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Malicious App In Android Market

Posted by kdawson on from the can't-take-it-to-the-bank dept.

dumbnose writes to let us know that a fraudulent app that attempts to steal bank information has made it to the Android app store. From the alert: "NOTICE: Users of mobile devices with Android software may have noticed several applications available for download in the Android Marketplace. If you see any applications provided by the user Droid09, please do not download these applications. Android applications provided by Droid09 are fraudulent. Please remove any applications by Droid09 from your mobile device and contact your mobile provider to evaluate whether any other applications or information stored on your mobile device have been compromised." Multiple marketplaces are possible in the open Android ecosystem. Might we see the emergence of a marketplace distinguished by an iPhone-like app vetting process?

44 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Check for the signed label! by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is something that is far more unlikely to happen on the iPhone because of Apple's strict control and testing of all apps. Even the "jailbreak" stores will reject things that aren't as advertised.

    Allow open development, and you've basically got a platform that the bad guys can target. There's already standards for signing code to prove that an app came from who you thought it did.

    1. Re:Check for the signed label! by RobertM1968 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wow, second post and already we've got the "iPhone vs Android" debate started! Kudos!

      That aside, or the apps Apple has had to remove aside... I'm happy with 99% of the quality control on the Android Apps.

      --
      StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
    2. Re:Check for the signed label! by sznupi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is why we can't have nice things.

      And I'm sure US cellphone carriers can't wait for more malicious apps.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    3. Re:Check for the signed label! by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      However, there is balance. Look at Ubuntu's repositories, they rarely really "reject" any applications and everything in there is more or less malware free. I can see there being a market for trusted repositories in Android also.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    4. Re:Check for the signed label! by davester666 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Um, no.

      Apple's certification process is unlikely to uncover an app like this. Assuming the app appears to do something 'real' [which I assume it does, as people download and use it], you can have the app access a web page that tells the app if it should harvest data or not. You simply don't enable the harvesting until after Apple has accepted it into the App Store. Black box testing won't uncover it, and static program analysis is unlikely to either [short of the app obviously using restricted APIs]. And apps can poke around the system, and I think even other apps data without even needing to hardcode in paths.

      Now, it might be easier to Apple to be able to trace where exactly the app came from than it is for Google...

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    5. Re:Check for the signed label! by Bogtha · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is not the case. Apple don't perform in-depth testing in this manner; they don't have access to the source code and some developers have already successfully bypassed the rules of the App Store by hiding functionality as easter eggs. It is trivial to put malicious code in an iPhone app that won't be triggered until after the application is already in the App Store. The security restrictions on what the iPhone OS lets you do doesn't save you from this kind of attack either; it sounds like all an equivalent iPhone app would have to do is embed a UIWebView and wait for people to enter their information.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
    6. Re:Check for the signed label! by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And that's why certificates can be revoked, and apps can be pulled from the app store after the fact.

    7. Re:Check for the signed label! by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 4, Informative

      Open source is another way to stop malware... not every user looks at the source, but enough curious ones will put out the warning should anything not be as its marked

      That's commonly claimed, but there is not much evidence to back it. There just aren't enough people interested in looking at source to cover all the apps if the Android market gets as big as the iPhone market.

    8. Re:Check for the signed label! by BronsCon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Do the Underhanded C Contest and Obfuscated C Contest ring any bells?

      Even review of every line isn't enough. But it's better than what closed source can offer.

      --
      APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
    9. Re:Check for the signed label! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

      This is something that is far more unlikely to happen on the iPhone

      Anyone want to bet that "Droid09" has an address somewhere near Cupertino?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    10. Re:Check for the signed label! by SQLGuru · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The very same argument has been made as to why the XBox online experience is better than the PS3 or Wii. With MS, the control is in place. To participate, you have to accept the control (ask those banned due to hacked boxes). It's also why the PS network is getting some level of premium status to help curtail some of the problems related to that.

      Apple's control is great in terms of keeping the store "clean", but the process they put in place didn't anticipate the number of submissions, overwhelming them. Resulting in slow acceptance times, bogus rejections, etc. Someone will need to figure out a happy medium in terms of control and flexibility.

