A flaw in the Bluetooth communication protocol may expose modern device users to tracking and could leak their ID, researchers claim. From a report: The vulnerability can be used to spy on users despite native OS protections that are in place and impacts Bluetooth devices on Windows 10, iOS, and macOS machines. This includes iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch models, MacBooks, and Microsoft tablets & laptops. On Wednesday, researchers from Boston University David Starobinski and Johannes Becker presented the results of their research at the 19th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, taking place in Stockholm, Sweden. According to the research paper, Tracking Anonymized Bluetooth Devices, many Bluetooth devices will use MAC addresses when advertising their presence to prevent long-term tracking, but the team found that it is possible to circumvent the randomization of these addresses to permanently monitor a specific device. Android is immune as the OS does not continually send out advertising messages, the researchers said.

HMD is bringing the latest version of the Nokia 2, called the "Nokia 2.2," to the U.S. For $139, it features a notched camera design, a plastic body, and a removable battery. Ars Technica reports: HMD is delivering a good package for the price, with a fairly modern design, the latest version of Android, and a killer update package with two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates. On the front, you have a 5.71-inch, 1520x720 IPS LCD with a flagship-emulating notch design and rounded corners. There's a sizable bezel on the bottom with a big "Nokia" logo on it, but it's hard to complain about that for $140.

This is a cheap phone, so don't expect a ton in the specs department. Powering the Nokia 2.2 is a MediaTek Helio A22 SoC, which is just four Cortex A53 cores at 2GHz. The U.S. version gets 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage version with an option to add a MicroSD card. The back and sides are plastic, and on the side you'll find an extra physical button, which will summon the Google Assistant. The back actually comes off, and -- get this -- you can remove the 3000mAh battery! Speaking of unnecessarily removed smartphone features from the past, there's also a headphone jack. Unfortunately, it's missing some key features to keep the price down. There's a microUSB port instead of a USB-C port, no fingerprint reader, and cameras that have low expectations.

Since it is a GSM phone, it will be supported by T-Mobile and AT&T networks, along with all their MVNOs.

"Like many bad ideas, this one started with Bud Light," reports Slate. As four high school seniors sat around shooting the breeze before graduation, they decided to vandalize their school as a senior prank. Disguised with T-shirts over their faces to evade security cameras, the young men originally set out to spray-paint "Class of 2018," but in a moment one of the men describes to the Washington Post as "a blur," their graffiti fest took a turn toward swastikas, racial slurs attacking the school's principal, and other hateful symbols.

Despite their covered faces, school officials had no problem finding who was responsible: The students' phones had automatically connected with the school's Wi-Fi using their unique logins. Their digital fingerprints tipped off administrators to who was on campus just before midnight, and, as the Post describes, they were held accountable for their crime. But the incident also showcases how little we know about what we're giving away with our digital footprints. These men had clearly given thought about how to stay anonymous -- they knew they needed masks to foil the cameras -- but they didn't think the devices in their pockets could give them away.
The AP adds that the prison sentences for the four teenagers "ranged from eight to 18 weekends behind bars."

Citing a report from Bloomberg, The Verge reports that Amazon is working on a mobile home robot and a high-end Echo to compete against the Apple HomePod and Google Home Max. From the report: We first heard about Amazon's plans to build a wheeled home robot in April last year. The project is reportedly codenamed "Vesta" (after the Roman goddess of the hearth), and rumors suggest it's a sort of "mobile Alexa" that's able to follow users around their homes. Today's report doesn't add significantly to this picture, but it seems Amazon is still keen to build the mobile device. It was apparently slated to launch this year but wasn't ready for mass-production. Engineers have reportedly been pulled from other projects to work on Vesta, and Gurman reports that prototypes are "waist-high and navigate with the help of an array of computer-vision cameras." They can also be summoned using voice commands.

