This past week a damning Geek.com post started a firestorm of Malware accusals of the Android application MemoryUp by Peter Liu.
The accusal was based not on facts or substance but merely negative comments by users.
The Geek.com article points to prominent G1 user MARK – article affirms the magnanimity of the person since his username is in all caps – “Do not download. Destroyed my memory card/system delete. Then my email was spammed. TMobile can’t stop you from downloading this! So don’t!”
Thus the article concludes, “As a G1 user, I’ve learned to trust the opinions of hundreds of people telling me (in comments) not to download an app if it doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, I haven’t run into a lying commentor yet.”
Its the 21st century version of the Salem witch trials.
In my opinion this is what iPhone fanboys were waiting to hear and jumped on it with affirmation that Apple’s oversight and review process is necessary for keeping consumers “safe”.
Sounds like we should ditch this Democracy Republic thing and go with Communism or Fascism so we can be “safe”.
*** Wait, isn’t Google And Blog the one previously stating Cupcake would be sent as an OTA update first in mid-January and then late in the month?
Difference being it was factual information at the time but unforeseen events disrupted the timetable as well there was no slander and misguidance involved ***
I myself looked it from an ameteur Android programming standpoint finding nothing suspicious as well F-Secure who stated, “We did a bit of digging into the issue but couldn’t verify any of the claims made about MemoryUp’s maliciousness. We studied a couple of the versions that are readily available and none of them attempted to break anything on the Android platform nor did they attempt to do things other than what the application promises to do.”
Google then investigated and declared their results, “We have investigated and determined that MemoryUp is not malware. In the versions we tested, MemoryUp cannot perform any of the malicious things it is reported to have done.”
I myself wouldn’t use it regardless as there really isn’t much of a need for it on Android in my opinion.
So is this bad reporting from Geek.com, neophytes using Android, a way for Malware/Virus protecting software to profit off people’s fears, or iPhone fanboys causing a smear campaign on Android?
