Archive for April, 2011

Windows Mobile joins the party after Apple (iPhone) and Google(Android) Sued

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After a week windows mobile 7 also joins the party along with Google Android and Apple iPhone, both companies are sued against stealing user sensitive data (like GPS cordinates which is user's pin point location) from user's mobile devices and transmitting over internet then stored at Google and Apple databases.

CNET reported the location tracking on Monday, almost a week after reports of similar tracking in Apple's iPhone and Google's Android mobile OS raised concerns that smartphones could be used by police, civil litigants, or abusive spouses to track an owner's movements over extended periods of time.

Microsoft Version:-
https://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/web/location-and-my-privacy.aspx
 

Sources:-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/25/apple_sued_for_location_tracking/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/28/google_sued_over_android_location_tracking/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/27/windows_phone_location_tracking/


Retirement of Autorun

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After a decade of abuse, Autorun is finally being retired in older versions of Windows.

Microsoft has finally removed Autorun function from earlier versions of its Windows operating system that has been widely abused by miscreants to surreptitiously install malware on users' computers.

Vista/Windows 7 introduces some new features like UAC and improved AutoPlay (aka Autorun) that disables certain functionality which has been abused by malware (like Conficker). These changes will be backported to down level platforms.

This functionality was made available for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 .

Please visit the following KB article for more information and how to download the new updates http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971029 for disabling Autorun abuse.

Previous update http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715