Your smartphone is a portable Big Brother spy device.

Certain apps can turn your smartphones into a serious spy unity device capable of tracking down everything you do while are using it and even make it a bridge for spy somebody else. A little of social engineering on the internet can make people download these apps and literally jump in the arms of the Big Brother.

(...)Software designed to completely mine every secret on a smartphone can track its users, record their calls, copy their emails, read their text messages and bug the rooms the phones are sitting in.
Jason Hart, a cyber security expert with Cryptocard, explained how easy it is to turn a mobile phone into a pocket spy.
It starts with a little 'social engineering'.
By hacking the phone of someone the victim might trust, and learning something about them from reading their Tweets and Facebook page, the attacker will send a personalised email from a known account.
The user opens an email and a document, a picture, letter or pdf file.
A programme can be embedded in the attached document which takes the hacked user's phone off to a secret website site which covertly downloads spying software onto the smartphone.
Shortened weblinks are also a risk.
"Using Facebook and Twitter (and) getting an individual to click on a shortened link would actually take them to a website and automatically install malware," said Mr Hart.
"There is no way that a victim would know his phone had been comprehensively hacked(...)"

news.sky.com...

is there a way to check your own smartphone for viruses and hijacks/hacks? i would love to see what all is on my phone...

reply to post by ICEKOHLD


If your smart phone shows up on your computer as an actual drive [mine does] you might be able to scan it with your malware and AV software. I have never tried it but I do intend to do so today.
DH

reply to post by DavidsHope


Advice: do not use your smart phones web surface except for emergencies. Say for Weather radar or maps etc.
Be careful what you text and how..be sure to misspell words deliberately so bots cannot intercept, and do not use your email through your smart phone. I shut that app off on mine. It was g mail and we all know what they do.
Use your computer for online stuff and keep that clean with software to protect it.
Be Safe
DH

Pretty scary. I read somewhere (do not have a source) that if you take out the battery when not in use, it cannot be used for bugging......I do not know if that is correct though. he whole idea makes me want to get rid of my phone, but while on my lunch breaks it is so nice to surf the net

One way to notice if your smartphone might be running something you don't know about is battery life. If you notice your phone not holding a charge as long as it did and your usage patterns not changing enough to justify it, might be worth looking into, or maybe your battery is going bad.

Originally posted by DavidsHope
reply to post by DavidsHope

 

It was g mail and we all know what they do.

DH

Who is we? I am not we, could you elaborate? What DO they do?? Or is it so much I am clearly uneducated, LOL?

Originally posted by Starwise
Pretty scary. I read somewhere (do not have a source) that if you take out the battery when not in use, it cannot be used for bugging......I do not know if that is correct though. he whole idea makes me want to get rid of my phone, but while on my lunch breaks it is so nice to surf the net

Yes you can but then your phone is basically a paper weight.
The concept is simple just take the battery out but what if you
have business calls and that is not an option.

One thing for sure on androids don't opt in to location
it takes two weeks and will map all your where abouts.

Some people like joggers use it but I KNOW where I have been, don't
need the phone to keep track of it.

There was a robbery where the people incriminated themselves
by having a smart phone with them. Without that smart phone there
was nothing else linking them to the crime and probably would of walked.
Is it good they got caught? I don't know but I know it was dumb they did not
think about leaving the phone at home..

Originally posted by DavidsHope
reply to post by DavidsHope

 

Advice: do not use your smart phones web surface except for emergencies. Say for Weather radar or maps etc.
Be careful what you text and how..be sure to misspell words deliberately so bots cannot intercept, and do not use your email through your smart phone. I shut that app off on mine. It was g mail and we all know what they do.
Use your computer for online stuff and keep that clean with software to protect it.
Be Safe
DH

Man, you must be one important person, why do you think they want you so bad?



I'm glad I'm a nobody... I use gmail just for forums, if they don't have the facebook feature to tie them together. They can have it all.. It would do nobody any good.

I can only imagine what sort of secrets you have tucked away...

Hmm. I'm typically a bit on the paranoid side, but I've rooted my Android and have SU access. I can check for that stuff, but it's simply not there.

On another note, I read a story about a guy who got a speeding ticket. The police officer said he was doing xx MPH, and the guy took it to court. He was running an app that logged his location, speed, etc, in his phone. Once he showed it to the judge, it over ruled the police officer, and he got his case dismissed.

So there is a plus side to phone logging.

reply to post by Starwise


If you do not know what g mail and goo gle are doing you need to check it out in a search. We is a figure of speech.
But it indicates anyone that uses gm ail needs to be aware of what they are doing. synched with goo gle.
if you are not using gmai l the shoe does not fit. if you are--- be aware that both yaho o
and
g mail
are both very well known for trackin g. both on and off site. You can learn it by letting your fingers do the walking.

DH

I have mixed feelings about this, i seen it on sky news today and to be honest im not shocked.

