Some smartphone models more vulnerable to attack

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) ? New research from North Carolina State University shows that some smartphones specifically designed to support the Android mobile platform have incorporated additional features that can be used by hackers to bypass Android's security features, making them more vulnerable to attack. Android has the largest share of the smartphone market in the U.S.

"Some of these pre-loaded applications, or features, are designed to make the smartphones more user-friendly, such as features that notify you of missed calls or text messages," says Dr. Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "The problem is that these pre-loaded apps are built on top of the existing Android architecture in such a way as to create potential 'backdoors' that can be used to give third-parties direct access to personal information or other phone features."

In essence, these pre-loaded apps can be easily tricked by hackers. For example, these "backdoors" can be used to record your phone calls, send text messages to premium numbers that will charge your account or even completely wipe out all of your settings.

The researchers have tested eight different smartphone models, including two "reference implementations" that were loaded only with Google's baseline Android software. "Google's reference implementations and the Motorola Droid were basically clean," Jiang says. "No real problems there."

However, five other models did not fare as well. HTC's Legend, EVO 4G and Wildfire S, Motorola's Droid X and Samsung's Epic 4G all had significant vulnerabilities -- with the EVO 4G displaying the most vulnerabilities.

The researchers notified manufacturers of the vulnerabilities as soon as they were discovered, earlier this year.

"If you have one of these phones, your best bet to protect yourself moving forward is to make sure you accept security updates from your vendor," Jiang says. "And avoid installing any apps that you don't trust completely."

Researchers now plan to test these vulnerabilities in other smartphone models and determine whether third-party firmware has similar vulnerabilities.

The paper, "Systematic Detection of Capability Leaks in Stock Android Smartphones," will be presented Feb. 7, 2012, at the 19th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, Calif. The paper was co-authored by Jiang and NC State Ph.D. students Michael Grace, Yajin Zhou and Zhi Wang. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Research Office.

The full paper, with technical details, is available here.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/_TYi_0RYEvE/111130100228.htm

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Congo vote begins despite delay fears, violence (Reuters)

KINSHASA (Reuters) ? Voting began slowly on Monday in Congo's second-post war elections, held in the vast and volatile Central African nation despite fears logistical problems would delay them and irregularities undermine the results.

Thousands queued outside polling stations across the country, which saw sporadic outbreaks of violence as the elections approached, including in the capital at the weekend.

Some then cast their ballots while others complained polls were late opening or that they did not know where to vote.

After a last-minute scramble to prepare for the presidential and parliamentary votes, final rallies were canceled in Kinshasa due to clashes between rival supporters, security forces opened fire on crowds and the main presidential challenger was prevented from campaigning.

The polls - which pit President Joseph Kabila against 10 rivals while more than 18,500 candidates compete for 500 seats in parliament - will test progress toward stability after decades of misrule and two wars in the last 15 years.

Around 5.4 million people were killed by the last war, largely through hunger and disease.

It ended formally in 2003, but localized violence in the mineral-rich state has continued, especially in the east, where a plethora of local and foreign rebel groups vie for control.

Addressing the nation on Sunday evening, Kabila, seen by many as the favorite due to the advantages of incumbency, warned against a return to widespread violence.

"Our country has come a long way, from war and conflict of every type. We must take care not to go back to that," he said.

In the eastern lakeside town of Goma, security was heavy and polls opened slightly late but voters were enthusiastic.

"I am happy to have voted. I want change so I hope those who lose accept the results. We don't want trouble," Joel Mweso, a student, told Reuters.

A Reuters witness also saw residents in the capital, Kinshasa, voting after initial delays. International observers said they had received reports of some delays elsewhere across the nation, but it was too early to give details.

Underscoring security fears, two election commission trucks were ambushed and torched overnight by gunmen just outside Lubumbashi, the usually quiet capital of the mining province of Katanga, the provincial interior minister told Reuters.

Election commission chief Daniel Ngoy Mulunda said Congo would prove critics wrong with credible and peaceful polls.