Along with its mystery robot, Amazon is also reportedly working on a high-end Echo device that's due to be released next year. Bloomberg says the cylindrical speaker is wider than existing Echo products in order to fit in extra speaker components, and it could launch alongside a high-fidelity version of Amazon's music streaming service.

Samsung has been one of the only large smartphone manufacturers to insist on keeping the headphone jack in its flagship phones. But that is about to come to an end with the Galaxy Note 10. According to photos published by the FCC, showing both the bottom and top of the phone, there's no headphone jack in sight. The Verge reports: The FCC seems to have briefly shared these images by mistake. Samsung followed the usual protocols in requesting confidentiality for external photos of the Note 10 test device, and yet here we are. Whoops. There are two different models at the FCC, but neither includes 5G. So as with the S10 series, Samsung will likely produce a standalone 5G model. Aside from the headphone jack being a goner -- renders of the phone had already suggested this was coming -- we get a look at the triple-camera system on the back. There's another sensor positioned under the flash, which could be the same 3D time-of-flight depth sensor that Samsung included in the Galaxy S10 5G. The Note is usually where the company throws in everything it can, so it makes sense for it to carry over everything from the top-tier S10 model. The center-aligned front camera cutout is also faintly visible in one shot. Samsung is expected to formally announce the Note 7 at an August 7th Unpacked event in Brooklyn, New York.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Hong Kong's protesters are using AirDrop, a file-sharing feature that allows Apple devices to send photos and videos over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, to breach China's Great Firewall in order to spread information to mainland Chinese visitors in the city. Leaving AirDrop settings open allows anyone in the vicinity to send files to your device. A protest held yesterday (July 7) in Tsim Sha Tsui, one of Hong Kong's most popular tourist districts, had a clear aim: to tell people from mainland China about the city's opposition to a hated extradition bill, which has mobilized millions of people over the past several weeks to multiple protests and presented the most critical challenge to the local government in decades.

But news of the protest has been heavily censored in mainland China, with any mention of the mass movement wiped off the Chinese internet. Even songs alluding to the city have been scrubbed. As such, many Chinese tourists were visibly confused by the large march, which organizers say drew an estimated 230,000 people. Hong Kong's protesters have therefore turned to Apple's AirDrop feature to get their message across to their mainland Chinese compatriots. That the messages are written in simplified Chinese -- Hong Kongers use traditional Chinese -- confirm that the intended audience is Chinese tourists.

T-Mobile U.S. is trying to force customers into arbitration in order to avoid a class-action lawsuit that accuses the phone carrier of violating federal law by selling its customers' real-time location data to third parties. Ars Technica reports: T-Mobile yesterday filed a motion to compel arbitration in U.S. District Court in Maryland, saying that customers agreed to terms and conditions that require disputes to be handled in arbitration instead of courts. The two plaintiffs named in the lawsuit did not opt out of the arbitration agreement, T-Mobile wrote. "As T-Mobile customers, each Plaintiff accepted T-Mobile's Terms and Conditions ('T&Cs')," T-Mobile wrote in a memorandum of law. "In so doing, they agreed to arbitrate on an individual basis any dispute related to T-Mobile's services and to waive their right to participate in a class action unless they timely opted out of the arbitration procedure outlined in the T&Cs. Neither Plaintiff elected to opt out. Accordingly, Plaintiffs have brought their grievances to the wrong forum and their claims should be dismissed in favor of arbitration."

T-Mobile's terms and conditions say, "Thanks for choosing T-Mobile. Please read these Terms & Conditions ('T&Cs'), which contain important information about your relationship with T-Mobile, including mandatory arbitration of disputes between us, instead of class actions or jury trials. You will become bound by these provisions once you accept these T&Cs." Customers can opt out of arbitration by calling 1-866-323-4405 or online at www.T-Mobiledisputeresolution.com, but action must be taken within 30 days of activating a new phone line. The customers who opted out of T-Mobile arbitration could file a similar lawsuit, but that would result in a much smaller pool of customers who could seek damages.

