What if I told you that you could get an unlocked smartphone outright for the same price (or less) than you’d be paying for a locked smartphone on a two-year contract? That’s exactly the case here today with the Nokia C6-01. This is a factory unlocked quad-band GSM smartphone that will happily work with you in North America and abroad. And it’s selling for half price.

Granted, this phone isn’t quite as new and shiny as something like the Galaxy S III or the HTC One X, but it can certainly still hold its own, especially given the price. You get pentaband UMTS/HSDPA, supporting 850/900/1700/1900/2100, meaning that it should work with both AT&T and T-Mobile, as well as with international GSM carriers. There’s an 8MP camera on the back with 720p HD video support, as well as GPS with free Ovi Maps Navigation, microSD expansion, Bluetooth stereo support, and a 3.2-inch LCD touchscreen.

Some people may decry the Symbian^3 OS, but it’s actually not so bad once you start using it. The homescreen widgets make accessing yoru contacts and messages super easy, and you can even get live updates from Facebook and Twitter. There’s a full HTML browser with RSS feed support, multiformat media player, and an FM radio.

Pick it up today for $179.99 outright in your choice of black or silver. As always, that includes free shipping too.

The post Daily Deal: Unlocked Nokia C6-01 US Smartphone for Half Price appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

If you have nightmares about being watched, this will be your worst ever. Your mobile phone, the thing that you carry around almost everywhere, might be giving away your location to hackers. According to a new study, anyone with a cheap phone and open source software can easily track the location of a mobile phone (on GSM network, which provides service to 80 percent of the global mobile market) without the owner ever knowing about it.

Computer scientists from the University of Minnesota conducted a study and found out that it is an easy task for a third party to track the location of a cell phone user as long as the networks “leak” the locations of users.

Ph.D. student Denis Foo Kune says, “Cell phone towers have to track cell phone subscribers to provide service efficiently. For example, an incoming voice call requires the network to locate that device so it can allocate the appropriate resources to handle the call. Your cell phone network has to at least loosely track your phone within large regions in order to make it easy to find it“.

What a cell phone tower does is that it will broadcast a page to a phone and then wait for the phone to respond to a call. A hacker can easily force those messages to go out and then hang up before the handset rings. The researchers say that it is possible to track a device within an area of 100 square km just by checking out those messages.

And what are the threats, you ask? The researchers were talking about a few possible ones: “For example, agents from an oppressive regime may no longer require cooperation from reluctant service providers to determine if dissidents are at a protest location. A second example could be the location test of a prominent figure by a group of insurgents with the intent to cause physical harm for political gain. Yet another example could be thieves testing if a user’s cell phone is absent from a specific area and therefore deduce the risk level associated with a physical break-in of the victim’s residence“.

But they are saying that a few low-cost techniques which require no hardware changes can solve the problem. They are currently in talks with AT&T and Nokia regarding the matter.

Head here to take a peek at the full research paper.

The post Hackers Can Easily Track Your Mobile Phone, Says Study (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Are you waiting for a phone that can run on a single AA battery? The mobile phone pictured above is the SpareOne which is one such device. But the new device is not meant to function as your regular handset.  The SpareOne has been designed as a back-up phone which can be kept in your emergency kit. Using that one AA battery, the device can deliver up to 10 hours of talk time. But its most amazing feature is that it comes with an isolator that prevents current discharge which allows it to hold charge for up to a whopping 15 years when you are not using it. But that depends on the shelf-life of the battery that is being used.

The device can be used at emergency situations. For example, the phone will be a big help when you are traveling away and you have no way to charge your phone, or when there is no power due to a flood or earthquake. And if you carry a pack of batteries in your bag, you will be able to chat for hours on SpareOne.  As the SpareOne comes unlocked and requires a SIM, in order to use the phone, you will have to swap the SIM card from your regular handset. It’s coming in two GSM versions (850/1900 MHz and 900/1800 MHz) and with an always-on 911 feature (no SIM required) and an LED emergency flashlight. It will ship in March with a price tag of around US$50.

