A new app can 'virtually steal' from your home - by turning on your phone's camera and beaming images back to thieves.
The software can even build up a 3D model of your home, from which the hackers can inspect your rooms, potentially gleaning information about valuables in your home, calendar entries as well as spying on you.
The app was created by US military experts at Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana,to show how cybercriminals could operate in the future.
New methods: Hackers can build up a virtual image of a room (left), and then inspect details at close-up - picking up details such as cheque numbers (bottom right)
The PlaiceRaider creators even demonstrated how they could read the numbers of a cheque book when they tested the Android software on 20 volunteers.
As long as the app could be installed on the users phone, it can instantly begin beaming back images from the phone when it senses the right conditions, and software on the other end can then re-construct maps of the visited room.
The team gave their infected phone to 20 individuals, who did not know about the malicious app, and asked them to continue operating in their normal office environment.
The team said they could glean vital information from all 20 users, and that the 3D reconstruction made it much easier to steal information than by just using the images alone.
Researcher Robert Templeman said their app can run in the background of any smartphone using the Android 2.3 operating system.
The research team said: 'Through completely opportunistic use of the phone's camera and other sensors, PlaceRaider constructs rich, three dimensional models of indoor environments.
'Remote burglars can thus "download" the physical space, study the environment carefully, and steal virtual objects from the environment (such as financial documents, information on computer monitors, and personally identi fiable information).'
Surreptitious: The phone camera can take pictures and then 'piece' a room back together as a 3D model
The image quality is good enough to create a map of a room, allowing the viewer to inspect objects in sight
Images taken at (left-to-right) six megapixels, 4MP, 1MP and 0.3MP: The researchers say that, while the higher resolution is better, even low-res can provide adequate details
PlaiceRaider will silently take photographs, recording the time, location and orientation due to the sensors within most modern smartphones.
It will then delete any blurred or dark shots, before sending the rest back to a central server, which can reconstruct the user's room, based on information such as phone orientation.
Then the hacker can explore the user's property at will - for instance, scanning the room for calendars, private details on computer screens, and cheque-books or card details.
Templeman said: 'We implemented on Android for practical reasons, but we expect such malware to generalize to other platforms such as iOS and Windows Phone.'
The team offered various ways in which phone manufacturers could secure their systems, for instance making it impossible to disable the shutter sound on phones, so that a user will know if a picture is being taken.
Some manufacturers have done this previously, after many cases of mobiles being used surreptitiously for illegal or immoral purposes, but the sound can be disabled on many models.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2211108/Could-phones-camera-secretly-taking-pictures-right-Hackers-use-lens-steal-private-data--build-3D-model-home.html#ixzz28FH77FmJ
JERUSALEM — Dozens of armed men gathered on the Syrian side of the cease-fire line in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights Wednesday, prompting authorities to close a tourist site as a precaution, the Israeli military said.
An Israeli spokesman said it was unclear what the armed Syrians were doing. He said there was no violence or attempts to cross the border. He spoke on condition of anonymity under military rules.
Israeli forces there were on alert.
The armed men were not wearing uniforms. It was not clear if they were soldiers from the Syrian army or rebel forces battling President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Israelis are concerned that fighting from Syria’s civil war could spill across the border. Last month, several mortar shells exploded in Israeli-controlled territory. Nobody was hurt. Israel said the shells were misfired.
Israeli officials have also expressed concern that the frontier region could turn into a lawless area like Egypt’s Sinai desert, where Islamic militants have gained strength since the ouster last year of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Israel and Syria have been bitter enemies for decades, but there is concern in Israel that if the Assad regime is toppled, the country could fall into the hands of Islamic extremists or descend into sectarian warfare, destabilizing the region.
An Israeli tour group visiting Mount Hermon, the Golan site closest to the border spot, left without incident, and the site was temporarily closed Wednesday as a precaution. “It happened far away from the site, but to be on the safe side, the tourists were told to go down from the mountain to the lower part of the resort,” said Shaul Ohana, who manages the site.
Last year in a demonstration, thousands of people stormed the border fence from Syria, and hundreds burst through. At least 15 infiltrators were killed that day in clashes on the Syrian and Lebanese borders.
Israeli officials accused Damascus of promoting the clash to try to divert attention from the violence within Syria.
Since then Israel has beefed up security in the area.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. It later annexed the strategic territory overlooking northern Israel in a move that is not recognized internationally.
Washington Post
NATO in an emergency meeting on Wednesday backed Turkey in its military response to Syrian cross border shelling that killed five Turkish nationals and called on Syria to abide by international law.
NATO ambassadors met under the alliance’s article 4, for consultations when a member state feels its territorial integrity is under threat.
“The Alliance continues to stand by Turkey and demands the immediate cessation of such aggressive acts against an Ally and urges the Syrian regime to end flagrant violations of international law,” a statement said after the meeting was called at Ankara’s request.
Turkey on Wednesday bombed Syrian targets in response to Syrian mortar shelling, the prime minister’s office said.
“Our armed forces in the border region immediately retaliated against this heinous attack... by shelling the targets spotted by radar,” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s office said in a statement.
Syria said it is looking into the origin of the deadly attacks.
“The concerned parties are currently studying the origin of the fire against Turkey,” Information Omran Zoabi said.
said in a statement reported by state television.
“Syria offers it sincere condolences to the families of the victims and to our friends the Turkish people,” he added.