The class-action complaint seeks financial damages and certification of a class consisting of every person who was a T-Mobile customer in the U.S. between May 3, 2015 and March 9, 2019. That's at least 50 million people, the class-action complaint says.

CNBC reports on the latest revelations from America's Federal Trade Commission about the tactics used by the robocall industry: In some cases, robocalls proliferate through programs that resemble multilevel marketing schemes, where business founders push robocall packages on "members" to spur quick growth. In one case, an organization known alternately as "8 Figure Dream Lifestyle," "Millionaire Mind" and "Online Entrepreneur Academy" enticed consumers to buy memberships to gain access to a "franchise-like opportunity" to sell the organization's "proven business model" or "blueprint for success" downstream. Members paid between $2,395 and $22,495 to join, and the business claimed they could earn $5,000 to $10,000 in the first two weeks, followed by similarly large sums...

The FTC also looked at an organization called Life Management Services, which allegedly netted $15.6 million from consumers who thought they were reorganizing their credit card debt through an interest rate reduction service... Another complaint, against a corporation called First Choice Horizon, outlines how the robocaller "under the guise of confirming consumers' identities" for an offer of "bogus credit card interest rate reduction services," further "tricked them into providing their personal financial information, including their social security and credit card numbers," according to the FTC... Another organization, called Media Mix 365, which generated "leads" for home solar energy companies, called a single number 1,000 times in a year and placed millions of nuisance calls to others, the FTC says... A company called Lifewatch was a prolific spoofer, the FTC said, sending calls to consumers' phones that looked like they may have been coming from familiar numbers or numbers within the same area code. The group sold a "free" medical alert system and fraudulently claimed the system was endorsed by the American Heart Association or AARP. On the calls, people were told that they wouldn't be charged for the product unless it was "activated," but their credit cards were charged immediately, the FTC said...

For consumers wondering what they can do about the calls, the first rule is always, "hang up, do not engage. If you see an unknown caller ID, don't answer." Consumers can report robocalls or violations of the Do Not Call registry to the FTC on its website.

On Monday, 7-Eleven launched a smartphone payment service for its 20,000 stores in Japan. By Thursday $510,000 had been stolen from the people using it -- as many as 900 customers.

Long-time Slashdot reader shanen shared this follow-up article, which points out that it's also possible that email addresses and birth dates have been accessed from among the new app's 1.5 million registered users: Tsuyoshi Kobayashi, president of Seven Pay Co., told a press conference in Tokyo that the company will compensate users for the losses caused by fraudulent access and that it has already suspended accepting new users or allowing users of the service to add money to its smartphone application. The estimated amount of losses the company announced is as of 6 a.m. Thursday and the damage could expand...

The parent company said someone, who had accessed their accounts and used the registered numbers of their credit or debit cards, purchased items at its convenience stores. The items included packs of cigarettes, which can be easily converted into cash, it said, adding there was a case in which a huge quantity worth 100,000 yen [$921] was purchased all at once at one of its outlets...

According to Seven & i Holdings, some customers reported their losses on Tuesday and unauthorized access from China and other locations outside Japan was confirmed... Police arrested two Chinese men on Thursday in connection with the problem, investigative sources said. They are suspected of illegally using the ID and password of a customer Wednesday in an attempt to buy electric cigarette cartridges worth around 200,000 yen [$1,843] at a 7-Eleven shop in Tokyo.
Nikkei Asian Review reports that one of the suspects "received instructions about gaining unauthorized access to 7pay accounts via WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging app. The Metropolitan Police Department suspects the involvement of an international criminal organization." (Japan Times reports that one man was asked to do "some shopping" after which they would receive "a reward".)

Nikkei Asian Review also notes that the Japanese government has been pushing to to have a least 40% of all payments be cashless by the mid-2020s -- including generous government tax incentives -- which one consumer finance writer says has "overheated" the market, while "the quality of services has declined in some cases."

