Another new cell phone

Well now I have 4 phones I feel like a drug dealer , I have had my Samsung flip phone for years so I decided to go to wall mart and buy a smart phone so I bought some cheap samsung ace smart phone a month or two ago and did not like it so I just bought a samsung s4 and like this one so I will have to cancel the ace and the flip phone accounts the other is a company phone , won't really use the s4 until the otterbox gets here in a few days .

Going through phone faster than a high school girl.

The S4 is a good phone. Should be relatively trouble free.

Good to hear it seems kind of dainty without a case , I guess I am down to three phones the Samsung ace is not working they shut the service off at midnight , I will probably cancel the flip phone service today , the s4 is straight talk from Walmart $45 a month for unlimited talk text and data , my flip phone service was us cellular at $35 a month to get a new smart phone from them was nearly $95 a month for the upgraded phone and plan .

I think I may be through buying the expensive phones. I currently have a Samsung Note 4 which replaced my Note 2. I only got the 4 because I found out how much I really like having the S Pen and the screen size of the 2. But depending on what the offerings are when I replace my 4 I may start buying prepaid phones and just use on my postpaid account. The newer high end phones have become so overly complicated and buggy. The constant issues with Android( mainly Samsung and faulty Lollipop across all manufacturers) and iOS nonfixes and Apples couldn't care less attitude, have really turned me off most phones these days.

I've had a S4 for almost 2 years, been a great phone. With the way the new SmartPhone are being priced by the big networks, I'll probably go the prepaid route next time too.

They are getting stooooopid on pricing these days.

I actually like the new pricing they do. It makes it more fair. I dont get new phones very often so getting a discount on my bill for not being under contract makes my bill cheaper. Used to my bill was the same as my friends who got new phones every 2 years by paying $199 for a $650 phone. I was basically helping to subsidize their new phones. The bills are a LOT more complicated by doing it this way though.

But the new phones from the big name manufacturers like Samsung, Apple and to a lesser extend HTC and LG are crazy expensive. The top of the line iPhone cost about $950 and the same for Samsung yet they cost about $200-$250 to produce. And the iPhones specs are constantly behind everyone elses. But would I rather buy a Samsung( I dont buy Apple anything) for say $600 or a ZTE that is lesser on specs but not very noticeable for $150?

https://www.emc.com/collateral/white-paper/rsa-cyber-crime-report-0414.pdf

Open source Android owns nearly 80% of the mobile market. Apple around 17%. This makes Android the quintessential target for malicious developers and actors.

Quote :

Trend#1: Mobile Threats Become More Sophisticated and Pervasive
The worldwide smartphone market reached a new milestone in 2013 with one billion units shipped in a single year for the first time, up 38% from the 725m units shipped in 2012.

As our personal and work lives increasingly move to — and converge on — our mobile devices, cybercriminals will continue to develop and refine their schemes to capitalize on this trend.

As discussed in last year’s report, malicious and high-risk mobile apps have become a significant threat vector as cybercriminals step up their efforts to serve malware and phishing attacks under the guise of legitimate apps. Android is still the most widely used mobile platform in the world which, combined with the open source nature of its operating system, means it is also the platform most targeted by mobile threats. The number of malicious and high-risk Android apps in existence reached almost 1.4m, one million of which were detected in 2013 alone (almost three times the number detected in 2012), with a significant proportion disguised as fake or malicious versions of popular apps.

Typically, cybercriminals will use social engineering to persuade a user to install a fake certificate or security software on their mobile phone. HTML injection techniques will be used to send the user to a direct link to download the malicious app. During installation, the app will request various permissions with the aim of gaining super user privileges that will provide full access to the phone’s features and may make the app impossible to uninstall.

There’s also at least one example of a pre-installed malicious app disguised as a fake version of a popular app. In March 2014, several variants of a fake Netflix app that steals personal and credit card data were found pre-installed on a number of models of Android phones and tablets from different manufacturers. Although it’s not yet clear how the app came to be installed before the devices reached their users, one credible theory is that the malware authors targeted the supply chain, given that a relatively large number of individuals have physical access to Android devices along the way. This contrasts with Apple, which controls the device hardware and operating system from start to finish, making the supply chain much harder, if not impossible, to penetrate.

While Apple is not full proof, the "walled garden" approach they have approving all apps and apps only being made publicly available their their store, help to offer a much smaller technical opportunity footprint for malicious actors. Something to consider.

