Smart Phone apps gather information from built in camera and mic.

Smart Phone apps gather information from built in camera and mic.

www.computerworl d.com

Your phone is listening

The issue was brought to the world's attention recently on a podcast called This Week in Tech. Host Leo Laporte and his panel shocked listeners by unmasking three popular apps that activate your phone's microphone to collect sound patterns from inside your home, meeting, office or wherever you are.

The apps are Color, Shopkick and IntoNow, all of which activate the microphones in users' iPhone or Android devices in order to gather contextual information that provides some benefit to the user.

Color uses your iPhone's or Android phone's microphone to detect

(visit the link for the full news article)

This article is very interesting. We've always suspected that phones can be used for personal privacy invasion, but now we have a bit of proof. Sure it's not talking about the government tracking us with built in GPS systems, but still it's worth a read.

Just another thing to be on the look out for.

www.computerworl d.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Vaykun


That is radical. I ran across this recently
Crime stoppers getting smart phone app
www.ktbs.com...
Scary stuff!

"Theoretically, the tipster can stand outside of a suspect's house, take a picture of the house, car etc, upload the picture and then attach the GPS coordinates of the photograph," Taliaferro said. "(The) tipster sends the data and immediately the coordinator will have that information and the capability to establish a secure 'two-way' dialogue with the tipster. "

This is why you never let anyone from 4chan get hold of your photos...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yeah i pooped myself earlier. Google is going to be the enemy one day.

< Google now knows i see them as the enemy and know my ip adress how often im at my computer and what my room could look like if i took a picture in it>

reply to post by Vaykun


I keep saying it - Big Brother is not the government; Big Brother is the mega-Corporations who run your economic life. ...Think about it? Who's collecting all the data? ...Your bank, your insurance company, your credit card company, your utilities provider, your media provider, your phone company... Then there's facebook, yahoo and all those cute little tests and quizzes... Where do you think all that data goes? Do you really believe it's not collated and syntehesized?

Anyway. Important thread. S&F&

It's kinda sad actually. Information is one of the most valuable things out there and everyone just keeps giving it to these companies. I know this article is about cell phone apps that do it without you knowing, but it should be fairly obvious that anything that activates your microphone or your camera is something you should stay away from. Those newer ones that don't tell you that's what's happening though, those ones are scary.

reply to post by Vaykun


While everyone does like to point out how evil the idea is... We should also consider a world that has 100% real-time monitoring.

First: Eliminate legal or official consequence to the monitoring. (Not likely to happen..but let's just say for arguments sake)

A World Where Everything is Monitored.

Every speech, action, etc. is monitored, and recorded. People receive regular updates on their behavior. (As of right now they are using it for marketing).

But picture a world where everyone must confront their own lies and memory lapses on a regular basis. It would hold people accountable beyond belief. It would also throw ignorant ideas and rants back to the people that make them.

Perhaps if the girl who made the Asian rant on YouTube had heard herself talk week after week, she may have not made a racist generalization on YouTube for the entire world to see.

Conclusion:

While I have pointed out a possible benefit of the technology... It goes without saying, there is no way this could be used responsibly. Think about how many people working cell phone providers, all different walks of life... None of them have someone they would like to listen in on?

*How government would use it goes without saying... This type of technology has already been used for ages in security.

Originally posted by dug88
It's kinda sad actually. Information is one of the most valuable things out there and everyone just keeps giving it to these companies. I know this article is about cell phone apps that do it without you knowing, but it should be fairly obvious that anything that activates your microphone or your camera is something you should stay away from. Those newer ones that don't tell you that's what's happening though, those ones are scary.

Naw ..... it's not scary. At least it's not scary to TPTB. In fact, TPTB are deliriously happy about the current state of affairs.

You remember that new app or screensaver you put on your phone last week or last month? You pressed ok to the "license" agreement, but did you think about why that app demanded permission to access so many areas of your phone? Besides, do you really think for one moment that these smart operating systems aren't slam full of government back doors? We *are* talking about about seriously evil people.

Let's look at this from another perspective. Modern smartphones are the defacto "chip". GPS, microphone, camera(s), contact lists and numbers. What's better is that you actually pay for the privilege of dragging it around. What more could the bad guys want?

I canceled my contract and pulled the battery on my android phone when they synced my phone (downloaded my personal info) without permission. I'll do without this class of phone until a non-corporate, open source, privacy respecting alternative is available.

reply to post by tyson


I hear that tyson.

I'm eagerly waiting for a new communication player to pop up who isn't blatantly power hungry. Heck we could use on in almost any industry.

Originally posted by soficrow

I keep saying it - Big Brother is not the government; Big Brother is the mega-Corporations who run your economic life. ...

Oh undoubtedly. Sofi.

