone book would forward to me one of those naughty jokes. Some are plain naughty yet still funny (pardon my twisted sense of humor), but some were downright so naughty, it’s no longer a joke, but pornography. You’d be amazed that a few dozen dots, parentheses and backslashes could be arranged in a certain way so as to achieve a 3-second porn flick right in your palms.

3 girls make paalam to dad.

Girl 1: Dad, i’m going out with Pete to EAT.

Girl 2: I’m going out with Lance to DANCE.

Girl 3: I’m going out with CHUCK to …

Dad: Ah, hinde! Dito ka lang sa bahay!!!
Shet (>_<)

Thankfully, the Filipino texting community matured and moved on from sending those green jokes. Unfortunately, from being naughty and aroused by some fancy arrangement of backslashes and periods, it seems that everyone else that has a cellphone back then suddenly became either love struck or broken hearted, as the green jokes were replaced by, dare I say it, “love quotes.”

Love is when you sit beside someone…

doing nothing..

yet…

you still feel perfectly happpy…c:

Subjects varied from the search for true love, the longing for it, or the universal definition of it. Of course sending these ‘love quotes’ were most useful for those who were in search for romance or that significant other who would be the one forever, those who had a crush on somebody but couldn’t tell it their face and so the SMS world gave them safe refuge. At first this new trend was alright and peachy, heck even I had a wonderful collection of love quotes that would pinch the heart of anyone even the Ice Queen.

Nonetheless, it all went into excess and eventually, those love quotes became so full of love, sad love in fact, it become emo. Yep. Emo quotes. Scary I know.

“…the hardest part in being loved by someone is the uncertainty that it may stop

…anytime.”

Thank all things good as the texting community finally matured once more and moved on from there. Though there are still some emo texters but they’re not in the mainstream nowadays. At first, this new period saw the return of text jokes, the clean ones to be exact. The maturity of this period is quite impressive as the jokes soon became political jokes. The staple of which, are the jokes about former President, now ex-convict Joseph “Erap” Estrada. However, these jokes about Erap or Eraptions as they were labeled, were already popular before the advent of the texting or SMS craze. So this renewed interest in Erap jokes I’d like to call “Eraptions 2.0″ Thank God Bush wasn’t the real President of the Philippines otherwise we Filipinos could write whole new volumes of “Bushisms.”

Q: Biglang kumidlat, ano gagawin mo?

Genuis: Takip tenga, kukulog eh!

Playboy: Yakap syota, score e!

Astig: La lang, matapang ako e!

Erap: Ngingiti,

Picture taking eh!

Eraptions 2.0 soon died down and eventually replaced by an even bigger phenomenon that owed its rise to such levels to the cellphone, let’s hear it one more time: “Hello, Garci?”

The Mafia in Malacañang succeeded in keeping its skin and the issue soon toned down. Nonetheless, it was replaced by jokes related to GMA, her evil deeds, her being a midget, her teeth and who could forget, her mole.

“Tandaan mo anak, ang batang sinungaling ay di na tatangkad, uusli ang ngipin, liliit ang binti at tutubuan ng nunal sa mukha.”

-Diosdado Macapagal

Since the evil midget is still in Malacañang, this new level of the texting community’s maturity was eventually channeled to other issues of the time. Of course, since it is Filipino-made, humor, if not biting sarcasm, is an essential element to this new breed of text messages.

The following specimen below, I belive will sum it all:

Sa resto:

Waiter: Ano po order nila, maam?

Amo: Ung fried chicken meal na lang. Ikaw inday, ano sayo?

Inday: I would like to partake of a dish of sauteed pork and chicken, boiled in thick essence of soy and cane extracts, with copious amounts of garlic, onion and laurel, sprinkled generously with fine spices and served with a generous helping of root crop and a helping of rice.

Amo: Iho, adobo w/ rice daw.

Quite amazing the evolution of SMS communication here in the Philippines is. All thanks to the cell phone another remarkable fact has has been realized, SMS or texting has become part of the fabric of daily living faster than using the internet and say blogging as almost everyone from every age group owns a mobile phone.

I wonder what would be the next trend in the SMS culture in this country. With the roll-out and slow introduction of 3G and HSDPA technologies, the possibilities would be endless.

Top 5 reasons I switched to Sony Ericsson

jhay — Wed, 09 May 2007 15:14:48 +0000

A few days ago, I wrote about where the heck I’ve been and that I’m back with a new blogging tool, a sweet and savvy Sony Ericsson K800i mobile phone.

In this post, I’ll share the Top 5 reasons I spent my money to switch from a Nokia mobile phone to one that is made by Sony Ericsson. In turn, this post is also my entry to the latest group writing project by ProBlogger Darren Rowse themed, what else, ‘Top 5′

In this group writing project, any blogger can join in by following the directions given by Darren and of course writing about anything that revolves around the theme of ‘Top 5′ whether be it the top 5 reasons why you blog, top 5 movies you’ve ever seen, top 5 reasons you’d go help in protecting the environment, top 5 plugins a blogger uses, top 5 gadgets you own, anything.

