Tag: Google

Mobile codes to boost Google account security | Security – CNET News

 

Mobile codes to boost Google account security | Security – CNET News

My comments

Google have worked on a way of improving security for Web-page login experiences because these login experiences are easily vulnerable to phishing attacks.

What is this technology

This method is similar to a hardware security “token” used by some big businesses for data security and increasingly by some banks to protect their customers’ Internet-banking accounts against phising attacks. This is a device that you keep with you in your wallet or on your keyring which shows a random number that you key in to a login screen alongside your user name and password and is based on “what you have” as well as “what you know”.

This time, the function of this “token” is moved to the mobile phone which nearly all of us have on ourselves. It will appear as a smartphone “app” for the Blackberry, Android or iPhone platforms that shows the random code number or will operate in the form of your phone showing an SMS with the token code or you hearing a code number from a call you answer on that phone. Of course, you will register your mobile number with Google to enable this level of security.

The direction for the technology

Google are intending to use it with their application platform which covers GMail, Adsense, Analytics, Picasa and other Google services. Initially it will be tried with selected user groups but will be available to the entire user base.

They will provide an option to avoid the need to use this “Google codes” system on the same computer for a month, which would appeal to users who work with their GMail account from their netbook or desktop PC. They will still need to have this work if they “come in” to their GMail account from another computer and it will work if someone else uses the same PC to check on their GMail.

What I am pleased about with this is that they intend to “open-source” this system so that it can be implemented in to other platforms and applications. Similarly, the “apps” can then be ported to newer smartphone platforms or “baked in” to other PDAs and similar devices. As far as the “apps” are concerned, I would like to allow one piece of code to service multiple service providers rather than loading a smartphone with multiple apps for different providers.

Making the home network secure

I would like to see this technology being tried out as a method of securing devices that use Web-based data-access or management interfaces, similar to D-Link’s use of CAPTCHA for securing their home-network routers’ management login interfaces. This is becoming more so as nearly every home uses a wireless network router as the network-Internet “edge” for their networks. Similarly, there is an increasing tendency to use a network-attached storage for pooling data to be available across the network or as backup storage and most of these units use a Web-based user interface.

Conclusion

One feature that I like about this Google project is that they have applied a security technology normally available to big business and made it available to small business and consumer users.

Another one for the Android-based TV platform

News Article

Sony Internet TV Has An Intel Atom Processor And Runs Google TV, Chrome, Flash 10.1 | Sony Insider

From the horse’s mouth

Sony’s official Internet TV Website – Sony Style

My comments

Previously, I had written in my blog about People Of Lava introducing an Internet-enabled TV that was based on the Google Android Platform. This is a brand that may not be on everyone’s lips, especially when it comes to consumer electronics.

But now Google had determined an Android-based app-driven TV platform to go alongside their Android app-driven mobile phone platform and described it as “Google TV”. They have pitched this at digital TV sets and various set-top applications, primarily as an open platform for delivering Internet-enabled interactive TV.

Sony have become the first mainstream TV manufacturer to implement this platform, which will give it an air of legitimacy in the consumer-electronics space. This is eve though the interactive-TV space has been dominated by various closed or limited platforms like the games consoles, the PVR boxes such as TiVo, and various pay-TV platforms.

I often wonder that if Google keeps the Android platform as an open platform, they could provide many interesting applications and uses for many devices.

Debunking the hysteria and paranoia about Google’s Street View Wi-Fi site surveys

Introduction

Over this last few weeks, there has been hysterical media and political activity in Europe and Australia concerning Google’s Street View activities. This activity has become focused on the collection of Wi-Fi network data by the Street Survey vehicles which grab the initial street images.

The hysteria focused on identifying details about Internet use and Wi-Fi devices that existed at individuals’ addresses and that this data could be used to spy on individuals.

The truth

Wi-Fi site surveys are a part of Wi-Fi networking life

The Wi-Fi site survey is associated with nefarious activities like wardriving but it is commonly practised as part of Wi-Fi network use.