The United States condemned the “depraved” Syrian shelling and said it was monitoring the tense situation closely.
“This is yet another example of the depraved behavior of the Syrian regime, and why it must go,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
“We regret the loss of life in Turkey, a strong ally, and continue to monitor the situation closely.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced American outrage at Syria’s shelling of Turkish territories and described the situation as “very dangerous.”
“We are outraged that the Syrians have been shooting across the border. We are very regretful about the loss of life on the Turkish side,” Clinton told reporters after Syrian shells hit the Turkish town of Akcakale.
She added it was a “very, very dangerous” situation, and would be talking later with Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu about “what the best way forward would be.”
“This also comes down to a regime that is causing untold suffering to its own people solely driven by their desire to stay in power,” Clinton said after talks in the State Department with Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrisov.
The United States has long insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should step down and end a 19-month rebellion that has claimed some 30,000 lives.
Damascus is “aided and abetted by nations like Iran that are standing firmly by the Assad regime regardless of the loss of life, the damage that is happening both inside Syria and now increasingly across Syria’s borders with their neighbors,” Clinton added.
All “responsible nations need to band together” to persuade the Assad regime to agree to a ceasefire and begin a political transition, she said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said earlier that the cross-border shelling was a clear violation of Turkey’s sovereignty.
Al Arabiaya News
The Vatican’s Chief Foreign-Policy official, Archbishop Dominque Mamberti ,tells the UN General Assembly that the world has lost confidence in the moral principals that sustain the organization.
UNITED NATIONS: The Vatican appointed archbishop Dominque Mambertiexpressing disappointment there is no world government yet.
The archbishop states that international problems and the economic fears is due to “a profound anthropological crisis—that is, a loss of a common understanding of what is truly human.” The Vatican official explained that “only an international community firmly anchored in authentic values consistent with human dignity can produce viable solutions to new types of conflicts.”
Referring to terrorism, Mamberti said there needed to be a consensus of mortality as an antidote to “new types of conflicts initiated by transnational groups that spread a pseudo-religious ideology of contempt for human rights and civil peace.” He said that the problem is shown “most flagrantly by current developments in the Middle East, and in particular in Syria.”
The archbishop praised the UN’s work for world peace but felt the structure was lacking, stating the organization “deprived of the force of unity and persuasive power that it could legitimately have” because of the lack of a clear international accord on basic moral principles, such as those that were set forth earlier in fundamental international agreements on human rights.
“How is it,” the archbishop questioned, “that in spite of universal acceptance of the UN charter and fundamental treaties, we cannot establish a real and equitable system of world government?”
Mamberti also mentioned the disparity between the rich and the poor and that “world wide action” is needed to quell the global financial crisis.
My Comment:
Anyone with eyes to see, can see the woman riding the beast. The Vatican is demanding quick action by the UN to bring in world government and a world currency.
It is clear the Vatican is getting impatient by basically asking “Now that you have world wide approval from the nations and everything is in place, why don’t we have world government yet?!”
The Vatican notes, that they will approve of this new world order as long as all of her doctrines and dogmas are accepted into the world religion to come with it.
After the murder of the USA ambassadors, Catholic Bishop Giovanni Martinelli, the apostolic vicar of Tripoli, told Vatican Insider that Western countries should have the “courage” to ban “all blasphemous projects” and establish “a policy that is respectful of religion.”
This is the beginning of the world religion that will be implemented into the fast approaching world government. No one will be able to insult Islam or Catholicism or other world religions. Freedom of speech will be quelled because the true Gospel will be called hate speech.
The underground church will again resurface as we will join our brothers and sisters who worship in secret in many places around the world.
Revelation 17:1-2
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.”
News that Matters
Gunmen have massacred at least 26 people in a student housing area in north-east Nigeria, calling victims out by name before killing them.
Residents of Mubi, in Adamawa state, say they heard gunfire for about two hours during the night.
Men reportedly moved from house to house, shooting people. Others had their throats slit.
Eyewitnesses say bodies were left in lines in front of the homes.
Police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim says the attackers knew their victims and called them out by name in an off-campus area near a polytechnic school where students live.
He put the death toll at 25, including 19 students from the polytechnic, three students from a health technology school, two security guards and a retired soldier.
"We strongly suspect an inside operation," he said.
Adamawa state, like much of the north, been targeted by Islamist insurgents.
Last month, the Nigerian military carried out an operation in Mubi and arrested dozens of people with suspected links to the Islamist militant group popularly known as Boko Haram.
Boko Haram, which usually targets politicians or security forces, has also attacked students in the past and has cells in Adamawa.
Some officials however suggest the massacre may have been linked to a recent student election.
There were suggestions of ethnic tensions between the mainly Muslim Hausas and predominately Christian Igbos involved in the vote.
Violence has erupted between student gangs in the past in Nigeria, but it is not known to have previously led to a massacre on such a scale.
A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency said reports indicated some of the victims were candidates in the polls.
"The crisis in Mubi is suspected to have been fuelled by campus politics after an election at the Federal Polytechnic," the agency's Yushau Shuaib said.
Mubi is not far from the city of Maiduguri in neighbouring Borno state, which is considered the base of the Islamist group that is blamed for killing more than 1,400 people in northern and central Nigeria since 2010.
The town has seen previous such violence, including in January, when gunmen opened fire on Christian Igbos at a house as they mourned the death of a friend killed in a shooting the night before.
ABC