The post SpareOne: The Emergency Mobile Phone Powered By One AA appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

According to a Berlin-based research agency, flaws in the widely used GSM wireless technology could allow hackers to gain remote control of phones and instruct them to send text messages or make calls. The Reuters source of this information is Karsten Nohl, head of Berlin-based Security Research Labs.

Nohl is a well-regarded expert on mobile security who last year identified a bug in GSM technology that makes calls vulnerable to tapping. He says he is calling attention to these flaws to pressure the industry into beefing up the security of their products. Well, it remains to be seen that the claimed tapping possibilities were left hanging out unintentionally.

In any case, “the industry” he mentions may want to look at the real life demos of claimed vulnerabilities and subsequent exploits of these, first. Reuters claims that only a few flaws have been found in the GSM technology itself (which stands for Global System for Mobile Communications) over its 20-year history. Industry lobby group GSMA said on Tuesday it did not expect the new findings to affect its views on the security of the technology. It’s sure nice and cozy to hear that this lobby group is unaffected, easily writing off tons of spam messages reaching millions customers’ as their own fault.

Malware, spyware, and viruses are on the rise, and like everywhere else, smartphone malware is popping up at an unprecedented rate as people put more and more valuable information on their devices, using them to hold corporate secrets, conduct banking and function as digital wallets. For some reason, Reuters fails to mention how vulnerable CDMA technology is today, but I’m sure it’s just a question of time.

Nohl’s report is expected to be presented at the Berlin convention that takes place just a few days after U.S. security think tank Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor) said its website had been hacked and that some names of corporate subscribers had been made public. Activist hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility. If there are any connections or not is anybody’s guess.

Then, Mobile networks of Germany’s T-Mobile and France’s SFR offer their clients the best protection against online criminals wanting to intercept their calls or track their movements, according to a new ranking Nohl will unveil at his presentation.

The new ranking fancy survey and tool demoed at gsmmap.org, is conducted by security researchers who hope this will heighten the awareness of operators and consumers on the vulnerability of their mobile communications.

Researchers reviewed 32 operators in 11 countries, Nohl and Reuters tells us, and rated their performance based on how easy it was for them to intercept the calls, impersonate someone’s device or track the device. “None of the networks protects users very well,” Nohl said. The sample is set to grow from 32 carriers dramatically next year as the tool enables anyone to participate in data gathering by downloading measuring software to their phones.

Nohl said mobile telecom operators could easily improve their clients’ security, in many cases by just updating their software. Oh well, don’t they do that already? See you at the Berlin Security Conference of 2012 then, if nothing happens in between.

The post GSM Phones Vulnerable To Hijacking, GSMA Unconcerned appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The guide comes by way of Hexxeh and it’s pretty straightforward. As with any of these kinds of modifications, though, you’ll want to proceed at your own risk and know that it could “break” at any time. This is experimental, after all.

1. Pop your SIM card into the slot under the battery (must be a full-size SIM, microSIMs you’ll just lose in there, fine if you use an adaptor though)
2. Make sure you’ve enabled developer mode – do this by flipping the switch under your battery
3. Once you’re booted into developer mode and logged in, press Control-Alt-T
4. This opens crosh, a limited command shell. Since we’re in developer mode, we can get a full shell. Type the word shell and press enter.
5. You’ll get a shell that starts with ‘chronos@localhost / $’. Once you’ve got this, we can type in the command that flips over to GSM.
6. Type the following command: modem_set_carrier “Generic UMTS”
7. Wait a couple of minutes, then you can exit the shell by typing exit twice.
8. Your 3G should be usable assuming you have an active service plan on that SIM card, and that ChromeOS knows your APN settings.

It won’t be able to show you usage details, so be careful with whatever data plan you intend on using. You’ll also need to make sure that your APN details are already hardcoded as part of the list in flimflam.

Based on early tests, the GSM is working and people are able to get up to 4Mbps down through AT&T.