The other big thing from apps, considered commercial mafia theft, is the user permitted access, selecting yes yes yes, to all the permission prompts. Hey now the app owner has access to all your contacts, camera, GPS location, etc.

I paid $250 for my s4 at Walmart seems like decent deal .

Is any one else still on the grandfathered in unlimited data plan from Verizon? About two weeks ago I recently bought a phone outright because if you take any of the subsidies you loose the plan. They are trying very hard to get the few of us left (less than 1% according to Verizon) with the plan to have to drop it. Any how about two days after I bought the phone I start seeing these articles pop up.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/08/technology/verizon-unlimited-plan-increase/

I've already done the math and it will still be a lot cheaper for me to take the increase rather than go with one of their new data tier plans they now offer. So for now I guess it's going to cost me another $20 a month to keep the plan I have. But I know it's only a matter of time before they just kick me off by eliminating the plan. When that time comes I can tell you it will be goodbye Verizon for me.

Once VZ starts tapping into the unlimited grandfather plan they won't stop. My wife has that plan and is killing it in the next couple of days.

I was doing tmob's unadvertised prepaid $30/mo 5Gb LTE, 100mins voice, unlimited data and text. It's a smoking deal if you don't use much voice. Plus there's no taxes, no junk fees, and you can sometimes even buy online prepaid cards at a discount.

Currently I switched to Google's fi plan. It's $20/mo unlimited voice and text, $10/gig of data, you get reimbursed for any data you don't use. It uses VPN to encrypt data over unsecured wifi networks, there's no extra fee for tethering and that comes in handy when you're staying at a hotel. Fi selects the best signal strength between tmobile and sprint networks. So far so good. My wife is switching to it too.

Androids are more suceptible to viruses but they are still very very rare. And Apple just found out a few weeks ago they had a huge breach of over 100 apps were infected with viruses.

I would still take Android over Apple any day of the week.

theshyguy wrote:

Androids are more susceptible to viruses but they are still very very rare. And Apple just found out a few weeks ago they had a huge breach of over 100 apps were infected with viruses.

I would still take Android over Apple any day of the week.

People are free to rationalize their platform of choice however they want. That doesn't change the facts on the ground when it comes to the criminal element and what they're targeting. Very very rare however?

There are two major categories targeting the mobile space.  True malware, and rogueware which are in their infancy.

Focusing on Malware -> https://www.emc.com/collateral/white-paper/rsa-white-paper-cybercrime-trends-2015.pdf

Quote :

2015 OUTLOOK: MOBILE THREATS
In 2014 the volume of mobile malware and rogue mobile apps increased and we expect to see the same thing happening in 2015. Today, about half the world's adult
population owns a smartphone: they're becoming the go-to device over the computer, and the one to which we're always connected.

Cybercriminals will increasingly look to exploit this change in user device preference by switching an expanding proportion of their attacks to mobiles. So we expect to see more standalone attacks on mobile devices over the coming year. In addition, we expect to see attacks against mobile payment systems, such as Apple Pay, in 2015, as their popularity looks set to take off.

The Android platform will once again to bear the brunt of attacks, as it continues to maintain its very high market share of approximately 79%, with iOS grabbing around 15%, and the remaining 5% being split among other platforms, including Windows.

Not only does Apple iOS have a much smaller market share than Android, attacking iOS requires very advanced skills. However, we are already starting to see a few attacks that target both iOS and the Windows platform.   *IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker

The Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR) on page 19 indicates by their own data they don't see much, they also qualify they're not actively looking at this space like security vendors.  Conceding that Verzion references FireEye's 2015 data for perspective.  

Quote :

A BIRD’S “FIREEYE” VIEW OF MOBILE MALICIOUSNESS
We asked one of our contributors—FireEye—to give us its view of the vulnerabilities it catches in various mobile platforms and applications. FireEye noted that two main platforms dominate the mobile market today: Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. FireEye researchers analyzed more than 7 million mobile apps on both platforms from January to October 2014.

ANDROID
• 96% of mobile malware was targeted at the Android platform (which tracks well with our active malware findings in this report).
• More than 5 billion downloaded Android apps are vulnerable to remote attacks. One significant vulnerability is known as JavaScript-Binding-Over-HTTP (JBOH), which enables an attacker to execute code remotely on Android devices that have affected apps.

IOS
EnPublic apps bypass Apple’s strict review process by hijacking a process normally used to install custom enterprise apps and used for beta testing. We also found that 80% of EnPublic apps18 invoke risky private APIs that are also in violation of Apple’s Developer guidelines. In the wrong hands, these APIs threaten user privacy and introduce many vulnerabilities.

