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Between one and four million users of Android phones have downloaded wallpaper apps that swipe personal data from the phone and transmit it to a Chinese-owned server, a mobile security firm said today.

According to San Francisco-based Lookout, a large number of free wallpaper apps in the Android Market scrape the phone number; the user-specific subscriber identifier, also know as the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity); the phone’s SIM card’s serial number; and the currently-entered voicemail number from the phone.

That information is then transmitted to a server that Internet records show is registered to a resident of Shenzhen, a city in China’s Guangdong province, just north of Hong Kong.

Over 80 wallpaper apps created by a pair of developers — “callmejack” and “IceskYsl@1sters!” — include code that accesses users’ personal data, said Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer and a co-founder of Lookout.

“All that is sent to a Chinese server in clear text,” said Mahaffey in an interview prior to Black Hat, where he and CEO John Hering presented findings of what the company called the “App Genome Project,” an attempt to analyze the code of some 300,000 applications available in the Android Market and Apple’s iPhone App Store.

In a Friday entry on Lookout’s blog , Mahaffrey published pieces of the data-scraping code found in the wallpaper apps, as well as an example of the HTML request made to the Chinese server by those programs.

Mahaffrey called the practice “suspicious” but stopped short of calling the wallpaper apps malware or malicious in intent.

“There’s no indication that anything malicious has happened,” Mahaffrey said before Black Hat. “The wallpaper apps immediately stood out, though, because they were sending the IMSI and phone number. But sometimes developers aren’t aware of what’s going on with third-party code that they’ve added to their apps from advertising or analytics SDKs.”

Android apps, including the wallpaper programs named by Lookout, require user approval before they’re allowed to procure data from the hardware.

On Friday, Mahaffrey cited estimates that put the number of downloads of callmejack’s wallpaper apps at between 1.05 million and 4.02 million.

A Google spokesman confirmed that the company is investigating Lookout’s allegations, but declined to answer questions about what actions Google might take against the app developers or whether it would pull the programs from the Market.

Unlike owners of Apple’s iPhone, people using Android-powered phones can obtain apps from sources other than the Market. Earlier this month, Google said that the Android Market boasts about 70,000 apps.

In a separate briefing at Black Hat, the Las Vegas security conference that ended Thursday, Lookout security researchers showed how hackers could hijack an Android phone by exploiting a known flaw in Linux , the foundation of Android.

Lookout’s researchers claimed that they were able to exploit the Linux bug on EVO 4G (Sprint), Droid X (Verizon), and Droid Incredible (Verizon) phones.

In other findings from Lookout’s App Genome Project, Mahaffrey claimed that 47% of free Android apps contained third-party code able to interact with and access sensitive information on the phone. Fewer than half as many free iPhone apps — just 23% by Lookout’s measurements — include similar code.

Typically, that third-party code is dropped into the app by developers when they add analytics and advertising features to their software.

“Oftentimes, the user doesn’t know that this kind of information is being sent to the cloud,” said Mahaffrey. “We’re just trying to make people aware of the capabilities of mobile apps in the wild.”

New Delhi, July 30 (IANS) One is obsessed about food, the other about fashion. One doesn’t mind showing her dirty feet and hates makeup, the other is glamorous. They are two young Bollywood sisters who seem as different as chalk from cheese, and yet, Rhea and Sonam Kapoor share not just clothes but also space.

“Sonam and I share each other’s clothes a lot. Her style is a little more glamorous. I like simpler things. But she always takes my things,” Rhea, 23, who has produced the movie “Aisha” that stars 25-year-old Sonam, told IANS.

“You know how girls always need pieces to mix and match everything. I buy only those things…jackets and plain pants. And Sonam buys ridiculous things; she obviously can’t wear a ridiculous thing and go for coffee. So she just takes my things all the time,” said Rhea.

“But thank god we don’t have the same foot size. I am 37 and she is 39. She is like giant, so she can’t take my shoes,” she added with a bout of laughter.

Unlike Sonam, Rhea likes to sit with her legs on the sofa and is not bothered about what her hair looks like. She “hates” makeup and hasn’t visited a parlour for a manicure since a year.