When you want to connect to your Wi-Fi wireless network with a client device, you will come to a point in the device’s setup operation where you see a list of SSIDs, then you choose the SSID that you wish to connect to. This is an elementary form of a site survey.

This is extended to technology enthusiasts like myself who activate Wi-Fi network scanning functions on smartphones to see a list of wireless networks operating in the neighbourhood that they are in for curiosity’s sake. Here, we see the list of SSIDs and an icon beside each SSID that indicates whether the network is protected or not. The practice also extends to use of “Wi-Fi-finder” devices to look for open Wi-Fi networks.

Similarly, people who are optimising wireless networks will use software like inSSIDer (which I have reviewed) or HeatMapper for site surveys and wireless-network optimisation. This software can also yield information about the BSSID and operating channel for that particular SSID and more sophisticated versions can use spectrum analysers to determine interfering frequencies or determine the location using support for GPS modules.

This leads me to Navizon and Skyhook Wireless who have done these surveys in order to turn these beacons in to a location tool in a similar manner to GPS or mobile-phone-tower-based positioning. The most common application of this is the Apple iPhone platform which uses this information for locating the phone during setup, avoiding the need for users to determine their time zone or location.

What does my Wi-Fi network yield

A normally-setup wireless access point or router will send out a “beacon” with contains the following data:

  • SSID or ESSID which is the wireless network name
  • BSSID which is the MAC address for the access point’s radio transceiver. This MAC address does not have any relationship to the Ethernet MAC address or the broadband (WAN) interface’s MAC address on your wireless router.
  • Information required to determine security protocol to establish a successful conection

This data that is in this “beacon” is publicly available in a similar context to the information written on a vehicle’s registration label which would have the registration number (written on the number plates / license plates) and the VIN (vehicle identification number) for that vehicle.

It is also worth knowing that all access points and wireless routers have the option to turn off SSID broadcast. Here, you don’t have the SSID made available but have the network listed as a “hidden network” on some devices. This is something you can do in your router’s or access point’s Web-based management interface

When your network client devices are active in your wireless network and are “talking” to your wireless access point or router, they don’t broadcast an SSID or other beacon because they have “latched on” to that access point or router. This data will usually be encrypeted as part of the WPA security protocols that should be in place on your private wireless network.

Conclusion

Once you know how the Wi-Fi network works, you should then know that a site-survey operation should not gather the actual data that is moved across the network.

Now Google is proposing search for the big screen in the home

 Google Testing TV / Web Search on DISH Network Set-top Boxes | eHomeUpgrade

Video business-news bulletin including story about Google’s TV / Web search

My comments on this technology

Google has become a byword for searching for information on the Internet in a similar manner to the way the word “Walkman” became a byword for personal stereo equipment or “Hoover” became one for vacuum cleaning. Their presence is now strong on the computer screen and the mobile screen, but the territory that they haven’t conquered yet is the television screen.

Now they are working with DISH Network (one of two major satellite-TV services in the USA) to develop a TV-show / Web search user interface for use on the set-top boxes that DISH Network provide to their satellite-TV customers. Could this mean that we could be able to find RF-broadcast content as well as content on the Web like YouTube clips or Web sites such as online episode guides. They reckoned that this may need the use of a QWERTY keyboard near the TV.

But I have observed an increasing furtherance towards text entry from the couch, which would be important with Google’s TV/Web search. For example, some remote controls are implementing text entry on a 12-key keypad similar to how those teenagers type out text messages on their mobiles and others, including TiVo are issuing remote controls that have a slide-to-expose QWERTY keyboard for text entry. On the other hand. there have been manufacturers who offered small wireless or USB keyboards being pitched at “lounge-room” use.

This is even though I have seen situations where teenagers have brought laptops in to the lounge area so they can IM or Facebook friends while watching their favourite TV shows, or where I have used Google or the Internet Movie Database from my mobile phone to search for information relating to a show that I am watching.

So it definitely shows that the Internet is becoming part of the regular TV-viewing life rather than a separate activity.