ADWARE
Adware is software that delivers ads to make money. While adware is not in itself harmful, it often aggressively collects personal information from the mobile device it’s installed on, including name, birth date, location, serial number, contacts, and browser bookmarks. Often, this data is collected without users’ consent. In our review, we examined ad libraries in Android apps. Adware is an increasingly popular option for app publishers, growing from almost 300,000 apps in 2013 to more than 410,000 in the first three quarters of 2014 alone.

Its rare until one becomes a victim.  More of not if, but when.  Just like any attack vector when the attack surface or opportunity changes.  Example the payment card industry with "card present transactions" at point of sale devices and payment clearing house backends are now more secure than a decade ago with encryption, tokenization, CC's being issued with RFID chips, the mobile cybercrime trend is now fast tracking targeting "card not present transactions" ecommerce mobile and web channels.  Cybercrime simply shifts it's methods and vectors to go after other sources when one becomes difficult.   The mobile attack surface is trending up, mobile and the prevalence of sheer numbers are inviting more attention every day.

I rationalize it because I work for one of the 4 major carriers and have had a handful of actual virus cases in the close to 2 years I have been doing technical support for Android/Blackberry/iOS/Windows.

Only way to stop cyber-crime is truly make it a crime. Put those caught creating these software's away for most of their life, and don't make it a secret. I don't care if they're chinese or my neighbor, 12 or 99, let it be known it's serious business. I have a suspicion some anti virus software creators may even throw malicious programs out there to create business.

The convenience of being mobile/online has moved to the vulnerability of being mobile/online. I'm to the point now where I try to be underground, avoid social media, limit apps, be anonymous, and where ever possible use prepaid cards in lieu of credit cards. Cash is a pain but at some point it might become the best option.

I received to otterbox defender case and it feels way more durable with the case on the phone .

I have the otterbox defender for my Galaxy 5 phone and it does it's job well without feeling too bulky.

I just turned my TV with my smart phone , these things are awesome !

Hilux wrote:

I just turned my TV with my smart phone , these things are awesome !

My Samsung will also do that. My son makes apps for fun on weekends. For a fee I can get him to make an app that when you point it at women, it turns them on.

TheQuig wrote:

Hilux wrote:

I just turned my TV with my smart phone , these things are awesome !

My Samsung will also do that. My son makes apps for fun on weekends. For a fee I can get him to make an app that when you point it at women, it turns them on.

I will take it .

TheQuig wrote:

For a fee I can get him to make an app that when you point it at women, it turns them on.

Where do I sign up?

I will send you my bank account number in the Cayman Islands, Your IP for this app will be under $10,000. You will be rich beyond your wildest dreams, you just can't tell anyone besides members of this forum about the scam...I mean investment.


Not to deride this threat, but for quite a while I was involved in a variety of martial arts that my wife and I practiced different martial arts 7 days a week for a few years. I was introduced to George Dilman, who had a dojo in PA and travel the country teaching knockouts using pressure points. At the time there was great skepticism about this ability. Over the years people started accepting this as more and more attended his seminars and got knocked out. We would go up to north Jersey to a school run by Marc Kline to see and learn from George. Mark had been a student of George for quite a while. Early one morning I received a call from a close friend telling me to turn on the Howard Stern show as Marc was on showing Howard via Robin Quivers how to give women an orgasm but hitting the pressure point in that area in a certain way. This was on Howards TV show and we saw Marc had dressed up in a doctors lab coat and called himself Dr. Orgasm. To see this on TV was a huge blow to those of us in martial arts that practiced the points. Mark still does martial arts around the world and teaches many countries special forces martial arts.

Here is a link to the discussion in a martial arts forum about this:    http://forum.psdtc.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=187

Marc doing knock outs :    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS96vpgTGJw

When we worked with Marc, he had hair.

That's wild. It looks like a staged Spock Star Trek episode. If there was something to it, shouldn't it have been used in MMA competition, witnessed knockouts in competition when someone accidentally hits the point, or even acknowledged in a MMA rule book?

I have been knocked out 3 times by various points. But you are right, I was knocked out while standing still and I have yet to see it done in a fight.

I've had my 5S since it came out. Went through at least 6 otterboxes in that time. I bit the bullet spent more on the lifeproof case. Its lasted longer and has even took a swim in the bucket of warm oil at my old job. I pulled it out wiped it off used some glass cleaner on the case was good as new.