    11. Re:Check for the signed label! by yakumo.unr · · Score: 3, Informative

      However, in Pinch Media's case, the user tracking goes a bit further according to one iPhone developer. He says applications using Pinch Media track the following information:

              * iPhone's unique ID
              * iPhone model
              * OS version
              * Application version (in this case, camera zoom 1.x)
              * If the application is cracked/pirated
              * If your iPhone is jailbroken
              * Time & date you start the application
              * Time & date you close the application
              * Your current latitude & longitude
              * Your gender (if Facebook enabled)
              * Your birth month (if Facebook enabled)
              * Your birth year (if Facebook enabled)

      What's worse is that you're often never told that the app will be performing this level of detailed tracking and you're often never given the opportunity to opt-out. The data recorded is continuously tracked every time you use the application. This violation of user privacy is so egregious that the developer even goes so far as to call Pinch Media "iPhone spyware."

      http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/dear_iphone_users_your_apps_are_spying_on_you.php

    12. Re:Check for the signed label! by brit74 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Open source is another way to stop malware... not every user looks at the source, but enough curious ones will put out the warning should anything not be as its marked.

      Out of curiosity, what's to stop this situation: I build a "custom" version of an opensource application that includes a trojan. Maybe I use the application's original name, or maybe I add a few features/artwork and call it something different? People are just grabbing the exe's, afterall, and not building their own copy from the source.

    13. Re:Check for the signed label! by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Suddenly your .exe doesn't match the MD5 hash of the real program. People will notice.

    14. Re:Check for the signed label! by dotgain · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Um, which people will notice?

    15. Re:Check for the signed label! by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's nice to see the other side of the coin though. The App Store, this would never have made it through.

      Malware is only going to grow on Android.

      Don't get me wrong, I think Apple are TOO controlling, but Android phones become more ubiquitous, malware is going to get worse.

      This is only the beginning. (Ominous music)

    16. Re:Check for the signed label! by mjwx · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And that's why certificates can be revoked, and apps can be pulled from the app store after the fact.

      And applications can be pulled from the Android Market after the fact, which frankly is terrible security.

      Apple's security model is still far inferior to Androids. Apple have a gateway only approach, Apples decides what does and does not run on Iphones remotely and forgo any local security, Android has a limited gateway and local security approach, Google can revoke malicious applications and make them go through some kind of testing before hand (probably what Google will end up doing, limited semi/completely automated testing to check for obvious problems) and then you have local security on the device. The idea is that no program is trusted. Now with Apple you have a single point of failure, if a self replicating virus/trojan gets past apple then its over unless apple uses the kill switch, if the kill switch works. With Android if a virus/trojan can replicate you still need each user to authorise install on each device.

      You will also have more people watching android applications, Google are quite open to security being questioned where as it is tantamount to heresy to even suggest that Apple has insecurities (and I'm certain some fanboys are frothing at the mouth reading this and typing an incoherent rant). The false sense of security that surrounds Apple is far more dangerous then the open nature of Android or the Android marketplace.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    17. Re:Check for the signed label! by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      phone providers/google could set up a "safe mode" in android that only allows signed apps to run. if the user wants to leave safe mode to install an unknown app they can but be shown a warning of the consequences. That way people who want to be safe can be safe and people who want to run what they like can run what they like. Kind of like apple putting a jailbreak button on the iphone. That way people can choose between safety or freedom.

      given time as more apps get checked and signed, people would have less and less reason to leave safe mode.

      it reminds me of the software repositories on ubuntu - for about 2 or 3 years there was essential stuff missing that forced you to manually install dodgy software that potentially broke your system, but now that it's matured there often no reason whatsoever for a home user to stray outside the repos

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
  2. Use an Outbound Firewall by slifox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One great app I use is DroidWall, which is a simple GUI for iptables.
    I set the default outbound policy to DROP, then specifically whitelist the apps that should reasonably have access to the internet.

    Since Android apps have to specifically declare the privileges they require before installation (such as ability to read contact data, internet access, etc), then it's easy to make sure that all apps that read personal data are not whitelisted, unless they come from a reputable developer (e.g. Google-made apps). Any app that can read my contacts data, my calendar, my email, etc, is sure as hell not getting internet access for "usage statistics" or whatever other lame excuse they give.

    I wish this functionality was built into the OS, rather than having to do it manually (for example, a way to disallow internet access during installation) -- but at least it's doable on Android. I don't think any other phone platforms give this level of permission separation or control. I'm not so sure that app review would really fix the overall problem; it might catch the obviously-malicious phishing apps like in this story, but I bet that the app auditors' opinion on what is a privacy violation differs greatly from my own.

    I still wouldn't use my banking info on my phone regardless, since a phone is so easily losable, and locking/unlocking the data everytime with a secure passphrase would probably be too inconvenient. At very most, I would only allow read access to transactions from my phone (if banks offered this), thereby limiting the amount of useful information or control a would-be attacker could gain from compromising my phone.

    1. Re:Use an Outbound Firewall by dumbnose · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sounds like a really easy way for your standard user to administer their phone. My mom would totally get that....no wait....I think I meant the opposite of that. Yeah.

