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Today's Specials
 Thailand goes mobile
Over 28 million Thais have mobile phones, some 68 per cent of them in Bangkok. The northeastern region has the lowest number of mobile phone users, with just 37 per cent.
24 per cent of households have landlines.
Source: Department of Business Development.
Skype goes mobile
 You don't need a computer to make free calls anymore. Use 3 Skypephone instead. It's a stylish mobile phone that calls, texts and takes pictures like you'd expect it to - but wait, there's more - you can also use it to call and instant message your friends, free, wherever they are in the world.
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Amazing Mobile Phones
Today's mobile phones have it all: Built in cameras, games, agendas, alarm clocks, calculators and radios. You even can read (?) your e-mails and access the internet (?) on a tiny 128x128 micro display.
Do you remember the time when IBM introduced the VGA display on their PC's? Everyone agreed, that the 640x480 pixel VGA display was unsatisfactory.
But todays mobil phones hypes their micro screens to access the internet.
Honestly, read e-mails or look at internet sites on these displays isn't a pleasure - it's a torture, even on a 320x240 pixel screen.
When I use my mobile phones out of my house, in plain sun, I can't read anything on these otherwise colorful screens.
Frankly, I don't need all these baubles.
What I need is a phone I can use (and read) in Pattaya's plain sun, with a display I can read under any condition, without using some glases or even enlargers.
A phone to phone and to read and write a SMS. A phone that I can operate easily outside of my house.
Where is it?
Know How
With all their know how at least one mobil phone designer should be capable of producing a mobile with a large, easy to read keypad and dsiplay, that only makes and receives calls, one that rings like a phone, that does not chirp, sing, dance or produce drum rolls.
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 The Security of Mobile Phones: Introduction
Mobile phones are being used all the time now by people of all ages.
Mobile phones are two way radio transmitters that work by connecting to a nearby tower and exchanging data. Because mobile phones put out a constant RF (Radio Frequency) output they can be tracked using the tower triangulation method where the network administrators can find your precise location with their administrative network access.
When your GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) mobile phone is switched on, your cellular network provider knows exactly where you are in the world to within a hundred metres or so. When GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) is switched on the network provider can locate your phone down to 10 meters.
However the benefits mobile phones bring in terms of anonymity and mobility have a flip side, of being yet another tool Big Brother can use to keep an eye on us.
Mobile phones can be a threat to your security and privacy.
Mobile Phones: Basics
Mobile phones come in two parts, the actual phone with screen and buttons and the SIM CARD that associates the hardware with a telephone number.
The SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) is a smart chip card, with the size of a postage stamp. The SIM card contains a microprocessor chip, which stores unique information about your account, including your phone number, called MSISDN (Mobile Station ISDN Number), and your IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) code. It identifies you to the network. A SIM card is actually a tiny computer in your phone.
The SIM Card provides plenty of room for storing hundreds of personal phone numbers, text messages and value-added services.
The phone itself is marked with an IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number. Everytime when you make a phone call, your MSISDN, IMSI and IMEI numbers are broadcast to the mobile phone network.
What makes a mobile phone quite literally mobile, is the presence of mobile phone masts scattered around the countries. When your mobile is turned on, it and the network constantly check with each other as to where is the nearest mast for it to communicate.
In any one area, there may be several masts, so the network and your phone communicate with them all in order to work out which is the best one for you to use.
Mobile Phones: Unencrypted Communication
Both kind of communications, the communication by voice as well as the data communication (SMS, MMS or e-mails) are transmitted unencrypted.
SMS is very useful but also one of the easiest methods to monitor. It is known that scanning software is available for monitoring them.
However, if a hacker was to break into a mobile phone operator's databases then the chances are that they too could monitor in what ever fashion all the information passing through, and pick up on sensitive details that you are sending via SMS, MMS or e-mails.
For professional hackers its no problem to crack Money Transfer Applications on mobile phones.
Mobile Phones: Spyphone Software
This kind of software lets ring and operate a mobile phone as a normal telephone but when the phone is called using a previously programmed spyphone number, it automatically answers without any ringing or lights and the display appears as if it is on ordinary standby.
The phone works as an infinite transmitter. You can listen to room conversations when you are away.
FlexiSPY Light, from Thailand-based Vervata, is one of the first spyware applications for handsets. It lets you eavesdrop on phone calls and SMS messages.
FlexiSPY also lets you activate the mobile phone's microphone remotely so you can listen in even if the phone isn't in use.
Vervata itself describes FlexiSpy as an 'activity logger' for catching cheating spouses and monitoring children.
FlexiSpy logs SMS messages, incoming and outgoing call history and durations, GPRS data activity and contact information on a remote server for access later through a Web page.