“I haven’t done a manicure in a year. I don’t like people touching my hands. My feet are not even pedicured…I randomly clean them,” Rhea said while raising her right foot to show her dirty feet.

“Sonam is obsessed with spas; she loves getting her nails done and stuff. She always wants me to go to a parlour with her. For her ‘Saawariya’ premiere…she told me – ‘You’re not coming to the premiere with these cuticles; they look disgusting!’ ” said Rhea.

Nevertheless, Rhea too is quite stylish. She also opts for the best of high street fashion labels and likes to mix and match them with her mother’s jewellery.

But more than fashion, it’s food that Rhea is obsessed with.

“I am obsessed about food. I constantly eat. My whole focus is always on food. I can’t wear skirts and shorts any more because my legs are so heavy. I haven’t gone to a gym in a long time. Every move of mine revolves around my next meal. I plan my whole day according to my food,” Rhea says.

However, Rhea calls Sonam a “junkie”.

“Sonam is not like me when it comes to eating. She is more of a junk addict. She eats every sort of junk…chips, chocolate, biscuits…give her a book and one packet of Hide & Seek biscuits…it will be over in seven minutes. But I am a proper foodie…I need my appetizers, soup, meal and desserts,” she reveals.

Meanwhile, Rhea has plans to take over production from her father, veteran actor Anil Kapoor.

“I am going to take over from dad. There are some interesting, really fun projects that I am working on. But obviously my whole focus is on ‘Aisha’ right now,” she says.

Rhea, who was assistant director in “Wake Up Sid”, says direction might be an option for her in future.

“I want to direct, but there’s still a lot of time for it. It is just too much responsibility to direct a project and I am too young and immature for it. All I know is after working on ‘Wake Up Sid’ and ‘Aisha’, there’s no way in hell that I want to act,” she says.

And why is that?

“When you grow up with a father who is an actor and a sister who is an actress, it’s not a faraway thing. I know the realities of being an actress. I know what it’s like to be an actor and I don’t want to do it. That’s all.

“And especially after I worked on ‘Wake Up Sid’, I found the whole process of being behind the camera very interesting. Besides, I am too much of a control freak to just say my lines and go away. Nah! No acting for me,” she concludes.

“Aisha”, based on Jane Austen’s novel “Emma”, is scheduled for an Aug 6 release.

Facebook Questions taps the social networks ginormous users base for answers to your questions. Do you give it a “Like” thumb up or a thumb down?

it was all over the news this morning, I’ve been receiving different texts from my friends about the plane crash but I didnt know the case is very different. I woke up and turned on a news channel and I was astounded to know that a massive passenger plane has collided Margalla hills surrounded by Islamabad. I had no idea at that time about the massive holocaust of humanity in the name of Plane crash. By the after-noon it was evidently declared that nobody survived the plane crash, Thus killing all 152 people on board.

I’ve been deeply analysing the plane crash as it was for the first time that a big jet with so many passengers on board has crashed into the area where planes are not allowed to go. Beside this, so many questions are still unanswered. I’ve been thinking why the plane was directed to move towards the Blue Area side of Islamabad, as that area is usually regarded as VIP area where no plane can fly. Plus it has all important buildings of Pakistan like Supreme Court, Parliament House, Prime Minister House and the President House. This is still an unsolved mystery for me that why the plane was sent to ‘No Go Area’. Please dont forget that Naval Headquarters and PAF complex is also located in that Area.
That was one aspect of my vision and analysis about the plane crash, however on the other side of coin, Air Pocket could be the other reason. May be a lot of us are unfamiliar with this term ‘Air Pocket’ which is also known as Air Turbulence. Air Turbulence is a phenomena in which an aeroplane can descend as low as 10,000 feet in the time period of few seconds. Air Turbulence is basically a stream of air in irregular motion that normally cannot be seen and often occurs unexpectedly. It can be created by a number of different conditions. The most common encounter is flying in the vicinity of thunderstorm. In fact, a flight through a patch of cloud will often jostle the airplane. Flying over mountainous area with a prevailing wind is another major cause of air turbulence. Other causes come from flying near to jet streams at high altitude, in a frontal system or where temperature changes in any air mass in the sky.