A tiny phone, tablet and laptop charger, the first to use gallium nitride rather than silicon chips, has seen sales four times greater than predicted [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled], prompting the Chinese company behind it to try to ramp up production. From a report: Anker, a Shenzhen-based company that specialises in computer and mobile phone accessories, unveiled a line of chargers using gallium nitride (GaN), which conducts electrons 1,000 times faster than silicon, in January. The use of GaN allowed Anker to virtually halve the size of its charger, while retaining full-speed charging. Another Chinese-owned company, RAVPower, has also started using GaN in its chargers. "Silicon limits have been pushed almost to the extreme," said Steven Yang, co-founder and chief executive of Anker. "But GaN is at [the next] phase."

The introduction of the new semiconductor into the consumer market came after a series of military and other commercial applications, in everything from electric vehicles to radar systems. Raytheon, the US defence group, said in 2017 that it had spent $300m researching GaN since 1999. Like some of its peers, it uses the material in its active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, which are able to detect stealth fighters at long range. "Once the power technology is out of the box it will be widely adopted around the world and that means everyone can produce power-switching modules," said Stephen Bryen, a former deputy undersecretary of defence and senior fellow at the American Center for Democracy. "And that is what is used in the radars -- that's the nexus between commercial and military use."

Australia's consumer watchdog has sued Samsung's Australian unit for allegedly misleading consumers by promoting water-resistant Galaxy smartphones as suitable to use in swimming pools and the surf. From a report: The world's largest smartphone maker did not know or sufficiently test the effects of pool or saltwater exposure on its phones when ads showed them fully submerged, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lawsuit says. The case is the first filed by a major regulator and could result in multi-million dollar fines. It centers on more than 300 advertisements in which Samsung showed its Galaxy phones being used at the bottom of swimming pools and in the ocean. "The ACCC alleges Samsung's advertisements falsely and misleadingly represented Galaxy phones would be suitable for use in, or for exposure to, all types of water ... when this was not the case," ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement on Thursday. Samsung said it stood by its advertising, complied with Australian law and would defend the case.

Ever since Frontier bought Verizon's Texas network in 2016, the company has been charging some customers a $10-per-month router rental fee even if they're using their own router. Rich Son of Texas purchased Verizon's FiOS Quantum Gateway router for $200 in order to avoid monthly rental fees. He said: "[the router] worked well for me until the takeover happened with Frontier and I began getting charged for using my own equipment. I have continued to call Frontier and was repeatedly assured that the fees will be taken off my bill." But that didn't happen. Ars Technica reports: Son filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission; Frontier responded to the complaint but stuck to its position that he has to pay the fee. A voicemail that Frontier left with Son and his wife said the company informed the FCC that "the router monthly charge is an applicable fee, and it will continue to be billed." Another voicemail from Frontier told them they can avoid the monthly rental fees if they purchase a Frontier router.

"We can reimburse you if you purchase a Frontier router. We cannot reimburse you if you have a Verizon router -- we are not Verizon," the voicemail said. "You can choose to use your own router, however you will be still charged the monthly fee... the difference is we do not service the router that you choose to use." "It's $10 today -- but how much will it cost us tomorrow?" Son said. "I'd consider letting it go if their customer service blew me out of the water, but they've been terrible ever since Verizon forced Frontier on us." When contacted by Ars Technica, Frontier said that it refuses to stop charging the Wi-Fi router rental fee even when customers use their own router and claimed it does so in order to cover higher support costs for customers like Son."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: A panel that provides policy advice to the Federal Communications Commission is "stacked with corporate insiders," Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Monday. She cited a blog post by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), which showed more than half of all Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) members are direct employees of private companies or of industry trade groups. This could lead to allegations that rather than working for American consumers, the FCC is working for "giant telecom companies", Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, tweeted Monday.