The government have been probably doing this for years anyway now your wife/ husband can do it too, but then again Social Networking sites (Facebook & Twitter) can track you when you tweet from any location or "Check In" on Facebook.

Sometimes it might be better just to get rid of the smart phone all together. I have an iPhone, which I haven't noticed any privacy problems with, except for that from time to time, it tries to log on to my location, but I always deny that request and have all the location stuff turned off.

I also have an Android. It's a very nice phone, but it's the same thing as the iPhone, no location services etc.

What I don't like is that spring has apps on there that I can't take off unless I root it. I wonder what other types of motives they could have for those apps?

Probably the best bet is just to get a small, compact, cell phone. Nothing over complicated but something that you can call and text with and nothing else, that's what I might do.

Originally posted by DavidsHope
reply to post by ICEKOHLD

 

If your smart phone shows up on your computer as an actual drive [mine does] you might be able to scan it with your malware and AV software. I have never tried it but I do intend to do so today.
DH

Do let us know what you find.

Originally posted by Starwise
Pretty scary. I read somewhere (do not have a source) that if you take out the battery when not in use, it cannot be used for bugging......I do not know if that is correct though. he whole idea makes me want to get rid of my phone, but while on my lunch breaks it is so nice to surf the net

Couldnt you just wrap the phone in tin foil?

reply to post by Logarock


I have a new Samsung Windows based. Nothing was found, however, I will be the first to say that tracking and malware for Androids, Windows based, and I Phones probably do not use malwares that would be computer based and as such most likely any AV or malware programs on your computer seem to be only for computers.
If anyone out there can shed some light on whether or not AV or malware computer based software can be used on Smartphone applications with good results please do let me know. Just because I ran something and nothing turned up doesn't mean that the software included the correct updates for a smartphone. In other words.
I don't have a clue even after scanning. If smartphones use malware that computer based software cannot detect it would be a waste of time/ ..DH

Originally posted by DavidsHope
reply to post by Logarock

 

I have a new Samsung Windows based. Nothing was found, however, I will be the first to say that tracking and malware for Androids, Windows based, and I Phones probably do not use malwares that would be computer based and as such most likely any AV or malware programs on your computer seem to be only for computers.

True there. Androids and Iphones are based on Unix. Very virus and malware resistant because of their internal filesystem. Windows based would PROBABLY be more vunerable, given the OS is similar to a PC. However, malware is written to install in a specific location, such as a hard drive, which smartphones do not have. I do see the potential for future generations of virus writers to target non-HD based devices, however, that is not very feasible, because all smartphones can be re-set in a few minutes to a factory default state, having ROM based boot images to clear and restore. It's much harder to infect a smartphone for that very reason.

If anyone out there can shed some light on whether or not AV or malware computer based software can be used on Smartphone applications with good results please do let me know. Just because I ran something and nothing turned up doesn't mean that the software included the correct updates for a smartphone. In other words.
I don't have a clue even after scanning. If smartphones use malware that computer based software cannot detect it would be a waste of time/ ..DH

Your AV software you scanned your sd-card with is only checking for viruses in it's database. It won't find anything "new" in virus related terms. It would only find known viruses. Basically, AV software is useless on a smartphone, because the filesystem is different for the current generations of viruses. Not that that won't change soon. For every OS, there's someone that has wrote an exploit to use.

To get back to the OP, yes, I have GPS location, a camera, and a speakerphone. I'm sure the proper app can turn any of those features on and off, as I turn them off and on at will. I have a bootable Android CD that I can put in my PC, and boot the Android OS, and run it, and tinker with all the settings. The possibility is there. Android is Open Source, and it's designed to be tinkered with. That is what makes good tech even better.

A spy device? Hmmm.

I keep my nose pretty clean. I don't have much that I do that would worry me. Most of the time my smartphone is in my Otterbox, the camera face down. The things I do, meh, quite trivial, and not really worth mentioning. Big Brother can watch. If it REALLY bothered me, I'd throw the thing in the trash, and never use it again.

The benefits outweigh my paranoia in this case. The people where I work constantly come up to me with questions, and ask if I can "find out" on my computer. (Most of them don't have smartphones yet, nor the ability to use the internet.) They refer to my smartphone as a computer, and they know I have instant access to information from a small portable device attached to my belt, and they defer to the information I dig up for them. Click, it goes back in my belt connected outer Otterbox shell. If traveling to an unknown location, I ask people to give me the street addy and a zip code, and I enable GPS, a mapping app, punch in the information, and I find my way. Yes, there are programs that log where I go. I also have a log as to where I have been, many locations saved in my smartphone/mini-computer. I look at it as a documentation of my life, where I have been, what I do. Yes, I allow it to track me. I am a citizen.

If I was doing a 300 kilo drug deal, I'd be sure to leave my smartphone at home. Eh? Common sense here folks. They are not evil, they are useful. If you are THAT paranoid, disconnect from the internet right now, fore go any more ATS posts you may have, and cancel your ISP and cell phone services. If you dislike Big Brother, ditch all the technology in your life. Nuff said.