Some Updates

  At 4:42pm on Nov. 8th, I officially turned 54 years old. It's was also day one of my week long vacation. I have no major plans. My parents and I went out to eat at Dynasty. I plan on seeing Spectre sometime this week. I'm going to get the One Ring rpg book, The Darkening of Mirkwood, I need in order to have everything currently available for the game. I also want to eat at Red Lobster sometime this week.
  My smartphone downloaded and installed a patch that corrected the Stagefright bug on the morning of Nov. 6th. I'm very happy that my phone is now patched. I try to keep my smartphones, tablets and computers as updated as possible when it comes to security. That means firewalls, antivirus software and Android, iOS and Windows patches and security updates. I've installed a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection on my smartphone, tablet and computer as well in order to provide protection when connecting to public Wifi networks. Given the computer viruses, trojans, malware etc. that's running around, you can't be too careful. Credit and debit cards are being switched over to smart card technology in order to lower the incidence of hackers stealing the information on the card and creating fake ones. What I don't understand is why the U.S. took so long to implement this technology. Other countries have been using this technology for some time now.

Android Security Fuck Ups

  According to a recent article, about 90% of Android devices are susceptible to malware. The main reason for this is that most Android devices never get regular security updates. This is primarily due to the fact that most manufacturers and carriers don't bother to update older model smartphones and tablets. They want you constantly upgrading to the latest high end device. I became aware of this problem when my AVG antivirus app alerted me to the Stagefright exploit. According to this article, some 950 million Android phones, mine included, are vulnerable. You'd think, given the extent of the threat, that the manufacturers and carriers would be concerned but that's not exactly the case. They only give a shit if you have the latest devices and only if it's a high end model. If you own an older device or a low to mid range device, you're shit out of luck. One possible fix would be to install a custom Android ROM on your device. CyanogenMod and the XDA-Developers Forum provide these ROMs for a variety of Android devices. My problem is I have virtually no idea how to install a custom ROM on my phone. Zimperium has made Stagefright patches available but I'm not sure how to install them.