As a hobby I design Android apps (in fact, as of late on the Motorola Xoom) but have for Droid 2, Galaxy Tab, a few others as well.... with respect to the phones (or tablets) sensors, I can hide the App, turn on and off certain sensors including GPS, Mic, the Camera, IMEI information, carrier, all remotely if I desired and have it come back to me.

Now, there are some things, at least in the Android development world that need to be noted here. For starters, unless someone has 2 things they cant hide what an app does from you, and they also can't hide it from appearing.

1. Is a rooted (which simply means superuser) Android device.
2. A custom kernel and Android overlay which has severely modified the original Android OS implementation

With the above 2 being true, you could do almost anything you want (as a developer AND a user) to the experience.

However, absent of those two items, it would be impossible to completely hide anything from the phones user, as it would appear in the App Manager and you could always force close it and uninstall, even if it never appeared in the task bar.

The other, which is the most obvious, are the permissions that NEED to be asked for upon download and installing certain apps. For example, if you download a solitaire game, and the App asks for full internet permissions, it should immediately throw up a red flag.

Now, when it comes to Google itself, that should ALWAYS be a caveat to ALL users for one very important reason.... not too long ago, the Android Marketplace was plagued with approximately 50 apps that contained malware and were sending very critical and private information from phones over to Asia.

As seen in this article.


Below is a small excerp from it

By Athima Chansanchai msnbc.com contributor msnbc.com contributor updated 3/2/2011 12:18:54 PM ET 2011-03-02T17:18:54 * Share * Print * Font: * + * - Android users beware: more than 50 apps in the official Android Market have been discovered containing malware that could have compromised sensitive and personal data. While Google has already yanked the apps from the Market, this first big infection highlights the inherent vulnerability of Android's openness to developers.

The truly scary part is the resolution that followed from Google. What they did in essence was, reverse the problems caused by the malware on people who had downloaded it AFTER the fact. Google has left themselves backdoor capability, and they were extremely reticent about doing so, but in the face of stiff competition from Apple and it's iTunes, they had little choice but to tip their hand on that capability.

We all need to SERIOUSLY think on that for awhile, wouldn't you say?

Edited to note that also what it says in the above article, about Google not yanking the offending the apps from affected users, is not accurate, at the time of that writing it was, but Google has since done it, just for clarity. Even had they not done it, they professed to being ABLE to do it, which should give us all pause for thought.

It's funny to see this thread because I was just thinking about this the other day. A friend and I were talking about web cams and how we unplug them or cover them if it is built in. I then wondered about cell phones and the cameras and mics on them and if someone could record you when you weren't even on your phone. It kind of creeped me out.

Companies should not be allowed to do this. This is very intrusive. It seems we lose more and more of our privacy with the advance of technology. The more we have the more they know. It is kind of disturbing if you sit back and really think about it and look at it all as one.



S&F

Originally posted by mblahnikluver

Companies should not be allowed to do this.

Agreed, however, by and large it's what the consumers want that drive the market, and in this case, the majority want that level of connectedness. Of course, us, in the CT community, know the downsides, but the market is absolutely driving it.

Originally posted by mblahnikluver
This is very intrusive.

Yes, it is. But what I suggest, is this: Just TRY and get your 10 closest friends to trash their smartphones. Never happen, and that is the only way to stop it.

reply to post by mblahnikluver

It's funny to see this thread because I was just thinking about this the other day. A friend and I were talking about web cams and how we unplug them or cover them if it is built in. I then wondered about cell phones and the cameras and mics on them and if someone could record you when you weren't even on your phone.

Can you please uncover your cam, all I am getting is audio and it is really annoying...

reply to post by boncho


what if you turn it off/remove the battery?

reply to post by Vaykun


Oh, great. Is Apple in bed with the government?!?
This is the epitome of why I do not have a cell phone.

reply to post by Vaykun



FYI,

range.wordpress.com...

publicintelligence.net...

reply to post by angelchanneller


This is really unsettling. But the technophile in me is also incredibly fascinated by this. Like a new age library of Alexandria. Unfortunately, it would tell someone more about us then we may want. Even more worrying is that it's so unaccessible. I wonder what sort of access anyone else would have?

Actually, I'm torn. I have no particular trust of U.S. agencies, but which is worse? A government agent that we already know has been watching us for years having all this data? Or every schmo having access to this data?

And then I read that bit near the end of the first one about how this thing would probably have complex algorithms to comb through the data to see who among us might one day become terrorists. Now I'm officially against it in all measures. I will not trade a promise of safety for my right to liberty.

Originally posted by Vaykun
I will not trade a promise of safety for my right to liberty.

Don't be so quick to do that.

Hiding in plain view has it's advantages, no one is ever looking for what they think is right in front of them.

well i dont have a cellphone and the last time i did it had an antennae, no camera and still cost me 30$ a month LOL.
i dont plan on getting one again cause i just use my computer and prefer people not calling me wherever i am.
1984 is here! wait til your ipads get a nice direct link with the cops and the cops who watch the cops