Book Image

Android High Performance Programming

By : Emil Atanasov, Enrique López Mañas, Diego Grancini
Book Image

Android High Performance Programming

By: Emil Atanasov, Enrique López Mañas, Diego Grancini

Overview of this book

Performant applications are one of the key drivers of success in the mobile world. Users may abandon an app if it runs slowly. Learning how to build applications that balance speed and performance with functionality and UX can be a challenge; however, it's now more important than ever to get that balance right. Android High Performance will start you thinking about how to wring the most from any hardware your app is installed on, so you can increase your reach and engagement. The book begins by providing an introduction to state–of-the-art Android techniques and the importance of performance in an Android application. Then, we will explain the Android SDK tools regularly used to debug and profile Android applications. We will also learn about some advanced topics such as building layouts, multithreading, networking, and security. Battery life is one of the biggest bottlenecks in applications; and this book will show typical examples of code that exhausts battery life, how to prevent this, and how to measure battery consumption from an application in every kind of situation to ensure your apps don’t drain more than they should. This book explains techniques for building optimized and efficient systems that do not drain the battery, cause memory leaks, or slow down with time.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Android High Performance Programming
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 7. Security

Security is defined in Wikipedia as "the degree of resistance to, or protection from, harm. It applies to any vulnerable and valuable asset, such as a person, dwelling, community, item, nation, or organization."

When we think of security in software, our mind depicts pictures of hackers working with black screens and green fonts, typing always in console commands very fast to gain access to a system or to break a firewall. The reality is different to that seen in Hollywood. Security in software refers to a robust system that protects the privacy of its users, avoids undesired interaction from an attacker, and has integrity.

A computer system can experience several vulnerabilities or attack vectors:

  • Backdoors: A backdoor is a point used to bypass the security of the application, traditionally left by the developers of the system. In 2013, a scandal exposed by Snowden suggested that the NSA had backdoors to many operative systems and platforms, including those from Google...