"This is the definition of corruption: industry members writing the rules to benefit themselves & their rich friends," she added in another tweet. Sen. Warren has called on FCC Chair Ajit Pai to "explain the extent to which CSRIC may be corrupted by corporate influence." A letter from Warren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal dated June 27, spotted earlier by The Hill, asks for information (PDF) from Pai on whether the panel is "inappropriately dominated by industry (pdf) insiders." "The industry-dominated personnel on the panel have recommended policies that are directly in line with the wishes of the companies from which their members are drawn," the letter says, adding that POGO says a lack of expertise among FCC members means they rely increasingly on the panel's recommendations.

Jerry Hildenbrand, writing for AndroidCentral: If you're ever in the mood to think about a "how the mighty have fallen" story, you need to look no further than Motorola. The company used to be at the forefront of technology in everything digital, but buyouts, restructuring, and eventually becoming another OEM nameplate has left Motorola little more than a memory that old tech dudes like me will fondly look back with melancholy reflections of the good old days. If I sound bitter, it's because I am, just a little. [...] The company has had a very poor record regarding updates since it was sold to Lenovo; both the big grand Android platform updates and the important but overlooked security patch updates. This compounds the whole issue, as the only realistic chance Z2 Force owners have to get those critically important updates they have missed is when they are bundled into the Android 9 release. These patches have no glitz or glamour associated, but they are the types of updates that keep you and your personal information safer. I've mentioned it before and I'll say it again: manufacturers owe us security patches on a regular basis if they expect us to owe them our allegiance.

PolygamousRanchKid shares a report from Engadget: Samsung hasn't commented much on its decision to delay the Galaxy Fold and address design flaws, but it's opening up a little today. The company's electronics division CEO, DJ Koh, told those at a media event that he "pushed [the phone] through before it was ready." The setback was "embarrassing," he added. While Koh didn't elaborate on what happened, the statement suggests that Samsung was in a hurry to get the Fold out the door and claim some bragging rights. The Fold was supposed to arrive in late April, but early reviewers quickly discovered problems, including a display cover that was too easy to peel off and gaps that allowed debris to get behind the foldable screen. It was all too easy to break the sensitive panel -- and that would have been a problem with any phone, let alone one costing $1,980. Koh noted that Samsung had over 2,000 devices in the field and "defined all the issues," but didn't give an answer as to when the Fold might go back on sale.

An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Google appears to have misused its dominant position in India and reduced the ability of device manufacturers to opt for alternate versions of its Android mobile operating system, Indian officials found before ordering a wider probe in an antitrust case. A 14-page order from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), reviewed by Reuters this week, found Google's restrictions on manufacturers seemed to amount to imposition of "unfair conditions" under India's competition law....

The Indian case is similar to one Google faced in Europe, where regulators imposed a $5 billion fine on the company for forcing manufacturers to pre-install its apps on Android devices. Google has appealed against the verdict.

By making pre-installation of Google's proprietary apps conditional, Google "reduced the ability and incentive of device manufacturers to develop and sell devices operated on alternate versions of Android", the CCI said in the order. "It amounts to prima facie leveraging of Google's dominance".

Nokia's CTO Marcus Weldon "told the BBC that the UK should be wary of using the Chinese hardware" -- though Nokia rushed to assure the BBC that Weldon's remarks do "not reflect the official position of Nokia."

Forbes reports: On the security front, Weldon referred to analysis suggesting Huawei equipment was far more likely to have vulnerabilities than technology from Nokia or Ericsson. "We read those reports and we think okay, we're doing a much better job than they are," Weldon said, describing Huawei's failings as serious and claiming Nokia's alternatives to be a safer bet. "Some of it seems to be just sloppiness, honestly, that they haven't patched things, they haven't upgraded. But some of it is real obfuscation, where they make it look like they have the secure version when they don't...."

