Beware of Hi-Tech Mobile Phone Criminals!
August 18, 2008
A mobile phone obviously has come as a shot in the arm for the human race as a whole. It has straddled over almost every aspect of human life. One cannot distinguish a particular field where it has influenced increasingly for, from a child’s calling its parents for help to a young couples’ exchange of passion to business people’s video conferencing, it has emerged a factor everywhere. Along with the myriad advantages also come the undesirable demerits. You know well of the traditional ways of mobile phone abuses like mobile eve teasing, sim card cloning, spam SMSes, etc. Until recently, the range of abuse was a bit limited. However, today it has grown to great proportions with the advent of business mobile phones, smart phones and multimedia mobile phones.
Yesterday, you had the GSM or CDMA modems for accessing Mobile Networks and those devices supported by these technologies were usually employed for making as well as receiving calls and at the most SMSes. Today, the scenario has changed considerably. High-speed communication data transfers are possible with the advent of smarter technologies like GPRS, EDGE, UMTS (3G), HSDPA, etc. those have triggered a boom in the business field usage of mobile phones as well. A satisfactory smartphone or business mobile phone entitles you to receive as well as send messages through emails receive notifications on important faxes and calls and conduct conference calls as well as video calls apart from the universal aspect of keeping in constant touch with your office. Moreover, nowadays you, not only gain access to your bank statements and credit cards through your mobile phone but also engage in instant messaging, VoIP and Skype calls via a common interface.
All these factors have attracted an increased number of cyber miscreants to this field in the recent times. The ultra-fast and magnanimous data transfer technology shrouding the mobile phone world has proved the perfect catalyst for their malicious rites. The mischief-mongers predominantly aim at the illegal acquirement of revenue, as other malicious intentions also cannot be counted out. A number of authorised agencies employ these dubious means as well, but with a view to reveal crimes and criminals as well as to ensure national security.
SMS Spoofing is one significant threat that the day’s mobile phone users face collectively. This is marked by the numerous anonymous short messages you receive in your mobile phone consisting of a range of subjects from advertisements to porn materials. By applying this method, a technically qualified pervert can always send you an SMS in the disguise of another person’s number. The gravest part here is the fact that a wrongdoer can gain access to your mobile phone’s bank balance enquiry sector or DTH account recharge sector through simple SMSes and pretending as you can obtain those details. With VoIP calling being increasingly popular amidst mobile phone users and enhanced supports rendered to this sector by modern devices like FXO cards you can virtuously make any sorts of calls using your mobile phone. In these circumstances an increased chance for call spoofing occurs.
Call Spoofing is much like SMS spoofing and arouses the reminiscence of forged mails. However, it is not so easy to perform as an SMS spoof. Voice or Text Spamming are more of nuisance types than being any sort of security breaks but, you cannot sign off the possibilities of their evolving into major threats in the future. Spam Mails, even today are dubious matter that might contain viruses or spy ware.
Spyware are undoubtedly, Damocles’ swords suspending over the mobile users’ crowns. Spy wares are ingenious creations that are used by both security agencies and hackers. The high susceptibility of mobile phones to spy wares is explained by the powerful constitution of the spy wares that is usually based on J2ME. Your mobile phone may hit with a spy ware, while you download unauthorised software such as games, videos, etc or if you click on those strange links that appear in received messages. You can also earn it for your mobile phone in the form of MMS attachments and even as your good old SMS.
If your mobile phone is laden with a powerful spy ware, the manipulator can on or off the power of your device by means of simple SMSes. Your mobile phone can also be forced to download information on a web interface. The cyber-criminal can also check your call logs, monitor your SMS, view your mobile phone’s stored data and record audio or video via a smart SMS command. Moreover, if you have, a GPS enabled mobile phone; your tracker can easily locate your position using the GPS signals transmitted by your device.
SIM Cloning is a comparatively easy task to accomplish. Even a novice can perform this task with a small amount of effort. There are a lot of myths shrouding this process like; one can hear the conversation made over the target SIM or one can retrieve data from the original. Until this day, there are no substantiations for these statements, although a certainty is that the counterfeited SIM card can be used to make calls or send SMSes, whose bills, you the owner of the original SIM will be liable to pay.
