More information about government surveillance has come to light, and it seems that the British and Canadian governments apparently used special software filters to acquire sensitive smartphone user data from the servers of a number of advertising and analytics companies. The program, called BADASS, gathered unencrypted data sent to the companies from mobile devices, including BlackBerry, Android, Windows and iOS devices, though it's not clear if the program targeted BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, or both. The data collected by these companies can give whoever is looking at it a lot of information about individual users.
From The Intercept:
Programmers frequently embed code from a handful of such companies into their smartphone apps because it helps them answer a variety of questions: How often does a particular user open the app, and at what time of day? Where does the user live? Where does the user work? Where is the user right now? What's the phone's unique identifier? What version of Android or iOS is the device running? What's the user's IP address? Answers to those questions guide app upgrades and help target advertisements, benefits that help explain why tracking users is not only routine in the tech industry but also considered a best practice.
You can read the full story at The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept
Read more
How Go Talk intends to be the BlackBerry of mobile carriers
Identity theft often goes through an unexpected route: conning the carrier. Go Talk Wireless wants to stamp out SIM swap fraud at the source.
It's time for my family to take the plunge on a VPN
A good VPN isn't as complicated as it used to be, but it's still a pretty big step for a "regular" user to take. But it's time to get my family used to it. Their data may depend on it.
PRIV named one of the most secure Android smartphones of 2016
Google's annual Android Security Review names PRIV one of the most secure smartphones of last year. While rather unsurprising to most of us here, there are some areas of the report that BlackBerry's software efforts receive some substantial kudos.
July Android security patch arrives for BlackBerry Priv
The BlackBerry Priv has begun receiving the July 5 Android security patch, which fixes a number of vulnerabilities.