Smartphone manufacturers told to introduce 'kill switch'

Manufacturers of smartphones are being asked to incorporate “kill switch” technology in their mobiles to tackle a rise in thefts.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has told firms that it should be possible to make stolen handsets “inoperable” to prevent them being used or sold once taken.

In a letter to eight companies, including Apple, Samsung and Google, he said manufacturers had a “corporate responsibility” to help tackle thefts,the Financial Times reported.

The mayor’s intervention formed part of a coordinated attempt between senior politicians in London, New York and San Francisco to apply pressure on mobile phone companies.

While overall crime in Britain and the US is falling, pickpocketing and snatch thefts continue to rise because of the attraction of high value, portable belongings such as smartphones and tablet computers.

Figures released last week showed that such thefts had gone up 9 per cent in Britain since last year. About 10,000 handsets are stolen every month in London.

Mr Johnson told manufacturers: “If we are to deter theft and help prevent crimes that victimise your customers and the residents and visitors to our city, we need meaningful engagement from business and a clear demonstration that your company is serious about your corporate responsibility to help solve this problem.”

He added: “Each of your companies promote the security of your devices, their software and information they hold, but we expect the same effort to go into hardware security so that we can make a stolen handset inoperable and so eliminate the illicit second-hand market in these products.

“We hope you would support this objective. Customers and shareholders surely deserve to know that business cannot and must not benefit directly from smartphone theft through sales of replacement devices.”

Mobile phone theft was discussed at an international policing conference convened by Mr Johnson earlier this month and his officials met counterparts in New York last week for further talks.

Anti-theft measures offered by Apple and Samsung were tested last week by US security experts as prosecutors called for a universal “kill switch” – a method of shutting down or disabling a stolen device.

Source: Telegraph

Massive Tumblr Security Flaw Requires Everyone On iPhone, iPad To Change Their Password

Tumblr has asked all users of its app on iPhone and iPad to change their password and download an update of the social blogging software in order to cure a security flaw. The news came in a very brief blog post by the company that did not explain the extent of the security breach.

Tumblr did say in a footnote that passwords could be "'Sniffed' in transit on certain versions of the app."

The flaw was reportedly discovered by a reader of The Register, who had been asked to screen apps for his corporate employer. The unnamed employee tested popular apps on the company's wifi network, and found that password logins were being transmitted in a plain-text, non-encrypted way — and therefore were entirely visible to anyone clever enough who wanted to see them.

The Register claims Tumblr was slow to resolve the problem:

Our source only came to El Reg with the issue after failing to get it resolved by simply reporting it to Tumblr's support team.

Here's a screengrab of the flaw in action.

Below, the full text of Tumblr's warning to its users:

Important security update for iPhone/iPad users

We have just released a very important security update for our iPhone and iPad apps addressing an issue that allowed passwords to be compromised in certain circumstances¹. Please download the update now.

If you’ve been using these apps, you should also update your password on Tumblr and anywhere else you may have been using the same password. It’s also good practice to use different passwords across different services by using an app like 1Password or LastPass.

Please know that we take your security very seriously and are tremendously sorry for this lapse and inconvenience.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/tumblr-security-flaw-requires-password-change-2013-7#ixzz2ZPzWfzFy

Which?: iPhone 5 is 'slowest smartphone'

Tests of the seven most popular smartphones found that iPhone 5 came last, processing requests at half the speed of the Samsung Galaxy S4.

The iPhone 5 came last for speed in a test of seven popular smartphones. Photo: Getty

The phones were put through a series of benchmark tests by Which? to measure processor and memory performance, which show how quickly the phone will allow photo editing, running graphic-intensive games, and using several apps at once.

Samsung Galaxy S4, the fastest phone of those tested, has a 1.9GHz quad-core processor which helped generate its impressive score. The phone received a mark of 3188 on the industry recognised test, compared to Apple iPhone 5's 1664 score.

Which? consumer watchdog said: “We put all the handsets through the same tests. Undoubtedly, Apple will upgrade its next iPhone when it launches this autumn.

"For the moment, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 is the phone to beat when it comes to speed."

The second fastest phone was ranked as HTC One, which has a quad-core 1.7-inch processor and 2GB Ram.

Which? said the phone "will provide plenty of punch for phone owners who use Gmail, Facebook, Instagram and Angry Birds all at the same time."

Sony's Xperia Z came in a close third, followed by Google's Nexus 4 which had just 39 fewer points. But the fourth place phone is more than £200 cheaper than any of those in the top three.

The final phones to complete the set were Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 and the BlackBerry Z10, which came in fifth and sixth respectively.

Source: Telegraph