From PC to Mobile Phones
Some other programs let you modifies phone book entries, call lists and SMS messages on mobile phones directly from a PC without any ringing or lights on the target mobile phone, even the phone's display remains on standby.
Mobile Phones: Satellite Tracking
A satellite net can follow a phone with stunning accuracy all over the world. The phone does not even need to be in use. As long as it has power it can be located.
The system uses 24 communications satellites to target a mobile's microwave transmissions.
It can triangulate a phone's location down to a few metres and during a test it was even able to turn on a mobile when it was switched off.
Mobile Phones: GPS Tracking Services
Thanks to GPS units in mobile phones, PDAs and other devices, parents can know where their children are.
If you have a group of friends and want to know if they are going to be late for some event then you can include them in your personal network through services like Loopt and Buddy Beacon.
Services like Loopt allow a member to see where their friends are as dots on a map, with labels saying who they are.
The service is available in Bangkok.
Mobile Phones: GPS Tracking Facts
New York Post August 31 2007:
GPS Observer Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday fired a veteran worker whose movements were tracked for five months through the GPS device in his cellphone. Fox News August 30. 2007: GPS Tracking Devices let parents keep watch on teen drivers. It's 11 p.m. and your 16-year-old son is driving 55 miles per hour in a 45-mph zone. You're sitting at home, miles away, but you know all about it. Thanks to new systems developed for major insurance companies, parents are able to track every move their children make behind the wheel. Thai Police traces Mobile Phones. Thai police traced a Canadian paedophile to a specific shack in Nakhon Ratchasima by tracking calls between him and his transvestite kiddie supplier in Chaiyaphum. Satellites track Mobile Phones. Police knew Toby Studabaker was in Germany on Sunday night thanks to a satellite system which tracked his mobile phone even when it was not in use. A National Criminal Intelligence source said: 'We knew Studabaker had a mobile and we also knew its number'. 'The satellite net can follow a phone with stunning accuracy all over the world. The phone does not even need to be in use. As long as it has power it can be located'. The system uses 24 communications satellites to target a mobile's microwave transmissions. It can triangulate a phone's location down to a few metres and was even able to turn on Studabaker's mobile when it was switched off. Advertisements
Big Brother is watching you
Thai Police is listening into your internet connections
The Royal Thai Police Department has asked the Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) to allow it to monitor the phone numbers of people logging on to the Internet.
The Department wants TOT to provide it with caller ID features for all local phone numbers dialing into the Internet, including the Internet users' log-in names.
The Department says the purpose of this request is 'to protect against any crimes that may occur on the network' and acknowledges that the plan would mean that all Internet access in Thailand would monitored by the police.
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All A Go-Go Clubs
 Pico Projector
Microvision is unveiling a battery operated, full-color laser projector at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2008 in Las Vegas.
 The projector connects directly to mobile phones, digital cameras, laptops, portable media players (PMPs) and other mobile devices to project large, high-resolution images and videos onto any surface.
The images projected can range anywhere from 12 inches (30 cm) to 100 inches (2.5 m) in size, depending upon the projection distance.
The PicoP can project a widescreen, WVGA (848×480 pixels) DVD quality image.
The device is expected to offer approximately 2.5 hours of continuous battery life, sufficient to watch a full-length movie without recharging.
 Miniature Projector
Light Blue Optics of Cambridge, UK, announced it
will show a range of miniature projection systems at the International Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) 2008 in Las Vegas.
The miniature projection systems use laser light sources to create bright, full colour, high-quality video images. The holographic laser projection technology delivers WVGA (848×480 pixels) video images that remain in focus at all distances. Pocket-size Projectors
 Oculon Optoelectronics introduced two tiny business liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) front projectors.
Hikari Pro920, which is a basic VGA model (640x480) will be available in December 2007.
Hikari Pro1440, which has a resolution of SVGA (800x600) will be available during 2008.
The projectors can be used with some Smart Phones.
Open to Hackers
Mobile phones are open to hackers
At the monthly meeting of the Bangkok Chapter of the Projekt Management Institute (PMI) Roland Van Kleuen, managing director of Globeron, demonstrated how easy it is to read the messages, the phone numbers and to change the language of a remote mobile phone:
Sending someone a nice picture from your phone using Bluetooth is all you need to do. During the transmission you can read out the recipents stored information.
Funny News
Telephone Tapping
On January 18. 2007 the government gave a stark warning to telephone operators, saying they risk losing their licences if they are caught tapping the conversations of customers.
Telecoms sources said state owned CAT Telecom prossessed such equipment as well as an unnamed privat telephone company.
The warning was issued only a few days after Thai TV and Radio stations qualified publications as Nightwalkers's 'Risk of using a Mobile Phone' as nonsense ...
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