      Seriously, though, how do you communicate this to your standard, non-techie user?

    2. Re:Use an Outbound Firewall by slifox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This app is just another vector in the long history of internet phishing attacks

      The problem isn't technical, but rather lack of user training

      The internet is not a safe place. If you want to use it openly, you better not be gullible and hand out your info to anyone who asks.

      One solution would be to setup the phone for your non-techie friend, and whitelist all the apps that they'll need that should have internet access. Yes, this means they'll have limited use of new apps, but if they can't figure out when not to give out her bank details, they aren't sufficiently trained to safely use the internet.

    3. Re:Use an Outbound Firewall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Any app that can read my contacts data, my calendar, my email, etc, is sure as hell not getting internet access for "usage statistics" or whatever other lame excuse they give.

      Usage statistics are the only reliable way to get real feedback about how actual users interact with the software (short of having a horde of QA testers that we can't afford). Some of the more useful things that my apps track (anonymized and with the terms stated clearly on install with an opt-out):

      (1) Which settings are most often changed, and to what. This helps us put the most-changed settings near the top and set better defaults. If a setting is changed back and forth a lot, that usually tells that the UI needs widget to control that behavior.

      (2) Which functions are used most or used most together. This helps organize the UI in accord with the most common usage patterns. Many times, we will see that users do the same clusters of things over and over and that lets us combine those into a single task in some fashion.

      (3) What functions/options are almost never used, especially ones we had imagined would be useful. This is usually a sign that we have either totally dropped the ball on implementation or interface or that we don't understand the user's workflow.

      I will admit that this is largely a matter of trust between the developer and the user -- I really can't blame users that opt-out or firewall us because they really don't have a reason to trust us. That said, such distrust does deprive us of very important data that we use to improve our products. I just want to express my deep appreciation for all the users that have let us have their usage statistics -- we really do read and act on them!

    4. Re:Use an Outbound Firewall by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, but it's not just that.. it's also that Apple redefines the terms as they go along.

      "It's impossible to write a virus for our platform!"
      "Ok, here's one I wrote."
      "That's not a virus."
      "Oh really? How do you figure?"
      "It requires user help to move from machine to machine."
      "Uhhhh... yes, that's what a virus is."
      "No, it has to move from machine to machine without user intervention to be a virus."
      "No.. that's a worm.. as has been clearly defined since the Morris worm."
      "We call it a virus."
      "You're idiots. This is a virus and it is trivial to write them for your platform. In fact, it's easier to write viruses for OS X than any other platform, as there's literally dozens of ways to load code into every running process simultaneously."
      "We disagree."

      and so on.

      Apple, they believe their own hype and they're willing to deny reality to maintain that belief.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    5. Re:Use an Outbound Firewall by furball · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This explains the explosive spread of viruses on the Apple platform!

    6. Re:Use an Outbound Firewall by Miamicanes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > Like any GSM/UMTS network in the world?

      You're forgetting that GSM/UMTS phones won't do 3G on any network in America unless they happen to support 850/850 or 1700/2200 uplink/downlink. AFAIK, the US is the only country on earth that does 850/850 and 1700/2200 UMTS. I don't even think *Canada* uses those frequencies. For all intents and purposes, the only phones that support 850/850 UMTS are sold by AT&T Wireless, and the only phones that support 1700/2200 are sold by T-Mobile. So much for interoperability. A "global" phone that supports only 1900/2100 UMTS will give you blazingly-fast 19.2kbit/sec GPRS in America (or serve a more useful purpose as a paperweight in windy weather).

      It's sad, but right now, Verizon is ironically the most interoperable carrier in America, just because you can theoretically reflash the Sprint twin of a Verizon phone with Verizon firmware and they'll let you use it if you can figure out how to do it on your own, without any help from them. It's a piss poor, sad excuse for interoperability, but just goes to show how dire the wireless situation *is* in the United States.

  3. Re:No sandboxing? by dumbnose · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sandboxing wouldn't help here. The app looks like your bank app. So, it just collects the information from you.

  4. Re:No sandboxing? by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sandboxing is an "always deny" tech that keeps legit applications from working easily. Effective, yes. Going to catch on with the average user, no.

  5. Re:No sandboxing? by slifox · · Score: 5, Informative

    Android has sandboxing, to a degree

    Each app has its own user and group ID, and filesystem permissions are used to determine what data an app can access.

    Additionally, apps have to declare the special permissions they require before installation, such as internet access, read contacts data, etc...

    Android is way ahead in this department -- this story is simply a case of phishing: the users thought the app was a legit bank app, and they willingly gave their sensitive information to it. It's hard to prevent against that without user training, and the success of normal email/website phishing has shown that very few users are "trained" in this sense...