"Everyone's going to vote tomorrow, it's going to be a celebration of democracy. The Congolese people are going to take the second step in the consolidation of their democracy. We have kept our promise," he said on the eve of the vote.

The first post-war election in 2006 was seen as broadly free and fair but gunbattles erupted after the voting.

United Nations troops and helicopters from Angola and South Africa have been called on to ferry election material to 60,000 polling stations across a nation the size of Western Europe with little infrastructure so some 32 million people can vote.

Provisional results are due on December 6.

Even in the capital voters complained of last-minute confusion over where they were meant to be voting due to polling stations being moved and errors with voter lists.

"We thought voting would be easy, but now we've been told we have to go somewhere else, we don't know where," said voter Bibi Mbao. "We're happy to vote but we're a bit confused, because we're being sent left and right."

The opposition has also protested that election lists were not properly vetted, leading to potential fraud. After outbursts of violence during the campaign, there are also fears of a contested result.

"COME A LONG WAY"

Andre Kimbuta, the governor of Kinshasa province, said some areas of the city were difficult to access and polling stations would only receive ballot papers in the morning. Torrential rain began to fall in parts of the capital by mid-morning.

With more than 1,400 legislative candidates in one Kinshasa constituency, some voters struggled to fit newspaper-sized ballot papers into the clear plastic ballot boxes provided.

A European Union observer mission on Sunday condemned moves by the police on Saturday to prevent Kabila's rival, veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, from campaigning.

Kabila came to power when his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001 and then won the 2006 poll.

The failure of the opposition to unite behind a single candidate - after Kabila's camp pushed through a law scrapping the need for a run-off if no candidate secures a majority in the first round of voting - has bolstered his chances.

But Tshisekedi, who has spent decades in opposition and boycotted the last poll due to complaints of fraud, has drawn increasingly large crowds as his campaign, which started late, picked up momentum.

Peter Pham, director of the U.S.-based Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, said it appeared that Tshisekedi had cemented himself as the anti-Kabila vote amid frustrations at the slow pace of progress, even if no formal alliance was in place.

"Ironically, the government's ham-fisted attempts to obstruct his campaign have only served to enhance his stature," he said.

(Additional reporting by Kenny Katombe in Goma; writing by David Lewis; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wl_nm/us_congo_democratic_election

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Analysis: Attack hands Pakistan a chance to squeeze U.S. (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ? Pakistan's military has been handed a rare opportunity to press its strategic ambitions in neighboring Afghanistan after a cross-border NATO attack that killed 24 of its soldiers over the weekend.

Fury over the incident at home, where anti-American sentiment runs high, makes it likely that both the army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, and the civilian government will play hardball with their ostensible ally, the United States.

"The Pakistan military is clearly very angry at the turn of events and the army's top leadership is under tremendous pressure from middle-ranking offices and junior officers to react," said Hasan Abbas at the U.S. National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs.

That pressure will spur the military to flex its muscles in diplomatic maneuvering with Washington in the run-up to the exit of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

Indeed, on Monday, the military's spokesman threatened to drastically reduce cooperation on peace efforts in Afghanistan, which could complicate U.S. President Barack Obama's plans to bring the war there to an end.

Analysts said Pakistan will seek concessions from the United States as its price for Saturday's attack, in which NATO helicopters and fighter jets strafed two military outposts in northwest Pakistan, close to the Afghan border.

The Pakistani military said 24 soldiers were killed and 13 wounded. NATO called it a tragic, unintended incident.

The concessions are likely to include giving Pakistan a greater say in the political settlement to end the war that would cement a role for Islamabad's allies in a future Kabul government.

A YEAR OF BUST-UPS

"From the military's point of view, here is a perfect opportunity to try to go on the offensive for a change," said Kamran Bokhari, vice president for Middle Eastern and South Asian affairs at STRATFOR, a U.S.-based intelligence consultancy.

"The Pakistanis are going to lay their terms out," Bokhari said. "They're going to say ... whatever you're doing on that side of the border, we need more input into that and you need us to get you out of there and provide a safe exit."

The border incident is the latest in a year of bust-ups between Islamabad and Washington -- uneasily allied in the war on militancy since the September 11 attacks on the United States a decade ago.

First there was the jailing of a CIA contractor for shooting dead two Pakistanis in the city of Lahore. Then there was the secret U.S. commando raid inside Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and then came U.S. accusations that Pakistan was involved in attacks on American targets in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's room for maneuver is usually limited by its mutually dependent relationship with Washington, on which it depends for financial and military support.

"Pakistan is in no position to do something that might lead to open hostilities, to war with the U.S.," said Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier general and analyst.

But this time Islamabad feels justly aggrieved and has several options to pressure the United States.

INFLUENCE WITH MILITANTS

Already since Saturday's incident it has announced that it will review all military and diplomatic ties as well as intelligence sharing, and it has demanded the vacation of Shamsi air base in Baluchistan, where some CIA drones used against militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan are reportedly based.

It has also shut down supply routes through Pakistan that account for almost half of the provisions shipped overland to U.S. allied troops fighting in Afghanistan.

Following a similar incident in September 2010 that killed two Pakistani troops, the routes were shut for 10 days.

However, NATO has since pushed to expand a northern route into Afghanistan through Russia and the central Asian countries, which reduces the impact of a blockade through Pakistan.

Pakistan's ultimate leverage lies in its influence over militant groups, especially the Taliban-linked Haqqani network, which pioneered suicide bombing in Afghanistan and has become one of the most serious threats to NATO troops there.

Pakistan has long-standing ties with the Haqqanis stretching back to the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and - despite official denials - it is widely suspected that it still supports them.

After an attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul in September, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, called the Haqqani network a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's intelligence service.

Despite that, in October, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly called on Pakistan to help include the Haqqanis in peace talks with the Afghan Taliban.

Emboldened by the latest events, Pakistan might actually start leaning more heavily on the network as a proxy guerilla force to further its own interests in a post-U.S. Afghanistan. It almost certainly won't be trying to bring them to the negotiating table.

"I think the message has been conveyed loud and clear," Qadir said. "We're not going to do anything to facilitate anything until this problem is solved."

But there's only so far Pakistan can lean on the Haqqanis. Any attack in the near term by the group against targets in Afghanistan will be seen as retaliation, even if Pakistan didn't have anything to do with it.

Pakistan's been here before. In the 1990s, it was almost labeled by the United States as a state-sponsor of terrorism for its support of militant groups. Such a declaration today would immediately trigger sanctions Pakistan can't afford.

"Right now, the Pakistanis are playing victims," Bokhari said. "Do they want to go from being victims to being accused of sponsoring a terrorist attack on U.S. forces?"

(Additional reporting by William MacLean in London and Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wl_nm/us_pakistan_usa

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Wedding tragedy: Bomb kills 3 in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines?? Suspected Islamic militants detonated a powerful bomb that killed at least three people and wounded 27 others in a budget hotel packed with wedding guests in the southern Philippines, officials said Monday.

Investigators believe the blast and ensuing fire that gutted the two-story Atilano Pension House in downtown Zamboanga City late Sunday was a terrorist strike and that it was not linked to the wedding, city police director Edwin de Ocampo said.

Still, many of the victims were from a group of more than 20 people who occupied six of the hotel's 35 rooms for a planned ceremony Monday.

Citing witnesses, the BBC reported that the explosion destroyed the upper levels of the hotel.

"We should not show that we're panicking because that is what these troublemakers relish to see," Zamboanga Mayor Celso Lobregat told The Associated Press by telephone. "We have good leads. We will get all of them."

TNT powder
The blast was believed to be one of two simultaneous bombings planned by al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaff militants. The other would have been on nearby Basilan island, where two explosives were separately found and safely defused by authorities in Isabela city on Sunday, de Ocampo said.

The hotel blast, caused by about 22 pounds of TNT powder, was one of the most high-profile bombings this year blamed on the Abu Sayyaf.