Protective Measures
You can try a few protective measures to counter these menaces, though these steps cannot be regarded as legal advice.
- Replace your SIM Cards at regular intervals; say every three years. Today, most service providers render this service free of cost.
- Always observe your phone bill carefully and try not to save any PINs or passwords in your mobile phone if you lack an encrypted password wallet in it.
- Immunise your mobile phone with the latest anti-virus and anti-spy ware applications and see that your mobile phone is never connected to a PC with no adequate protections.
- See that you never accept an SMS with an attachment unless it is from a credible source. Meanwhile you can protect your device from this hazard by armouring it with some encryption applications like Fortress SMS or SMS protector.
- Unless knowing that they come from a trusted source, never click on SMS or MMS links.
- Since no credible financial institutions would probe about financial details over the phone, do not disclose any such details like bank or credit card details to anyone over the phone.
Is a Bold Blackberry better than an Apple 3G?
August 16, 2008
Canadian RIM just cannot rest in peace as the world is showering accolades on the latest mobile phone sensation; the Apple iPhone 3G Mobile Phone. Perhaps, you cannot be blamed if you find a tinge of prejudice in that midset of their, behind the conception of the Blackberry Bold 9000 3G Mobile Phone. This mobile phone from RIM that has started to be known widely as the ‘iPhone killer’ is due in the month of September. You know well that the Apple iPhone 3G has emerged as the talk of the town not just for its myriad features but the cost at which, it comes. If its predecessor, the Apple iPhone was gayly called the ‘Jesus Phone’, the same euphoria continues here too as the neonate has started to be called the ‘3Jesus Phone’. Do you take it as one of the numerous effects of the 3G?
Ergonomics
Both these models have at least one thing in common and that is their weighing 133 grams apiece. In dimensions, the iPhone has the leading edge, even though nominally at 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm as against the Bold phone’s 127 x 66 x 12.7 mm. The part where, the iPhone 3G scores is the display sector. Its multi-touch display explains almost everything about touch-controls ranging from accessing music and videos to audio books and podcasts with a simple touch. A commoner would llike its multi-touch screen with a 3.5” large display and virtual keypad for the quick access properties shrouding them, such as scrolling through your playlists as well as song numbers after synchronising music files from the iTunes library on your PC. However, if you are a business executive, you just might find this type of keypad a bit cumbersome as against a full QWERTY keypad of the Bold Phone that offers exceptional typing convenience. In the Bold Phone this part is further fortified by a navigation assisting trackball to defend its counterpart’s mighty multi-touch screen. The trackball acts just like a mouse by making navigation through websites as well as zooming in on the desired areas of the websites.
Innovative Applications
Here, both these mobile phones once again holds a similarity by announcing that a mobile phone must be something a bit more than just hardware. Both the models come emblazoned with an array of innovative software applications. The iPhone 3G proudly displays a variety of business applications like Mobile Me, eBay and a Blackberry style Push-Email application. MobileMe application is all about an enhanced way of helping you in accessing the internet to obtain your emails, calendar and photographs and synchronising instantly with multiple devices. The eBay application allows you to be connected with events like bids or auctions as the Push-email enables you to pick your emails as soon as they hit your mailbox. Apart from these, the iPhone 3G also presents a couple of amusement based applications too such as the ‘Band’ that alters the phone’s touchscreen icons to various music instruments like a piano or a bass guitar and Monkey Ball, a oftware that forms the platform to conceive innovative games of motion sensitivity. Blackberry Bold mobile phone outclasses the iPhone 3G with a Go Suite application coming preloaded with Data Viz documents that entitles you to edit your downloaded Excel, Word or Powerpoint files. The iPhone 3G too is capable to download these Microsoft files but fails miserably in the editing part. Further, the Bold phone also touts of a couple of multimedia aiding software like the Roxio Photosuite 9LE and the Roxio Media Manager those assist you in managing your video and music files.
Connectivity Features
In this sector too, both these mobile phones flaunt almost all the advanced niceties such as UMTS(3G), HSDPA, Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi, apart from the conventional GPRS and EDGE. Both these mobile phones can be operated almost anywhere in the world provided network facilities, being supported by Triband UMTS and Quadband GSM. Both these devices come with GPS properties as well. However, the Bold phone has an edge over the iPhone 3G here, for the former comes with a built-in GPS system smartly assisted by Blackberry maps as the latter can only say about an assisted GPS.