  6. Re:An iPhone-like process? by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    iPhone's vetting process has a "AT&T doesn't like it, so Apple will deny" clause that the jailbreak stores don't. Apple then claims that jailbroken apps could be trojans that will overload AT&T's network.

    Google seems to be taking a "we'll do what we want and carriers can't stop us" attitude. Good luck with that.

  7. Re:No sandboxing? by mlts · · Score: 3, Informative

    Android already has sandboxing. Every app installs under its own user ID by default, and if it wants more permissions, it will ask the user on install, and the user can deny it.

    Even if this app had no permissions whatsoever except to display on the screen and send info back to a server, it would be successful, as it made for social engineering, as opposed to having the primary function as being compromise of the Android device.

  8. Re:An iPhone-like process? by mounthood · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An iPhone-like vetting process would be "we'll reject it if we don't like the look of it". How about "Linux-distro style vetting process"?

    Multiple repositories solve part of the problem, but more then just vetting the repository as a whole we need to score/rank/blacklist/require individual applications and authors. What friends think of an application is much more important than the "average" score of everyone. IT departments need to add/update/remove applications for workers phones, but also let the end user manage applications. Ban lists need to be available in a form that lets the end user (or their tech. support) decide what to trust.

    It's amazing that such a big industry has such crappy tools to manage applications. Making things "just work" for the end user does not need to mean a monopoly or tyrant controlling the (only) store.

    --
    tomorrow who's gonna fuss
  9. Re:An iPhone-like process? by mounthood · · Score: 4, Informative

    How about "Linux-distro style vetting process"?

    Impossible, unless all apps are required to be open source ...

    Not true. You can have binary only repositories. Ubuntu 9.10 has a "partner" repository from which you can install Flash, and interestingly, you can add it to your sources list by clicking a link in Firefox.

    --
    tomorrow who's gonna fuss
  10. Re:If you want to be free by ducomputergeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tragedy of the Commons comes to mind here. People around here like to bitch about Apple's policies with their app store, but I understood the reasoning behind it from the beginning. The average consumer doesn't know better. A cute app that is malicious can spread to millions of users before someone wises up. And it only takes one or two to make people fearful of the platform.

    It will be fun to see if the carriers take advantage of this and try to get control over the handsets back in their court as opposed to that of Google. If it happens a couple more times, I can the Verizon App store popping up and a Verizon UI required on all android phones that only allow users to use their store. And I'm sure a lot of the apps will require extra "monthly" fees.

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  11. Re:Reserved words? by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Bank of America" is already a reserved word under trademark law. You could say that "bank" is a reserved word, but then you'll accidentally block "iBank" and such. Such problems.

  12. Separate passcode locked to a verified device by beakerMeep · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One of the things my bank does for their mobile banking application (which is contracted out to another company) is to give you a special code that is akin to a extra "mobile password." You get this code from the bank's website after putting in your mobile phone number. You then must enter it on your phone and "activate" that phone to access your account. At any time also, you can go into the website and "deactivate" the device. At no time do you ever enter your banking login details into your phone, only this special code which is tied to you phone number, mobile OS, and carrier (that you can deactivate at any time) is entered into your phone.

    It's not perfect security, but it certainly puts up a few more decent hurdles against phishing.

    --
    meep
  13. Re:An iPhone-like process? by A1rmanCha1rman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    An iPhone-like vetting process would be "we'll reject it if we don't like the look of it". How about "Linux-distro style vetting process"?

    The iPhone vetting process is closer to Slifox's "error on the side of caution" method on his outbound firewall, with the default being set to DROP (deny the app), followed by a specific whitelist (approved apps subject to continuous monitor for "good behaviour").

    Quite a number of approved apps in the iPhone App Store have been caught out doing naughty things like accessing and sending "home" users' Contacts - email addresses, phone numbers and home/work addresses - where they really had no business requiring such information for their function (battery charge display apps, games etc) and have promptly been expelled from the app store - quite rightly in my opinion.

    The price of true freedom is eternal vigilance, not laissez-faire do-what-you-please laxity...

    --
    I get up, I get down...
  14. Why bother? by MikeFM · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you really want to steal people's info just throw up a quick Magento site pretending to sell things at unlikely prices and submit a Froogle feed. Soon you'll be getting lots of orders and you can collect credit card numbers, addresses, etc to your hearts content and then disappear and repeat the process next week. Lots of people will give you their info without thinking about it.

    --
    At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
  15. old problem new platform by mjwx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is just the same old phishing attack moved to a new platform. This is no different then directing a web users to a fraudulent banking site.

