Are our phones becoming too much like computers?
Last week while I was merrily tapping away at my keyboard at work I noticed that my phone (a Nokia N900) felt warm in my pocket. This happens every now and then, I leave an app on and it ends up doing something heavy or a webpage with flash is open. No biggie, I'll just turn stuff off and continue working. The problem was that I had no apps running. Since the N900 runs a full Linux installation, daemons and background apps can sometimes run amok. Being a command-line Linux-guy I looked deeper into my computer-slash-phone and found out that a computer with a Mexican IP-address was running a dictionary attack on SSH (over 3G), trying to break into my phone.
Now, I should point out that first of all I was running an up to date OpenSSH-version (which isn't installed or actived by default for those worrying) and I had a strong password, so I wasn't running a risk of being compromised. But my battery-life wasn't improving either. I shut down OpenSSH* and the next time I need it I'll bind it to WLAN-only, but the question remains: Are our phones becoming too much like computers?I, for one, like carrying a full Linux-system in my pocket, but it might require a little too much expertise for most people. The complexity is hidden away in most smartphone OSes, but that doesn't mean it isn't lurking there, in the background. Waiting to be exploited by hackers, virus-writers and other assorted nefarious characters. Be safe and think about what you install on your phone!
*) Turning off SSH in Maemo is a bit tricky - Maemo uses "upstart" for daemons but still keeps the old rc.d-system also, which can be a little bewildering (it was to me). What you need to do is go into "/etc/event.d/sshd" with a text-editor and comment the first line (with #). Then you write "initctl stop sshd" and sshd will be stopped and not restarted automatically.