[Hexxeh.net]

The post How to enable GSM data on CR-48 Chrome notebook appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

GSMA also claims they are pooling together a group of ‘technical experts’ who are at ease with every major telecom operator around the world. These ‘experts’, shall assess the pulse of the market for the embedded SIM cards. The assessment is due to begin in January 2011 and the launch of embedded SIM cards, if everything goes as planned by GSMA, shall be in 2012.

The post GSM Association to embed SIMs by 2012 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Up until El Jobso made the mention, very few people even knew that such a technology was in development, let alone the precise details. While the iPad is certainly large enough to take on a standard SIM card like the iPhone or any number of other smartphones, Apple went with the micro SIM instead.

Well, the micro SIM is the next-generation of SIM cards and it is referred to as the 3FF (third form factor) in some circles. Just as SD cards paved the way for miniSD and microSD cards, the same kind of thing is happening with SIM cards.

As you can see from the image provided, the actual “important” part of the SIM card remains the same size. That gold contact area is the same size as the SIM card you’re using now; you just lose that extra plastic that surrounds it. Also, the newer micro SIM cards will have more room for emails and it has a new authentication scheme to fight carrier spoofing.

Since the gold contact area appears to be same, it’s possible that might be able to cut away at your existing SIM card to make it fit in the iPad. Of course, that kind of modification is totally at your own risk.

The post What’s the deal with Micro Sims in the Apple iPad? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The GSM-based solution is launching for the United States and U.K., with Europe, Australia, Hong Kong and South Africa on the 2010 timeline.

An unlocked GSM phone will be required, just pop in the Truphone SIM card and you’ll be making calls at around 12 cents per minute, when compared to 99 cents and $1.29 per minute for roaming on AT&T and other GSM-based wireless carriers.

Here are some features and benefits from their press release that the Truphone Local Anywhere will offer:

* Local calling rates in Truphone countries: With Truphone Local Anywhere, international travellers enjoy rates that are a fraction of standard roaming fees. For example, AT&T subscribers roaming in the U.K. pay between 99 cents and $1.29 per minute(1), depending on their calling plans, but from only 12 cents per minute with Truphone Local Rates.

* Local contact numbers in Truphone countries: Local numbers mean people can call you on your mobile at local rates for them – at no cost to you.

* Low-cost international calling: Great rates to make international calls at home or abroad, offering savings of up to 90 percent over standard mobile operator charges.

*Low-cost roaming: Great rates when roaming in non-Truphone countries offering savings of up to 40 percent over standard mobile operator charges.

*Keep in touch with friends and family by not only making low-cost calls back home, but also allowing them to call you on a local number. U.S. expatriates settled in the UK can save more than 90 percent when they call home for an hour a week, compared to standard mobile operator charges and can enjoy local rates when you travel back home.

The post Truphone cuts mobile roaming rates by 90%: GSM phones only appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Yes, that’s a terrible name, but it’s reasonably descriptive. Instead of backpacking on a US-based CDMA connection with no roaming capabilities, the new US & International Edition Kindle comes equipped with a SIM card from AT&T. That means that this is a GSM Kindle.

While within the United States, this alternate Kindle (which is aesthetically and functionally identical to the Kindle 2) will latch onto the AT&T network and download your content at will. While traveling abroad (and this includes Canada), the Kindle can then roam on a GSM network and download stuff that way.

Amazon is saying that the International GSM Kindle will work in 100 countries and territories around the world. That’s the good news. The bad news is that each book you buy while traveling internationally will come with a $1.99 premium above and beyond the price of the book itself. What I’m wondering is if you can plunk in your own international SIM card, say from Fido or Rogers, when you’re outside of the States.

The new Kindle US & International Wireless will go on sale October 19 for $279. The regular Kindle 2 (US Wireless) is a little cheaper at $259.

Source: BGR

The post Say Hello to Amazon Kindle GSM International Edition appeared first on Mobile Magazine.