Virus Shield

Everyone's worried about getting a virus, and so that seems to be the reason why, in the Google Play store, the #1 paid app was Virus Shield; it prevents harmful apps from being stored on your device; protects your personal information; and has a strong antivirus signature detection.



And it's so good, even at $3.99, it had been downloaded 10,000 times; had over 2,600 people recommending it, and had a 4.5 star rating.



Amazing, right? No. Turned out the app which was less than 1 megabyte did not – well it didn't do nothing – what it did do was change this X...



...into a check mark.



That's it!

And it has let a good number of people to wonder if the Google Play store can really be trusted. Personally, I had hoped that the community could self moderate with the star system but, whether it be because there are fake accounts giving amazing reviews, or because people perceive that it's working because it's supposed to be preventing malware. It's kind of a rainmaker app: you're scared about malware so you download it, and after sometime you still don't have malware so it must be working. Lol, and all this has led some people to go even a step further, saying that maybe Google Play should have some sort of screening process; a walled-garden of sorts, kind of how Apple does it with iOS.

And, because the app (Virus Shield) is now down, I don't know if the money has gone to the creator of it. So, if Google refunded the people who downloaded it, I think it's beneficial.

And I'd love to know what you think. Do you think it's better what Apple does? Or, how Google does it? Maybe there's even something middle of the road where you start creating apps and then you become verified? I don't know, how do you support, and even promote, creativity without suffocating it with these things you have to go through?

And honestly, I'm on the fence.

Toilet Terrorists!

We all know regular terrorism is pretty damn scary, but, of course, the Japanese had to kick it up another level with toilet terrorism! You read that right. As I'm typing this, innocent people's butts, in Japan, may have already fallen prey to toilet terrorism.



You see, in Japan, toilets are these magical, amazing, awesome things. They have heated seats, bidet spray, music, fragrance release, butt driers, automatic lids (for days), automatic flushing, they even have fake flushy noises to help cover up any sounds that, you know, you might find embarrassing.



The luxury toilets (manufactured by Japanese firm Lixil), have wireless controls that you can access via an app on your Android smartphone. The Android application is called My SATIS.



Sounds somewhat surprising and possibly over complicated, but, very recently, an amazing little tidbit was revealed. Amazing in a bad way. The problem lies in the security PIN the SATIS toilet app uses to sync the toilet because the PIN code for every model is hardwired to be four zeros (0000).



You'd think it'd be like ones and twos, you know, like poops and peepees.

Anyone with the app can easily input that PIN into their phone, and gain control of any SATIS toilets within range.



Once the toilet terrorists gain control of nearby toilets, they can wreck all sorts of havoc including: spraying water all over the bathroom, blasting unsuspecting users with hot air in their no-no-zone, frequently flipping the lid open and close, and flushing the toilet repeatedly - which can drive up water bills, and drive the users crazy.

This isn't my idea of fun at all, lol.