Imaging and Multimedia
Perhaps the iPhone 3G slightly outscores its opponent here, for primarily, it being an iPod in the heart. You not only can access the iTunes library on your PC or Mac, but also can browse through your artwork albums engaging an application called Cover Flow. Other significant applications such as Band and Monkey ball fortifies this phone further. The Bold phone would never go down without a fight, for it comes with a remarkable media player studded with an equaliser with as good as eleven preset filters that in their turns soften or boost audio levels to render the optimum ambience. Moreover, it has also a trick or two up its sleeves in the forms of Roxio Media Manager and Photosuite 9LE. Both the mobile phone models come with integrated 2 megapixel cameras. The Bold phone has its camera backed up by a 5 x digital zoom as the iPhone 3G flaunts the geo-tagging feature as the major attraction.
Other Significant Features
Another area where, the Apple iPhone 3G PDA Mobile Phone scores over its rival is the memory part. Here, it comes with a whopping 8GB flash memory with another option of an even bigger 16GB on-board memory. You might find the Blackberry Bold 9000 Smartphone Mobile Phone trailing
a bit here, with a mediocre flash memory of 128MB though, it offers an expansion slot of up to 8GB. The power features of both these models are similar with the batteries of either models yielding around five hours of talk time and twelve hours of standby time. The operating system engaged by the iPhone 3G is Apple’s MAC OS X as the Bold phone employs a Blackberry Version 4.6 OS. Finally, you have a colour option for the iPhone 3G, for it comes in black and white colours as the Bold phone offers you only a black casing.
E-Paper Display for Economy Mobile Phones
August 14, 2008
E-paper is widely known as electronic paper that refers to an advanced technology, which effectuates displays emulate the impression of common ink on paper. A chief characteristic of such displays is the absence of a backlight to light up the screen. Instead, these displays, like ordinary paper reflect light. Hence, contributes to energy conservation by holding text as well as images without drawing power. This technology has come up as a shot in the hands of mobile phone manufacturers that they can now successfully target the low end users with low budget mobile phones that much defines power conservation. However, this technology has not yet hit the mobile phone world widely, though it is widely applied in digital schoolbooks, e-books, electronic version of newspapers and smart cards as embedment.
History
A technologist called Nick Sheridon developed the first Electronic paper in 1970s at Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox. This contraption was then known by the name Gyricon. This smart invention proved to be the foundation on which an advanced information display device called electrophoretic display was developed. It explains an information display that rearranges charged pigment particles with the help of an applied electric field to form visible images. This was followed by the development of more enhanced versions like Bistable LCD and cholesteric LCD.
Electrophoretic Film in Mobile Phones
Motorola was the first mobile phone manufacturing company that came forth to use this technology in the making of a mobile phone. They termed it ‘Clear Vision’. Here, titanium dioxide particles of a micrometre approximately in diameter get dispersed in an oil form of hydrocarbon. This oil comes mixed with a dark-coloured dye and then treated with surfactants as well as charging agents that help the titanium dioxide particles to take on an electric charge. Later, a couple of conductive plates arranged in a parallel way, separated by a break of 10 to 100 micrometres, hold the mixture. The particles electrophoretically migrate to the opposite charge bearing plate as a voltage is induced across the two plates. The particles, due to a smart light scatter towards the viewer’s side, appear white, when rested at the viewing side of the display. This smart scattering of light is caused by the presence of high index titania particles. Vice-versa, these particles while on the backside of the display, appears dark. This happens because; the coloured dye absorbs the incident light. An image is formed here, when each region of the display receives the appropriate voltage to realise a pattern of absorbing as well as reflecting regions. This is possible only by a smart division of the rear electrode into numerous tiny picture elements.