    The fault here lies primarily with the user, but seeing as we cant force the users to be smarter the onus for defeating this attack relies on the bank. Banks can do a variety of things to prevent such phishing attacks from working such as using 2 factor authentication and One Time Passwords. OTP works best when being used for transactions rather then logins, my bank will SMS me a code when I want to make a transaction to another account so even if a phisher has my password, they need my phone to do anything (plus this is a dead give-away that a phisher has gained my password). Banks could also issue a private key to official applications and block any application that does not have the key (granted this is less useful and may be easily defeated)

    Iphone style lock downs will not work as they do not address the real problem of phishing and only serve to limit the platform. This isn't a fault with Android, this requires the user to initiate the attack, nor is it self replicating.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  16. My vetting process is simple. . . by JSBiff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why on Earth would you download a 'bank' app from anyone other than *YOUR BANK*? I'm only gonna do online banking from the website or apps provided to me directly from my bank. I'm not gonna download anything from the Android market, from some random user, and do banking with it. Who thinks that it's a good idea to do 'banking' with an app by a random developer? I mean, *maybe*, maybe if it was someone large and established, like IBM, Google, Microsoft, or Apple, I *might* consider using third party software, but certainly not anyone I've never heard of before.

  17. Re:An iPhone-like process? by farble1670 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    iPhone has youtube and pandora among many other apps that have very high network usage. sort of shoots a hole into the theory that AT&T is rejecting based on potential network overload.

  18. So trivial it's never been done by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is not the case. Apple don't perform in-depth testing in this manner; they don't have access to the source code and some developers have already successfully bypassed the rules of the App Store by hiding functionality as easter eggs. It is trivial to put malicious code in an iPhone app that won't be triggered until after the application is already in the App Store.

    Hey, what was that old saw about Macs not having any viruses? Wasn't it something like, the platform is not popular and that's why they do not have viruses?

    Well here we have a wildly popular mobile platform. Yet the most egregious exploit in an app to date is something that sent your address book somewhere without permission (something that's explicitly allowed by the API).

    So given the number of apps there are, perhaps the lack of problems like this is an indicator it is not as "trivial" as you claim to put a malicious app in the store.

    What would a malicious app really do anyway? It couldn't delete user data. It can't send passwords not entered in the app (passwords are not stored in the keystroke cache). And what makes you think Apple would not give extra scrutiny to an application that asked for something like your banking details? What makes you think they don't roll the date forward a month or two when testing apps just to see what kind of extra activity might be triggered?

    Furthermore, because you have to go through some paperwork to be a registered developer in the first place, you have a lot more exposure to liability if you try something. Apple the has valid bank account details for you (if you registered to sell paid apps), along with your address and other things. So if something like this exploit were found, you'd be pretty screwed.

    There are more aspects of protection in a closed system than just the review cycle...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  19. Is this itself a scam? by ibsteve2u · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I note that searches of Secunia, SANS.org, and CERT don't return any mention of it, which is curious given that the...alert...began spreading on or about the 3rd of December, 2009 according to a date-sorted Google search (who is Jeremy Allexon?). Said search likewise fails to turn up any sources which I would call "authoritative".

    Given the nature of corporate competition...

    --
    Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
  20. Re:Then the developer is screwed by mjwx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And then what do you do about the fact that you have given Apple and address they have verified

    Quite easy to give and verify a fake address, especially if it's in a foreign country.

    and paid for a $99 developer account via some means they can tract back to you

    Once again, easy to do with a foreign bank.

    There are plenty of easy ways to prove addresses that can be easily faked, bank statements, utility bills. Plus there is the idea of using someone else's identity entirely.

    Let me put it this way, anyone smart enough to develop a scheme like this is smart enough to defeat Apple's rudimentary address/credit checks.

    That's a lot of exposure for a scam that's likely to be shut down in under a day.

    You seem to have a lot of faith in Apple's ability to detect a hidden scam once it has already penetrated their security (the app store). It's entirely plausible that this kind of phishing go on for weeks or months without anyone noticing, especially seeing as Apple are the only watchman and considering what the average iphone user understands about information security.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  21. Re:HERE'S HOW ANYONE CAN BEAT ANY Vetting !! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That could work quite well, if the testers can't see the source. You could put a timebomb in an app that activates its malicious payload. This would also work better because it could allow the app to become popular and spread before it turns nasty. A datamining app that collects everything into an encrypted file (just very simple encryption in a file with a large initial size would be enough to keep people from "grepping" the contents or getting suspicious...say it's a cache file or something) and sends it off on a specific date and time could do a lot of damage.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel