|  |  |  | | | | | TechNewsWorld | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Similar to Apple's iOS, Android is apparently vulnerable to apps secretly copying photos. Android developer Ralph Gootee create a test app that masquerades as a simple timer but steals the most recent image on the user's smartphone and posts it on a public photo-sharing site. Critics said the development further emphasizes the danger of Google's hands-off approach to the Android Market. "The open nature of Android development is a risk," Patrick Runald, senior manager of security research at Websense, told LinuxInsider. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  The First Amendment is meant to protect freedom of speech, but a new device could thwart it -- not through censorship but by affecting the brain's cognitive processes. In George Orwell's seminal novel 1984, the Ministry of Truth controls news, entertainment and information, while the Ministry of Love is there to monitor, arrest and convert dissidents, real or imagined. However, even Orwell and his fictional ministries could not have imagined a potentially more sinister device -- the SpeechJammer gun invented by two Japanese researchers. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  In the near future, cyberthreats will be the leading threat to the United States, FBI Director Robert Mueller warned in a speech on Thursday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. Traditional crime, from mortgage and healthcare fraud to child exploitation, have moved online, while terrorists have become increasingly cyber-savvy, Mueller said. Meanwhile, law enforcement is also confronting hacktivists, organized crime, hostile foreign nations spying on the U.S. and online and mercenary hackers. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Virtualization giant VMware has unveiled Spring Hadoop, which integrates its Spring Framework with the Apache Hadoop platform. Spring provides a comprehensive, lightweight framework that will make it easier for devs to build solutions around the Hadoop platform, according to the company. Spring Hadoop is available under the open source Apache 2.0 license and can be downloaded free. "Spring is the most popular development framework for enterprise Java, and this release makes the power of Apache Hadoop available to the vast Spring community of developers," said VMware's Adam Fitzgerald. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Later in 2012, we'll see the arrival of two major operating systems: Microsoft Windows 8, a preview of which was offered to the general public earlier this week, and Apple's OS X Mountain Lion. Are we lining up for a major OS showdown? Or are we not comparing apples to apples? Windows 8 will run on desktops, laptops, tablets and everything in between, while Mountain Lion, despite its incorporation of some features from mobile iOS, is restricted to desktops and laptops. Microsoft's already touting Windows 8's security. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  With SOPA and PIPA out of the picture for the foreseeable future, ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has becomes the world's eminent piece of online piracy legislation. Many countries, including the U.S., have signed the agreement, but questions linger. In Part 3 of our three-part podcast about ACTA, TechNewsWorld speaks with Maira Sutton from the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a long-time critic of ACTA. Sutton details the foundation's grievances with agreement and offers up an alternative. | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