The blast was so powerful it caused much of the second floor to collapse, blew off the hotel's roof and shattered glass panes and windows from nearby buildings, Lobregat added.

Two of the wounded were in serious condition and more than a dozen others remained confined in a hospital, he said.

Volatile region
Zamboanga City, a predominantly Christian trading hub 540 miles south of Manila, is located in a volatile region long troubled by a decades-long Muslim insurgency, extortion gangs and kidnap for ransom syndicates.

The blast occurred in room 226 on the second floor of the hotel, instantly killing two people staying in two adjacent rooms, which were devastated by the blast. A third body was found Monday on the ground floor, pinned by the cement slabs that collapsed from above, Lobregat said.

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De Ocampo said investigators were trying to determine how the TNT bomb was detonated, adding its design resembled those used by the Abu Sayyaf in past attacks on Basilan island, the group's birthplace.

Police Senior Inspector Cesar Memoracion said his local bomb squad recently informed the hotel owner to be on guard for a possible bomb attack, citing intelligence, which did not identify the source of the threat.

In January 2000, the hotel was rocked by a blast that killed three suspected Muslim militants assembling a bomb in a room, officials said.

The Abu Sayyaf was founded on Basilan in the early 1990s as an offshoot of a violent Muslim insurgency that has been raging for decades. U.S.-backed offensives have weakened the group, which is blacklisted by Washington as a terrorist organization, but it remains a key security threat.

It has about 380 armed fighters and survives mostly on extortion and kidnappings for ransom. Abu Sayyaf militants are believed to be holding an American, an Indian, a Malaysian and a Japanese convert to Islam, along with a number of Filipino hostages in Basilan and nearby Jolo island.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45459358/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/

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Obama, Clinton gamble on Myanmar

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration is taking a foreign policy gamble by sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the isolated Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar this week.

The historic visit will be the first by a secretary of state to the country also known as Burma in more than half a century and aims to test the once military-run government's baby steps toward democratic reform. The administration is betting that rewarding Myanmar's apparent desire to open up will pay dividends, including loosening Chinese influence in a region where U.S. allies are wary of China's rise.

Clinton leaves Washington on Monday and will spend two days in Myanmar after a stop in South Korea. She will meet Friday with opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-28-US-Myanmar/id-5b7b1053cec44f509c7019836a1e8142

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Ex-fiance focus of 'People's Court' missing case (omg!)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? Orlando's police chief says a former fiance is the primary focus of the investigation into a woman who went missing after appearing on "The People's Court" with the suspect to resolve a dispute over a $5,000 engagement ring.

Thirty-three-year-old Michelle Parker of Orlando was last seen Nov. 17. It was the day the previously taped episode aired of the case between her and 40-year-old Dale Smith. The abandoned SUV of the mother of three was found the next day.

Chief Paul Rooney said at a news conference Monday that Smith of Orlando is the probe's focus and there are no other suspects.

He says Smith has refused to take a lie-detector test. The Orlando Sentinel reports that court papers show the couple has a history of violence.

Attempts to find a telephone listing for Smith were unsuccessful.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_ex_fiance_focus_peoples_court_missing_case011928193/43739850/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/ex-fiance-focus-peoples-court-missing-case-011928193.html

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Skiing: Canada's Jan Hudec places fourth in super-G

Canada's Jan Hudec finished a solid Sunday for Canadians at the Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup super-G, placing fourth, just off the podium, in a time of 1:24.21.

Erik Guay of Mount-Tremblant, Que., was sixth in 1:24.29.

"What can I say?'' said Hudec, 12th in Saturday's downhill. "I was pretty confident after yesterday. And my back's been feeling better and better. I wasn't expecting anything crazy because it was supposed to snow so much and starting 44th.

"It was really rough out there but the track got better at the bottom for the gliding section of the course and that really helped me out today.''

Norway's Aksel Svindal won the super-G in 1:23.47. Didier Cuche, the downill winner, placed second and France's Adrien Theaux rounded out the podium placings.

? Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F260/~3/7XaZvHrZsgA/story.html

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