This group writing project has always been a fun and rewarding exercise because it helps bloggers get to know more bloggers, learn from them and get some awesome link love from most of them. This time around, the reward is even sweeter because a prize of $1001 USD courtesy of Chitika awaits the one lucky blogger who joins this group writing project.

It’s just awesome, and so with out further delays, here’s my Top 5 reasons why I switched to Sony Ericsson phone instead of just getting another Nokia mobile phone.

I’m tired of Nokia phones – it’s not that I hate Nokia, they make really good phones but I’ve been using a Nokia phone since ever. My first phone was Nokia 3210 which I loved very much because of its usability and durability. It was followed by a Nokia 3530 which I also enjoyed very much because of the colored screen, solid usability and sturdy construction. Also, here in the Philippines, almost 8 out of every 10 who owns a mobile phone got theirs from Nokia. So to once again break from the norm and be the few and unique, I decided to get a phone by Sony Ericsson. Not just any ordinary Sony Ericsson phone, it’s a K800i. Sweet!

It’s keeps me connected – Bluetooth, Infrared and 3G are the standards of today’s mobile phone connectivity. All 3 of these wonderful technologies are built-in to almost every Sony Ericsson phone from the entry-level models like the K510i up to the higher end models like the W880i. This is unlike with Nokia phones wherein you have to get the more expensive higher end models to have both Bluetooth and Infra-red ports on the same phone. I keep on hearing my friends and schoolmates complaining about their Nokia phone having only either a Bluetooth capability or the IR port as connectivity options. Not like me though, the K800i comes with both technologies that keeps me connected in more ways than one.

It’s a portable hard drive – yes, the K800i can also serve as my own portable USB mass storage device that I could connect to any computer for file storage and transfer. I just plug it in and select the ‘File Transfer’ mode and the computer sees the phone as another removable storage drives. The neatest thing about this is, it doesn’t require specific software to be installed for it to be detected by the computer you’re using. All I need is the USB cable, the phone and and USB port. Talk about plug ‘n play right?

It charges up super fast – One of the best features I love about the K800i is that it takes less than an hour to fully charge its battery. This is so much better than waiting for more than an hour or more for a Nokia phone to be fully charged. Fast charging, it minimizes my phone’s downtime and giving me more productive time instead.

It’s a Cyber-shot! - 3.2 megapixels may be a far cry from today’s dedicated digi-cam devices but compared to other phones of its class, the K800i’s camera is among the best in its class.

There you go, my top 5 reasons I switched to Sony Ericsson phone. I could give more reasons but I think this should be enough for now. For more Top 5 posts, I suggest you stop by at Problogger because the first batch of posts are already up and it’s quite a goldmine of good content.

Something to consider

Nokia and samsung mobile phones have launched special cell phones for sportsmen. These phones can be customized with football and cricket ringtones and wallpapers. In addition there are some advanced features like camera, cell phone gps and maps to facilitate sportsmen. Cell phones with built-in camera allow beginners to take photos with luxury to attach a canon photo printer with their phone for direct printing. However, professional photographers still prefer to buy digital camera .

Spam TXT Messages

jhay — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 13:28:48 +0000

SPAM, or unsolicited messages, everyone using the Internet, owns a couple or more e-mail accounts, bloggers and webmasters just hate it, really hate it. That’s why a myriad of anti-spam software, measures, technologies and sheer human effort have been deployed to combat and get rid of it.

However, SPAM doesn’t only thrive as a pestilence in the cyberworld. Even the seemingly distant mobile world has already been invaded by it-well the Philippine mobile world that is.

Your in the middle of a meeting or class, your mobile phone vibrates, telling that you have just recieved a message and so you frantically dig for it inside your bag or pocket. Unlock the keypad with lightning fast reflexes and even without looking at it, feel like an eternity has passed before you could open the message. Your heart beats faster in anticipation of knowing who the sender is but all of this is thrown away shredded into pieces when all you read is the following: (just an example)

New Ring Tones available:
A1-Alphabet song
B1-Happy Birthday
C1-Halukay Spaghetti
Just enter the key code and send to 84513658461
P15/download

Badtrip! Some messages even take away Php 5.00 to Php 15.00 from your load even without you doing anything save for reading the screwed up SPAM txt message. I’m sure almost all of you has had this experience, some are milder some are really wierd but most definitely all of them are really annoying and a nuisance.

Mitos Garcia who wrote a letter concerning this issue to INQ7.net and so Mr Garcia. you’re not alone, there are millions of others who had to put up the annoying with the task of cleaning up spam txt messages every single time it takes up space in your inbox. He cries;

I’m tired of being harassed by the promo text messages of a mobile phone company. They just keep on coming, these unsolicited, unwanted and extremely annoying messages, such as those tasteless ringtones and faces of celebrities I don’t care about.

Like him, I also called up the customers service of my mobile provider and complained about this annoying and unsolicited text messages and all I got are empty promises. I still spend some time deleting worhtless unsolicited text messages. So the war rages on, us the paying subscribers against this unfair trade practice. This entry is my small contribution to this great movement of eliminating spam not only in the web but also in the mobile world.