Karel Bata
Newbie
First, I love my new HTC Desire, and I love Android. But, what with this market mushrooming, I see huge potential here for criminals.
Most people are doing things with their phones they would never dream of doing with their PC or Mac.
Would you, sitting at your PC, see a nice looking bit of software and simply download it to try it out? And then when a warning screen flashes up about 1) how much access it will have to your data, and 2) how it will 'communicate' with the outside world, would you simply click "OK"?
We've all done that in the past with PCs, and then learnt our lesson. So why do we do it with Android?
To make matters worse, many of these apps originate from countries where there is no recourse to any legal action if your personal data is stolen and used. Or if it's sold to someone who will use it!
What appears to be a safeguard, that you are buying the app from some official Android apps shop, is absolutely no guarantee of the honesty of the seller.
So, right now, do you really know how many of those apps on your phone have access to personal data? And how many regularly communicate with some outside database? How do you know you haven't inadvertently installed a keylogger? Or a banking Trojan?
We need to discuss this.
Most people are doing things with their phones they would never dream of doing with their PC or Mac.
Would you, sitting at your PC, see a nice looking bit of software and simply download it to try it out? And then when a warning screen flashes up about 1) how much access it will have to your data, and 2) how it will 'communicate' with the outside world, would you simply click "OK"?
We've all done that in the past with PCs, and then learnt our lesson. So why do we do it with Android?
To make matters worse, many of these apps originate from countries where there is no recourse to any legal action if your personal data is stolen and used. Or if it's sold to someone who will use it!
What appears to be a safeguard, that you are buying the app from some official Android apps shop, is absolutely no guarantee of the honesty of the seller.
So, right now, do you really know how many of those apps on your phone have access to personal data? And how many regularly communicate with some outside database? How do you know you haven't inadvertently installed a keylogger? Or a banking Trojan?
We need to discuss this.
