HTC (the guys who built the first Android phone for T-Mobile) have released a new Android-based smartphone called Hero. It’s an amazing piece of technology and looks really cute. We’ll be trying to get our hands on this one but only if it’s not SIM-locked. Not likely, since HTC is a manufacturer, not a carrier. It runs on a customized Android OS. Looks like HTC guys put a lot of effort into the UI of the device. Not only is it multi-touch, it also looks like the next gen of UIs for smartphones. Here are the specs:
http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/specification.html
And see the gallery of photos here.
An important question is that what if, mashups are integrated with each other in a web services format. What are the security requirements in that particular case.
am thinking on this issue and further details will posted soon here.
Mashups are around serving useful purposes. The technology isn’t new but came as a very different perspective on information sharing between different stakeholders. Currently the technology is limited to a single user accessing a single mashup site which can connect to multiple backend services.
A relevant security problem is the authentication and authorization issues. Multiple solutions exists such as PermitME OAuth or Google AuthSub. All of these approaches are some now ignoring the fact that a mashup can be connected to another mashup, consequently complicating the issues of authorization.
The approach of PermitMe simply introduces a third party server called Permit Grant Service. However, when we see this in the context of multi mashups, a “n” number of Permit Grant Services are required.
Video Lectures related to the project Dynamic Behavioral Attestation for Mobile Platforms are now available. You can see the (constantly updated) list of uploaded video lectures here.
We have successfully built NSA SELinux for OpenMoko FreeRunner with support for policy 19-23 using kernel-2.6.24. Most of it was cross compilation and understanding of the kernel and userspace infrastructure of SELinux.
The policy is now being developed further to suite our solutions in permissive mode. Check out http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=72016920562
Call for papers for IEEE Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust.
High-quality papers not under review or previously accepted or published elsewhere are solicited. There will be Best Paper and Best Student Paper awards. Submissions are encouraged as long papers (8-12 pages), short papers (4-5 pages) and posters. Paper submissions should be in the IEEE format, with the first page bearing authors’ affiliations, names, and contact details.
Submission Deadline: April 3, 2009
Notification of Acceptance: June 5, 2009
Final Manuscript Due: July 3, 2009
Conference: August 25-27, 2009
Location can be an important consideration in applications these days. We are interested in location based access control. We are using Openmoko FreeRunner as our GPS enabled mobile device and smartphone.
Following is the getting started tutorial for GPS on OM: GPS Getting Started
The contribution by SERG has been accepted for the technical strand of the International Conference on Technical and Socio-economic Aspects of Trusted Computing (Trust 2009). So, SERG will probably be represented by one of its members at the conference. More on this later after the registration process opens up (and is completed).
The following article is a good introduction into the scope of Android and what technology Google is to enable for the near future.
http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/01/android-netbooks-on-their-way-likely-by-2010/
It seems that Android has yet to get mature and it wont be until next year that it will be released on mobile devices. It is definitely required that we do give sometime to it all the way with other activities because it holds a greater share in the near future.
The SERG Wiki has been updated with two articles related to the core concepts of software stacks and how window management is used on these stacks. Its a must read to clearly understand how different kinds of software are interconnected and related in a general purpose OS. This is a work in progress and your feedback will help in improving this work.
These concepts are used at SERG for mobile/smartphone system development. These are concepts that students are required to know before they attend the workshops in future.
This is somewhat old news but Ubuntu is now aiming at mobile platforms with ARM processors. The article mentions that a port of Ubuntu for Intel’s Atom processor is already available. It remains to be seen whether providing a PC distribution on the contemporary smart phone will be enough. I don’t think so. A mobile has special requirements and a dedicated effort at developing a detailed software stack (like Openmoko and Android) is necessary.
