Today’s Tech Sightings:

FILE – A social media rights activist points to a Facebook page of a militant group featuring their late leaders, describing them as “innocent martyrs,” in Islamabad, Pakistan, July 7, 2017. (AP)

Facebook Denies Pakistan Policy Change Request

Facebook informed the Pakistani government it was not interested in complying with its request to change authentication policies from email addresses to telephone numbers. Last week, Pakistan asked Facebook to make the change in order to track fake account owners and those who engage in hate speech or blasphemy. Pakistan sentenced a man to death a few weeks ago for making disparaging comments on social media about Islam and other topics.

Android Malware Uses New Tricks to Turn Your Phone Into a Spying Device

Trend Micro security researchers have discovered an Android malware dubbed GhostCtrl that allows hackers to remotely control a victim’s phone. According to the research, GhostCtrl is an extension of OmniRAT, a worm that extracts data. OmniRAT targeted patient data at Israeli hospitals a few weeks ago. GhostCtr often masquerades as a legitimate app and installs a malicious package that runs in the background when launched.

Android as We Know It Is Dead, but It’s Not Going to Go Away

Despite its dominance, powering around 85 percent of new shipped phones, Android has multiple problems Google is aware of, such as the fragmentation of the Android operating system, security and a troubled Linux legacy at its core. To address these problems, Google came up with Project Fuchsia, which aims to fix all of Android’s problems by starting with a clean slate. The Android brand, however isn’t going anywhere.

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