Last year 28 year old engineer Karsten Nohl, an encryption expert from Germany was able to crack the G.S.M. algorithm, a code developed in 1988 by the G.S.M. Association an industry group based in London. This algorythm still used today to protect the privacy of many mobile calls worldwide. Mr. Nohl was not only able to crack the code, he actually made it public by sharing it with others via the internet.

For the less technical folks, there are plenty of other options to find on the web. Some pretty stupid I have to admit (“How to Eavesdrop on a Cell Phone” from eHow.com) but some pretty scary:

The Interceptor AU688: Going for about 1,800 EUR (not cheap) promises to:

• Monitor both cellular A or cellular B system (B system used in Europe)
• Operates both in general monitoring mode and targets specific phone by number
• Identify unknown cellular mobile phone numbers
• Targets 20 mobile numbers for all calls made in or out

It’s not that hard for psychos, private detectives, stalkers or just regular joes to listen your private conversations, know your location and even retrieve data (such as SMS) from your phone.

Luckily some companies have picked up on this growing concern and offer encrypted phones such as the HTC P3470 running windows and modified to offer a more sophisticated encryption.

While most of us are not rock-stars, secret agents, politicians, CEOs, drug dealers or mafia bosses, the idea that someone else could listen to my conversations is a point of concern. I’d like to believe that even though I am not James Bond or Jason Bourne, my conversation still private to some extended. If there is ever some sort of encryption available for the iPhone. I’ll be the first one to get it.

]]> http://juan.threeview.com/street-hacks-jan-chipchase-and-duncan-burns-research-for-nokia/feed/ 0 http://juan.threeview.com/goldmedias-mobile-life-report-2012-mobile-life-in-the-21st-century/ http://juan.threeview.com/goldmedias-mobile-life-report-2012-mobile-life-in-the-21st-century/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:21:19 +0000 Juan Tejeda http://juan.threeview.com/?p=662

Very good and comprehensive report of the Mobile Life in Germany for the next few years. The report puts the whole German mobile market in perspective and what to expect in the years to come. Oh, and yeah that in the picture is Angela Merkel…

If you want to get it shoot out an email to Dr. Katrin Penzel (Katrin.Penzel@Goldmedia.de) and she’ll email it to you at no cost.

If you have a smartphone, video is certainly nothing new. Most smartphones offer the possibility to play local video or over the internet. The promise of faster connections seems to be around the corner, but we know already than in places like Japan (the mobile test bed of the world) superfast connections have made possible TV Channels on the mobile phones. It is not surprise that advertisers are eager to recycle their Ad spots and get them mobile. However this is not a good idea for a medium so personal, intimate and in which relevant content is expected. We’ve learned our lessons from the internet and we know that the 30 sec spot will not work.

MTV Networks is finally waking up to the fact that TV alone won’t cut it. They’ve already lost a lot of their audience by lagging behind during the whole Internet revolution. This time around they want to make sure to stay on the cutting edge once again. As part of their research on VOD (Video on the demand) together with MobiTV, MTV just aunched “The How To Show“. Made exclusively for mobile phones, this show brings celebrities to showcase their trade. You’ll get to see the occasional 20/30 sec spot to begin each episode. But since the whole thing still an experiment, I guess we can forgive them for the moment.

Some stats for the skeptics

According to Nielsen’s Three Screen Report 13.4 million Americans watched 3.3 hours of Mobile video in the 1Q of 2009 and the numbers will increase when bandwidth become faster and more available. Teens for example, between the ages 13-17 are avid viewers of mobile video reporting an average of 6.5 hours of video on their mobile phones each month. These figures makes them the premium target group for any mobile video campaign.

I couldn’t find the stats for Germany (reliable anyway) for video usage, but in a country with 80 million people and 70% market penetration, that’s a hell of a lot of users! Pretty sure a big chunk is watching video.