Two third of turbulence-related accidents occurs at or above 30,000 feet. Generally, flying through turbulence of the milder nature, if prolonged, can be fairly uncomfortable to the passengers. If such turbulence were detectable by the weather radar or from weather forecast, pilots would avoid them by deviating off track. There were number of air planes which experiences air crash because of Air Turbulence but they were rare in nature.

According to aviation consultancy Ascend. Examples include the crash of an Austral airlines McDonnell Douglas in Uruguay with the loss of 69 passengers and five crew in 1997. A Fokker aeroplane crashed shortly after taking off from Rotterdam airport in 1981, killing 13 passengers and four crew. One of the earliest cases involved a BOAC (later British Airways) Boeing 707 near Mount Fuji in Japan. The BOAC flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong flew into extreme turbulence and crashed in March 1966, killing 113 passengers and 11 crew. An investigation reported that the likely cause of the disaster was that “the aircraft suddenly encountered abnormally severe turbulence which imposed a gust load considerably in excess of the design limit.”

The mystery still remains unsolved and the questions are still there to answer but initial investigations has to under-go in order to fetch out the conclusion. I’ve extreme sympathy with the families of passengers who were on board. There’s nothing that can compensate human loss but yet when there is loss, it should be investigated so that no-one else in future face something like that.

It seems only a matter of time before the Internet’s version of Clash of the Titans  occurs between Google and Facebook. The latest development in this pending collision is a report that Google is negotiating with major game developers for the social media space as part of a move to launch a competitor to Facebook, which recently topped the 500 million mark in membership. Playdom, Electronic Arts, Playfish, and the Zynga Game Network are among the companies reported by the Wall Street Journal in talks with Google.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Google is huddling with game developers, especially if it intends to launch its so-called “Google Me”  Facebook alternative. Social games are hotter than a poker in a blast furnace and would be important to fattening the bottom line of any new Facebook competitor. One of Facebook’s most popular games, Zynga’s Farmville, attracts 60 million active members a month. What’s more, it’s estimated that players in Asia spend billions of dollars on the games, while in the United States, ThinkEquity  pegs social gaming revenues at $700 million in 2009 and predicts those revenues will triple by 2012. Those fat numbers are not only attractive to Google, but to entertainment heavyweights, too, like Disney, which just purchased Playdom for $563.2 million, plus another $200 million for meeting performance incentives.

An alternative to Facebook would be welcomed by many game developers, looking for a better deal for their wares. Currently, Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of the revenues made by games that use its service. Indeed, the need to diversify has motivated one of Facebook’s biggest game developers, Zynga, to cut a deal with Yahoo, and open its doors to a $100 million investment by Google.

In the pending clash of titans, the question remains whether Google can hold its own when it strays into Facebook’s turf. If the search giant’s foray with Google Buzz into Twitter’s territory is any indication of the outcome of such a clash, betting folks had best put their chips on Facebook.

Alan Boyle writes: The $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize competition finished up its final on-track round, and the results are pretty clear: If anyone is going to win the $5 million contest for four-seat cars, it’s going to be the folks on the Virginia-based Edison2 team. If anyone is going to win the $2.5 million contest for alternative two-seat tandem experimental vehicles, it’s going to be the Swiss X-Tracer team. And the last $2.5 million – set aside for two-seat, side-by-side vehicles – is up for grabs.

Edison2 and X-Tracer are sure things, because those teams have the only cars still standing in each of those contests … two in each category. The side-by-side contest has five cars entered, and based on a runoff race that was conducted this morning, it looks as if it’s down to the Finnish RaceAbout team vs. the Wave II from Nevada-based Li-Ion Motors. Those teams finished the course at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich., just seconds apart, with RaceAbout leading by a nose.

The final results aren’t exactly “final” yet: Performance data will be used to adjust the times for the runoff, and all of the nine cars still left standing have to go through laboratory tests at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois next month. Those lab tests will verify that the winning cars really can get the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon of gasoline, or MPGe. That’s the main point of the X Prize competition: to promote the development of cars that are ultra-efficient as well as safe and salable.

But based on today’s results, there will be a winner. Or, in this case, winners.