The comments from Nokia's CTO came in light of research from Finite State, which published a scathing report claiming that "Huawei devices quantitatively pose a high risk to their users. In virtually all categories we examined, Huawei devices were found to be less secure than those from other vendors making similar devices." And this included the potential backdoors that lie at the heart of the U.S. government's security case against the Chinese company. "Out of all the firmware images analyzed, 55% had at least one potential backdoor," Finite State found. "These backdoor access vulnerabilities allow an attacker with knowledge of the firmware and/or with a corresponding cryptographic key to log into the device."
Nokia's later statement insisted that their company "is focused on the integrity of its own products and services and does not have its own assessment of any potential vulnerabilities associated with its competitors."

hackingbear tipped us off to a breaking news story.

CNN reports: US President Donald Trump has appeared to soften his tone on Chinese communications giant Huawei, suggesting that he would allow the company to once again purchase U.S. technology. Speaking at a press conference in Osaka, Saturday, Trump said that the U.S. sells a "tremendous amount of product" to Huawei. "That's okay, we will keep selling that product," said Trump. "The (U.S.) companies were not exactly happy that they couldn't sell."
Forbes points out "While it's not a lifting of the blanket ban, it will significantly benefit the Chinese manufacturer."

ZDNet reports: This news just broke with comments made by Trump, including "U.S. companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We're talking about equipment where there's no great national security problem with it." The details of this statement are still pending, but it is likely that 5G infrastructure equipment may still not be part of this access deal while the smartphone segment may be where we see open access.
One Daily Beast contributor argues the action "appears to be a surrender to publicly issued Chinese demands."

But TechCrunch writes that "any mutual trust has been broken and things are unlikely to be the same again."

Apple's chief design officer announced on Thursday that he is leaving the company after nearly 30 years at the firm. John Gruber of DaringFireball making sense of things and what it means for the company: I've never been an "Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs" person. But part of what made Apple the Apple we know in the post-1997 era is that when Jobs was at the helm, all design decisions were going through someone with great taste. Not perfect taste, but great taste. But the other part of what made Jobs such a great leader is that he could recognize bad decisions, sooner rather than later, and get them fixed.

I think Tim Cook is a great CEO and Jeff Williams is a great COO. But who's in charge of product design now? There is no new chief design officer, which, really, is what Steve Jobs always was. From a product standpoint, the post-Jobs era at Apple has been the Jony Ive era, not the Tim Cook era. That's not a knock on Tim Cook. To his credit, Tim Cook has never pretended to be a product guy, which is exactly the hubris that John Sculley succumbed to back in the early '90s, leading to the Newton being launched far before it was ready and the Macintosh platform languishing.

[...] It makes me queasy to see that Apple's chief designers are now reporting to operations. This makes no more sense to me than having them report to the LLVM compiler team in the Xcode group. Again, nothing against Jeff Williams, nothing against the LLVM team, but someone needs to be in charge of design for Apple to be Apple and I can't see how that comes from operations. I don't think that "chief design officer" should have been a one-off title created just for Jony Ive. Not just for Apple, but especially at Apple, it should be a permanent C-level title. I don't think Ive ever should have been put in control of software design, but at least he is a designer. I don't worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he's not being replaced.

Apple iOS developer David Smith noticed something that really jumped out at him when he was reviewing his iPhone's device analytics. "People really, really like the 4.7-inch iPhone," he writes. "When I look at the iPhone distribution for Pedometer++ the four most popular devices are all that size. Together they account for nearly 50% of all devices I see in use." The next most popular screen sizes are the 5.5-inch Plus size (19%) and the 5.8-inch X size (12%).

There are two main reasons for why this is the case: people find the 4.7-inch display to be the perfect size, whether that be for one-handed usability or pocketability, and/or the specs and features found in the 4.7-inch iPhone models still perform well to this day, prompting users to hold off on upgrading to a larger model. Whatever the case may be, the numbers show that 4.7-inch iPhones are still very popular in 2019. Are you still using an iPhone with a 4.7-inch display? Which iPhone model is your favorite?