Why Mobile Video and why now? Obviously a video still the most compelling medium to reach any audience because of the storytelling power it can provide. However, television is static and turn the user into passive recipients of content. Not good. So, imagine how powerful it could be to create videos that are relevant for users and how companies can establish a REAL dialog with their consumers. The next logical level would be to be contextual, followed by more personal and relevant video content delivered to you. Content that is associated with the brand of your choice and that follows that sense of “Forever there” that consumers are looking for from their favorite brands. Nobody seems to listen that the time has come for companies to give meaning to their brands and stop trying to compete for attention. In this context advertising is no longer a competition about who can scream louder, but who can be present at the right time, at the right place and who can actually give something back in return for the loyalty. The 30 sec spots while convenient for an Ad agency to recycle and play it on your handset is not only intrusive but sadly ineffective. We are at the stage now, where the new medium tries to adopt the format of the old medium(TV/Internet), but new uses for mobile video is just around the corner. I’ll keep you posted

Proving that advertising is more about engaging people than click-through rates, the New york agency Ringleader developed an ad campaign using Click-to-Call to create some buzz for the horror film “The Signal“. The most notorious part of this film is a mysterius transmission sound that turns people into serial killers.  The campaign gave the option of clicking on a number to listen the distinctive horrific sound (of course the campaign was mixed with other elements like video and a mobile website to create the total experience).

Another good showcase for this technology was seen in the campaign developed for Nickelodeon’s go, Diego, go presentation at Rose Garden auditorium in Portland last year. The Click-to-Call was used in combination with a promotional code to receive a 3$ discount to see the show.

The Click-to-Call apps

Several apps are now dedicated exclusively to provide you with a large database of telephone numbers for you to call. Apps such as the Yellow Pages, German Telefonbuch, White Pages, Qype… available not only for the iPhone, but also for other platforms like the Blackberry, Android and hopefully the anticipated Palm Pre (though too early to say).

The most challenging aspect of Click-to-Call is not how many clicks you get or even how many calls, but how many of these calls will convert into actual sales. To measure this efficiently is at the moment is not very clear and from what I understood very expensive to correlate.  According to Richard Rosen – “Call measurement requires an investment in dedicated phone numbers and some type of usage charge in order to prove ROI to an advertiser. Pay per call requires an entrepreneurial investment by providers in the phone lines in hopes of generating a premium “per call” fee to recoup those costs”. Richard Rosen is the owner of the consulting firm Calling Strategies which specializes among other things in Call Tracking.

In the next post we’ll be talking about the use of video as an advertising tool on mobile devices.

2020: another vision of the future by the agency ahead of time

From the modern cities to the remote places where television doesn’t even exist. Compare some faraway African villages, where mobile minutes are treated as currency to modern cities like Tokyo where high speed internet access gives people the chance to watch TV from their mobile phones. Two extremes connected by one common denominator: Mobile media.

Personally, I check my phone constantly. Together with my keys, is the one thing I never forget when I get out of the house. I use it as an alarm clock, to check my emails, to see my contacts, to interact with friends in online communities. It has replaced my wrist watch, the radio, reading newspapers online and for sure use it for entertainment (videos, feature films, music, photos). My first point of reference for wikipedia, ebay, amazon, and the internet in general when I am not sitting at my desk. It has become my daily planner, my contact book, my GPS system and my digital storage device. Basically an extension of my arm.

I do understand however, that I might not the best example, but is a recurring theme when I talk to other people about it. Another good reference is my son. He  has a basic mobile phone and wants to change it for a smartphone. He loves to get his hands on my iPhone it everytime he gets a chance. You might ask yourself, so what so special about that? well, he is 7 years old! So…Who’s on first? TV, computer or mobile phone?

Shanzai or “Bandit” phones are part of an emerging trend in Chinese counterfeit. They look and behave just like the original brands.  When a new model is released the copy gets to the market in a matter of days. Since is a completely illegal operation, the producers of these phones don’t pay any taxes making the Shanzai phones a third of the price of the original.

But, what if?
It is obvious that if Shanzai producers can copy a Blackberry or an iPhone, they most have some sort of technological mass production infrastructure in place, so why copying an existing phone when they could produce an open source phone of better quality like openmoko. Available for download, openmoko offers everything needed to be mass-produced: a Linux-based operating system for multi-touch screens, CAD files to produce the body and Schematics for electronic components placement.

Why is this important? We will be reaching 4 billion mobile phone users worldwide pretty soon. This is already impacting the world in many different ways. With cheaper and better technology available to more people, smartphones will become the standard faster than today’s pace. The only missing part needed is an open source carrier or a better wireless network to cheaply connect these phones to one another and we will be on our way of creating a totally new socio-economic model, with an even bigger impact than what the internet was during the dot com boom and today’s so called web 2.0

The trademark for the name Android Data was filed on the 4th of June 2000 and granted on the 22nd October 2002. Google filed an application for the word “Android” on the 31st October 2007 and it wasn’t granted for the mentioned reasons. Patiently, Erich Specht waited a couple of years to sue everybody and cash out. It is more than obvious that Mr. Specht is after the money, the question is how much will he settle for. Rumors are… 100 million.