Our Blog

Avon and Somerset Police Recommend Tracking Software

Acting Detective Inspector Caroline Stainer of Avon and Somerset Police said “Tracking software is another powerful tool in the fight against thieves.”

She also added “I would recommend people make use of the software that is available to download on computers and some smart phones, which can be activated remotely to find the location of your device if it ever goes missing.”

“The victim rang us and it carried on giving real time updates, which allowed us to use it in investigations.”

These statement comes after a student was able to track and take a photo of a thief who had stolen her laptop. A court heard on Tuesday how the laptop was snatched in a burglary in Bristol on August 20 last year.

Police in Bristol also revealed that three smartphones had been recovered in the last two months thanks to similar tracking technology.

Source: The Sun

Coming Soon: Malware Superhero

Microsoft say that “One in 14 downloads from the internet may now contain malware code”. With millions of apps downloaded to smartphones each day, that can be quite a worrying figure. Especially as you don’t always know the author of an app.

Android is open-source, meaning most software developers can create an app and upload it to the marketplace if they’d like. These days software developers aren’t confined to the depths of Microsoft offices or Apple offices. Your next door neighbour could be coding apps from his living room or the teenager a few doors down could be coding apps from his bedroom. Not all apps are written by trustworthy sources, and some can be very malicious indeed.

Malware Superhero will offer a range of features to ensure that the user is aware of potential malware apps that they have downloaded or are about to download. It will scan the apps on the device and notify the user of malware presence and aid the user in removing any malware found.

Malware isn’t the only worry of having a smartphone. Ever connected to a free Wi-Fi service at the airport or in a cafe? These networks are unsecured, meaning anyone can connect to them. The guy sitting across from you with that laptop he’s working on is connected to the same network, availing of the free internet access. But he’s not doing work away from office, he’s scanning the network for other devices that may be sending data to and from the same network. Do you use Facebook on your phone, or even use internet banking? These apps send data to and from the network to access the internet. But because the network is unsecure, the guy sitting across the way with his laptop can intercept this data using a few hacking tools readily available on the internet. That’s not good news.

With access to your Facebook account, he may as well know everything there is about you including your name, date of birth, family members and friends, and possibly even your daily schedule. Do I even have to explain what he could be doing with your banking data?

Malware Superhero will also have unsecured Wi-Fi protection. The user will receive an alert when the device connects to an unsecured Wi-Fi network. The user can also set an unsecure Wi-Fi network as “Safe” if they are aware the network is unsecure so no more notifications will be received about that network.

Best Buy Mobile Magazine

Locked & Found, a solution we provide for Best Buy Mobile has had a write-up on the Best Buy Mobile online magazine.

“Who hasn’t experienced that awful sinking feeling of reaching into your pocket or purse for your phone and finding nothing but empty space? Your mind starts racing immediately…”

Best Buy Mobile Magazine Article

New Vault Preview

We’re constantly improving our software and service and are currently in the middle of some major changes to the way the vault works on our site. It should be more user friendly and more feedback friendly than the old vault you’re used to seeing by now. Some of the features we’ve added are:

• Device names which can be changed by the user. Especially useful where the user has more than one device in their vault (for a family or small company perhaps).
• Device status’ explained as opposed to the old status icons. This will hopefully make it easier for our users to understand what state their device is currently in and what they need to do next.
• SIM change warning which will display when the SIM has been changed in a users device, and will also let the user know the cellular number of the newly installed SIM.
• Last location and images captured now have thumbnails in the vault and display the time the location or image was recieved.
• Improved messages relay any potential problems to the user better than before.

We’d also like to hear any feedback you may have. Any ideas that you might like to see implemented would be more than welcome as would anything that you think might make our software easier to use.

New Tech Post

We’ve had quite a few write-ups recently about how we’re joining forces with some very well known retailers, carriers etc which has hopefully given a bit on an insight into what we’re about and what we’re achieving. We’ve also had a new write-up today by technology news website New Tech Post with a great feature on their homepage.

The article they’ve written not only explains what we’ve been up to recently, but also explains how Yougetitback started, the journey it’s taken and what it’s taken to get to where we are as a company today as well a bit about who we are as a team and how strong we are when it comes to what we do best.

“It’s a very strong engineering company. Peter [Bermingham] has built an incredible engineering team, and typically, when we’re up against other competitors, major, billion-dollar organisations, we’re beating them hands down, because the engineering and technology is better, because we’re very, very focused on what we do.”

New Tech Post Article

Irish firm offers smartphone security package

Article by Insurance Insight

“Irish firm You Get It Back has teamed up with American retailer Best Buy to offer a security package for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets…”

Insurance Insight Article

Yougetitback Mines Peace-Of-Mind Market For Mobile Devices

Article by Twice, the consumer electronics retailers Bible in the USA.

“Blackrock, Ireland – A five-year-old Irish company, called Yougetitback, is quietly rolling out an unusual second security layer to warranty programs for  mobile devices that could put a few extra bucks in retailers’ and insurance providers’ pockets…”

Twice Article

Yougetitback on Reuters

Article by Reuters.

“Yougetitback and Best Buy announce their market leading recovery solution, branded as Locked & Found, available now in all Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile stores in the US…”

Reuters Article

Cork firm links up with Best Buy

Article by The Irish Times

“Cork-based YouGetItBack is providing its mobile device recovery service to US consumer electronics chain Best Buy, which will offer it as part of its Geek Squad Black Tie Protection Plan…”

Irish Times Article

Even away from home…

…are crime figures soaring. Just half an hour after I’d written about the rising figures in London, Paul handed me a tear-out of a page of the New York Times which has an article about smartphone theft in Paris. It seems as though the figures are equally alarming in our neighbouring countries as they are in our own.

Part of the article states that ‘lawmakers are urging a law requiring telephone operators to create a system to permanently block the use of a phone after a theft, and not just the number itself’. If you’re reading this far you’ll know that such software exists already, in the form of Mobile Superhero. The best thing about it is, you don’t have to rely on your network operator. You can even take care of the locking process yourself and it’s totally international.

Read the full article from the New York Times below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/world/europe/09paris.html