The T-Mobile G1 gets hijacked!

[altemar]

why should google give the antivirus i mean it would be cool, but tell me does windows come with antivirus protection?? NO, yes there's free antivirus so its not their fault. be glad the os is free unlike others.

[biowallet]

I just wanted to calm people down. From what I have read it seems clear that the browser has been hijacked (I haven't researched into the problem enough to say if it was Google's or TMobile's fault). But as the article wisely states, the Android security system isolates the processes so they cannot access other data in the phone and that way the damage is minimized.

FWIW, even if it had access to BioWallet data they still would be completly safe due to the use of strong encryption techniques combined with biometric authentication (well, unless you have something that is interesting enough for the NSA )

Jose Luis
BioWallet Team.

[djdanska]

Strange, i switch to both the wap apn and internet3 apn and the problem goes away.

[stavin02]

Not sure if this is related but yesterday my G1 kept saying "connection error" when connecting to my yahoo email. It is still doing it today too. Funny thing is this morning when i checked it showed new email from overnight in my inbox, but gives me the connection error when i try to view them...now its back to not even being able to check my yahoo email again. WTF?!

[ohrock]

Why would you want an Antivirus for your G1? How is that going to solve any problems derive from this vulnerability.

The only reason why windows needs anti-virus is because all files in the system are accessible to all users (this a generalization, because later versions of windows can act a bit like traditional unix and make every user its little world).

Android is no exception to this unix tradition, and as a matter of fact every process is isolated - not only all the processes of a user, like in traditional unix).

If most users in Linux and Mac OS/X don't need antivirus, why would anyone want antivirus for android?

Just a thought!

PS> Clam AV is the big exception, but this unix antivirus is used mostly for unix user's that have to work in a windows network, or unix mail servers that will deliver email to windows machines.

[kgirl17]

What bothers me the most (just besides the shock of being hijacked!) is
the lack of response when I called to report it two nights ago. It took me THREE calls just to get someone to take me seriously (and not accidently hang up on me.) And that was partly because I had found others on this forum reporting the same issues. I kept being told no one else had called tmobile with this (like that made my experience any less true.)

Meantime, tmo finally logged a trouble ticket, but have I heard back? NO.
And I finally found a place to escalate with Google online... I had an email yesterday asking if things were better.... but nothing else.

NO one has an explanation or comforting feedback. I'd really like to hear something like - we caught it! or Wont happen again!

I feel pretty darn abandoned. And considering it's not the best in terms of access or email functionality (I don't use gmail)... customer service is one place I would expect them to pick up the slack.

Yup. You could say I'm just a bit disappointed.

[Jorsher]

Originally Posted by ohrock

Why would you want an Antivirus for your G1? How is that going to solve any problems derive from this vulnerability.

The only reason why windows needs anti-virus is because all files in the system are accessible to all users (this a generalization, because later versions of windows can act a bit like traditional unix and make every user its little world).

Android is no exception to this unix tradition, and as a matter of fact every process is isolated - not only all the processes of a user, like in traditional unix).

If most users in Linux and Mac OS/X don't need antivirus, why would anyone want antivirus for android?

Just a thought!

PS> Clam AV is the big exception, but this unix antivirus is used mostly for unix user's that have to work in a windows network, or unix mail servers that will deliver email to windows machines.

I haven't used an anti-virus on Windows in years, it's not necessary

99% of cases, the virus is on a computer because someone downloaded it. Be careful, use common sense, and there's a very, very small chance that something will magically appear on your PC.

As commented above: an antivirus wouldn't protect you from this. It's NOT a virus.

[ohrock]

KGirl17, you bought a G1. The very first piece of technology that runs Android.

As an early adopter, you should be happy of having to deal with glitches...

At least in the case of the Android platform, if you want to do something about it, you can even participate in the process of fixing the Glitches! (The Android is an Open Source Project)

[storm14k]

WOW....this is pretty poor reporting and could incite a needless scare. I like others have went to they Yahoo site on my G1 using WiFi and got there just fine. If the browser was hijacked it would be hijacked no matter the connection type to the internet. What some have said is that the TMO DNS seems to be pointing to the wrong site.

There was a big issue over a major DNS vulnerability this summer that would allow hackers to poison a DNS. There were some major companies that DID eventually have their poisoned and sent people to the wrong pages. It looks like this may have happened to TMO and has no bearings on the security of Android. Please at least do some research on this issue before throwing Google and Android under the bus regarding security.

The idea of Android Anti-virus is somewhat ridiculous as Android is built on Linux and inherits the things that make virus infections very hard to almost impossible.

[G1andonly]

I dont know if its just me but when i go to my tmobile and try to to manage my favs i get a message saying SAFARI IS NOT CURRENTLY SUPPORTED FOR MY FAVS. Can someone tell me whats going on i though safari was apples brower?