Merits and Demerits
The chief advantages of engaging this technology in a mobile phone display are; it very much contributes to a mobile phone’s thinness especially for the absence of glass, allows longer battery life and explicit reflectivity like paper. The screen is illuminated by the keypad’s backlight through a projected slit below just below it, making it visible in darkness. However, there are a few drawbacks too with this concept. Major ones are the display’s restrictive characteristics that tell on text messaging and data services largely and the usage of a font that is very much like a fixed digital clock. Apart from these, a limited provision of non-alphabetic characters also disappoints the users of phones using electrophoretic imaging display.
Have a longer battery life of your mobile!
December 7, 2007
Everyone wants to get longer battery life for their mobile phones. It is simple but to get more battery life mobile phone users have to sacrifice certain things. Yes, you are not supposed to choose certain settings like backlight, vibration mode, screen saver etc. These settings drain more battery. If you are planned to not to use your handset for 2 or 3 days, it is advised to switch it off. If you do not want to do so, you can put it standby mode or turn-off all the special settings.
• Say “no” to battery-draining features
If you enable all high-battery draining settings, then your battery life will be reduced. Disabling settings can be done through selecting “settings” options in main menu.
• Don’t leave Bluetooth for longer
As the file transmission takes place over through Bluetooth, it is better to turn off it. It is not good to leave it as it is. Bluetooth drains more battery power to transfer files between compatible mobile phones. Never switch it on unless the need arises.
• Set less brightness
People want to have bright images on their display. Its good, but setting high level of brightness drains more power of battery. Certain high models have been manufactured with the option to adjust the level of brightness on the screen automatically. While you buy from manufacturers, it will have full brightness settings. You can adjust it as you like to reduce the battery power consumption.
• Let your screen be quiet and plain
Setting animated wallpapers and screensavers becomes a new trend today. But trust us, those animated screensavers and wallpapers are battery-draining thieves. Setting high ring volume is another cause for quick battery loss. Vibration mode requires high battery power. You can set vibration mode, if the need arise. As soon as the need is fulfilled, turn off the mode to save battery power.
• Keep an eye on GPRS and Wi-Fi connectivity
To be on the safer side, turn on GPRS feature while you want to surf on internet. After browsing needs fulfil, turn off or disable GPRS. It is well and good to set GPRS in “only when needed” option. So that it will turn off automatically after browsing ends.
Buzzing Technology- Mobile Phone Batteries!
December 5, 2007
Mobile phones are in vogue everywhere with everyone, and the usage is increasing as days pass by. The trend continues with new models, shapes, sizes and colours featuring every model of reputation, showcasing it in public!
Batteries are the life-blood of any mobile phones. The flat battery is hardly used now, as the life of it is short. Designers are manufacturing better batteries that can lessen the power use, gives extended service from smaller and lighter batteries.
There are three fundamental sorts of rechargeable batteries used in mobile phones-Nickel Cadmium (NiCd), Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) and Lithium Ion (Li-Ion).
The Nickel Cadmium technology has been around for many years and hence people are familiar with it. Having some drawbacks, the major mobile phone manufacturers avoid using it now.
• The chemicals in nickel Cadmium is not environmentally friendly, and the disposing of this heavy metal poses a great problem.
• Referred to as voltage depression, if not fully discharged before recharging a NiCd, after a few cycles, the battery learns the low water mark and acts as if it is discharged.
The work around for it is to run the cell down before recharging it, not so convenient though. The cells are associated in series, so even if a few cells are discharged, others may not be.
Nickel Metal Hydride is better as its environmental friendly, less prone to memory loss and a discharge every two weeks is sufficient. They also have a higher capacity to retain in relation to their dimension and mass.
They do not last as long as NiCd batteries, after a few charge-cycles, the crystals within the NiMH cells turn out to be coarser. They are capable to offer power for long stand-by times, but when the additional current to maintain a call is needed the voltage on hand drops quickly and all of a sudden low battery warnings are sounded. Once the call is over, a few minutes of rest readies the battery for a lot of hours stand-by.
Lithium Ion is the greatest and latest in the current technology of batteries, which gives outstanding capability for its size and weight and does not endure from the memory effect. The current can be topped up at whatever time it is suitable. They are very expensive and are used only in top-of-the-range-products.
Avoid discharging the Li-Ion batteries completely. There are also the Lithium Polymer Batteries, which are very much similar to Lithium ion batteries, but can be shaped into varied shapes and be compressed into smaller handsets.
