Shadowlair

It's official, avoid the android stock browser

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Created on Friday, 08 March 2013 17:46

Last Updated on Friday, 08 March 2013 17:46

Written by Eric

Hits: 75

Between a flaw found this week and some pretty indepth research performed by several Cansecwest 2013 speakers it's confirmed, avoid the stock android browser at all costs.  There are numerous flaws that due to the very slow patching process will never get fixed.  My suggestion, Chrome or Firefox.  Both get updates quickly and were written with security in mind.

Almost Cansecwest time

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Created on Sunday, 03 March 2013 20:31

Last Updated on Sunday, 03 March 2013 20:31

Written by Eric

Hits: 83

Almost time for Cansecwest.  Looking forward to some good hacking talks, catching up with old friends, and of course amazing beer in good old Vancouver.

Long Overdue Upgrade

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Created on Sunday, 03 March 2013 04:19

Last Updated on Sunday, 03 March 2013 18:37

Written by Administrator

Hits: 89

Finally, a long overdue upgrade to the site management system and in the process, the theme of the site has been completely revamped.  The new theme is more simple, much more mobile device friendly, and hopefully easier to use.  Not sure if content will get added more often, but here's hoping.  The downloads section is a bit sparse now, and I don't really plan to re-add most of the content there.

Android Security Failures

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Created on Saturday, 09 June 2012 00:46

Last Updated on Saturday, 02 March 2013 21:16

Written by Eric

Hits: 300

While I'm sure many have come to this same realization, I've yet to see it mentioned widely among the Android community, the Android OS is flawed in terms of security.  Ok, well not necessarily the whole OS, really the browser is the worst part.  What is the #1 target for most hackers to gain access to a personal computer?  The browser of course.  What have we been taught over the past 10 years, keep the browser updated at all costs, constantly, without fail.  Of course even then there is a risk, but at least a slightly smaller one.

The Android OS was designed with Webkit as a core component, which makes updating the browser nearly impossible without a full OS update.  Most manufacturers aren't pushing out constant OS updates, and even if they do often, they don't update the webkit version unless a major bug is found (and even then months later normally).

Chrome goes a long way to solve this, but lets face it, most Android phones don't run Ice Cream Sandwich yet.  Until such time as Chrome can be used on your phone, I'd strongly recommend using a browser that can be fully updated and not rely on webkit.  The only real choices that fulfill that requirement are Opera and Firefox.  Dolphin and others just wrap around the builtin webkit, so they offer very little additional security.  Opera Mobile is a full fledged browser with plenty of features, not limited like the original Opera Mini was.  Firefox is still pretty ugly, but the Firefox beta is looking nice so far.  There is even a bit of hope that noscript will be available for it once the beta goes stable, leading to a lot greater security.

The summary though, be careful when choosing your browser, just because it looks different than the built-in browser doesn't mean the security is any better.

PHP.net hacked?

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Created on Sunday, 20 March 2011 02:13

Last Updated on Saturday, 02 March 2013 21:16

Written by Eric

Hits: 1442

Running PHP on your web server?  Well looks like the site where the code is hosted was hacked.  From initial reports it appears the PHP source should be intact, but that could change at any time so be prepared for some quick upgrading to eliminate purposefully injected bugs.

New Android apps section

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Created on Saturday, 19 February 2011 20:18

Last Updated on Saturday, 02 March 2013 21:16

Written by Eric

Hits: 1375

Just added an Android apps area to the site.  Right now it contains 2 Tasker profiles/tasks sets.  The first will allow you to add a menu to your main screen which can switch between preset volume profiles.  The second is a modified version of the Missed Notification profiles/tasks off the the Tasker wiki which integrates with the volume profiles set to provide better vibrate setting detection.

Merry Christmas!

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Created on Wednesday, 22 December 2010 01:49

Last Updated on Saturday, 02 March 2013 21:16

Written by Eric

Hits: 1788

Upgrade your Chrome browser

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Created on Saturday, 04 December 2010 04:09

Last Updated on Saturday, 02 March 2013 21:16

Written by Eric

Hits: 989

Chrome stable just got bumped to version 8.0.  The new version has a self contained PDF viewer as well as fixing some bugs which you don't want to be roaming around the web with.