Attack of the Android Zombie

A scourge of the personal computer has come to the smartphone.
Anti-spam company Cloudmark said Dec. 16 that its researchers have spotted what they say is a first-of-its-kind “botnet” comprised of more than 800 Android smartphones. The infected devices are being used to send thousands of spam text messages.
Botnets supply massive computing power by tying together thousands or even millions of infected PCs, known as zombies, to steal information, send spam or attack other computers. Hackers sell access to the network to spammers and other nefarious netizens. Now, with the rise of text messaging, some hackers are targeting smartphones for profit.
This botnet is made up of phones that were infected when users responded to spam text messages offering free versions of games such as “Need for Speed Most Wanted,” according to Cloudmark and Lookout Security, a maker of mobile-security software. Along with the games, downloaded from a server in Hong Kong, the would-be pirates also got an infection that turned their phones into spam-spewing robots. The malware, which hides itself by removing its icon from the system, automatically targets phone numbers on a master list.
As consumers move away from PCs and toward mobile devices for everyday computing, hackers are following. But it’s not easy to infect phones, as mobile-software makers have learned from mistakes of the PC era.
One reason this botnet is limited to only 800 or so devices is because Android typically places barriers on downloading applications from anywhere but the official Google Play store. Android also prompts users with meticulous details about the information their apps intend to access, a warning many people ignore. Google representatives did not immediately respond to a message.
The unlucky “Need for Speed” fans who were seeking a free ride could end up with a bill for thousands of text messages they didn’t send. Suddenly, the $6.99 price tag suddenly doesn’t look so bad.

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a Virtual Book club where the author is a member

enture capitalist Brad Feld has been advising entrepreneurs since around the time Jeff Bezos started selling paperbacks out of his garage. A longtime investor, board member and author, Feld recently found his new favorite way to communicate with his growing legion of followers.
For his fourth book, published in October, Feld is utilizing an electronic-reading application called BookShout, which lets customers take notes, ask questions and create virtual book clubs. The Dallas-based startup introduced its interactive library with more than 100,000 titles earlier this year.
Readers can download Feld’s e-book, called “Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City,” from BookShout’s website or mobile app for $12.99, the same price they would pay at Bezos’s Amazon.com Kindle store. They can leave notes for themselves or for the public, which Feld can read and answer as he pleases. That can then lead to an ongoing conversation within the book. John Wiley & Sons, the publisher of “Startup Communities,” is one of the more than 250 to sign licensing deals with BookShout.
Feld said he has 120 followers on BookShout (a far cry from the 117,000 or so on Twitter) and is getting a couple questions or comments a day on specific segments of the book.
“We are getting some good comment threads going that add depth to the book and add to the ideas I’m trying to get across,” Feld wrote in an e-mail.
Feld has gained admiration in recent years from aspiring entrepreneurs for his work as managing director of Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, which made a lucrative early investment in Zynga. He also co-founded TechStars, one of the top startup incubators that’s helped about 175 companies get off the ground.
While the nascent startup isn’t bringing in a flood of book sales, BookShout is the first “compelling” collaborative reading product, Feld said.
BookShout was founded by Jason Illian, who was previously the chief executive officer of GodTube.com. The Christian video site was acquired in 2010 by Salem Communications, which operates dozens of Christian radio stations. Illian, 37, has a team of a dozen people developing BookShout, which reaps between 15 to 50 percent of revenue from each e-book it sells, depending on the publisher agreement.
BookShout has raised $2 million from Ambassador Enterprises, an investment firm in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and will soon be bringing in another round of funding, Illian said. In 2013, he’ll also be going after authors looking to bypass traditional publishers. BookShout plans to provide data to help writers understand how a book is being received.
But the competitive landscape is daunting. Startups such as Berlin-based Readmill make similar social-reading apps. Barnes & Noble’s Nook and the Apple iPad are popular reading devices with their own stores and marketing muscle behind them. And then, of course, there’s the market-leading Kindle, which has a feature called public notes, introduced last year to little fanfare.
BookShout isn’t just waging a literary war on Amazon. Illian has chosen to host BookShout on data services from Rackspace instead of on Amazon. Shakespearean vengeance.

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