Can they bug our cellphones like that?

Possible? Yes.

Does it happen? Probably.

Scared?

Yes! Who does it? How?

Yes and yes. The radio (and the speakers) can be controlled by external forces (NSA?) even if the phone is not connected.

Basically a phone is a digital radio.

So, what is the likelihood of it happening to the average Joe, and can we do anything to prevent it? Other than getting rid of all the phones.

What can you do?

- keep the phone off (which makes it useless)

- put the phone in a metallic bag (which prevents the radio waves from reaching the phone, which makes it useless)

- live with it.

Now, the question is: is the NSA listening to all calls everywhere? Some news reports have said ‘yes’. Others say ‘only with a warrant’ – but you never know who to believe. My guess is that it’s impossible to listen to all call everywhere and analyze them in real time. It’s probably not that difficult to listen/record them.

Besides, i imagine it’s cheaper and more efficient for the NSA to record these calls at the phone company’s switching (call routing) computer than it is at each antenna. But I don’t really know.

If I were you, I would operate with the assumption that everything you say or write is being recorded somewhere.

(Including this response)

Just a few minutes before I came across this Q, I was looking at this Urban Legend site!
That’s wired wierd weird!

@Yetanotheruser , I could only be more creeped out right now if someone rang my doorbell and called out that Angela is here. That is frightening! Why haven’t I heard about that on the news? OMG I have the heebie jeebies so bad right now.

Mostly because the whole Angela thing is a huge hoax.

Snopes says

And Enron said everything was fine.

Who and how? China makes the phones and every smart phone is web enabled. And we enable them by buying a product we don’t fully understand and keeping our phones with us where we go.

China is not a democracy. Everything has the approval of the government without much public oversight. They know we are a trusting and naive lot and believe they are honest.

Do we need to start making our tinfoil hats?

I remember someone claiming their baby monitors could pick up the neighbors cellphone calls when they were home. I don’t know if they were messing with me or not. And this was a few years ago.

@Yetanotheruser that crap read like a 3rd grade ghost story!

I believe the federal government and hackers both are able to hack into our phones/ computers. NSA appears to be quite invasive. I saw where the computer on a plane (in flight) was hacked into. Not only is that scary, but it makes me angry. What can “we the people” do about it? That is for me the big question.

@Dutchess_III LOL!

Sure they can. Do I care? Nope.

I don’t believe for one second that any agency is going to spend millions of dollars listening to me tell Rick to get cat food while he’s at the store.

@Dutchess_III – for all they know, that might be code for

“drop the nuclear device in the missile silo”

Well, they can spend billions figuring out that it’s really code for “Get cat food.”
I don’t care!

Heck, in dawning days of cell phones, before digital, they were analogue, which meant that anyone could pick up on cell phone conversations simply using a police scanner. Having people that I actually know listening in would bother me a lot more than the government being silly.

@elbanditoroso “Duly noted.”

Even turning a phone off does not help. It can turned on again with the right backdoor. The manufacturer knows the backdoors it installed “for manufacturing and test purposes only”.

@LuckyGuy Even if you remove the battery?

And put it in a hole 6 feet deep?

@Yetanotheruser Removing the battery will do it. Although…. they could continue to record for a minute or two until the filtering capacitors discharge. The data could be stored and saved for sending the next time the battery is installed.

Pity the poor shlub who has to sit there listening to your phone calls..

Here’s a nice Vimeo that contemplates this subject Table 7

If anybody wants to listen to my calls, they can knock themselves out. I’m sure they’re the most boring calls imaginable. Texts, same thing. Camera, more boring than anything.

@LuckyGuy , now that is food for thought!

So, what about the Angela kitty thing? Is it possible to hack something like that and abuse it?

@Here2_4 According to this the Angela Kitty scare is based on a hoax. USA Today. That said, I do not see why it wouldn’t be easy to make an app that collected the data and forwarded it on. Whenever you think about downloading an app, look at the permissions it demands. Why should a flashlight app need your position? Why does it ask for access to your contact list? Why does a simple calculator want the same permissions? That is my sign to put the app right back on the shelf.
Another thing that scares me is the new smart TV by Samsung. It has facial recognition built internally. It automatically keeps track of the shows you and every member of your family watch. Presumably it is to improve and “enhance your TV viewing experience”. It might suggest fore example, a science show for one person, cartoons for the kids, HGTV for any adult females. Samsung will neither confirm nor deny they have access that data or that they can remotely turn on the camera obviously built into the unit and watch the activities in your house.

There are very upsetting things here.

@Here2_4 Tinfoil Hat?

@LuckyGuy I was wondering about the capacitors!

I think I would rather take a realistic look at what threats are real, and which are bunk. I am not a part of the foil hat brigade. I hope we have some better solutions. Don’t we?

@Here2_4 Yep Upsetting indeed. And if the TV with facial recognition and gesture control was made in China you can bet you’re getting something else free with it.

Here is part of an old review raving about the new TV.
“Unlike a phone or even a tablet, a TV is generally a communal thing. That means multiple users, each likely to have their own preferences and favorites. Rather than force a Windows-style login system, Samsung has used Face Recognition to handle user management, with each different Smart Hub account accessed when the TV recognizes the viewer’s face. It’s certainly quicker than tapping in a password, though as with Face Unlock on Android smartphones it can be fooled with a still photo.”

Where do you think the Smart Hub info goes? What else is connected to it? The TV will not operate unless it has an active Internet connection. How much info is it sending back to the mother ship? No one will tell.
You can’t even find the camera or tell when it is on.

In Feb 2015 a privacy group has asked the FTC to investigate Samsung for evesdropping on customers’ private conversations with the new Smart TV. Article here
Note this is a TV, not a smart phone where most of us almost expect to have our privacy violated.

“The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the commission on Tuesday, charging that the Korean electronics giant’s use of voice-recognition technology violates federal communication privacy law. ...

[Voice command, facial recognition , hand gestures] The feature allows users to change channels, adjust volume or search for programs, all with just a verbal command spoken into one of two microphones.

It became the focus of privacy concerns earlier this month when close reading of Samsung’s privacy policy revealed a warning to users that “if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.”

Although Samsung later updated its privacy policy to make it clear that the TVs’ voice recognition and data collection features can be disabled, EPIC argues that Samsung’s feature violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which prohibits the “interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications.”

Very few people read the 20 page privacy document that comes with their new devices and software. We just blindly (and naively) click on the “I accept” box so we can use our new toy.

I wonder who the third party is – and who they give the info to.
Anyone care to check if the provacy policy that came with their new Samsung Galaxy?

I saw that same article, @LuckyGuy – it was very timely. I was thinking of getting a newer TV – my old TV is one of the early generation HD TVs – a Samsung.

So I was shopping for a new smart TV at the time, and reading about the lack of privacy in the latest models stopped me completely. If the price of a new TV is giving up my privacy to some unnamed folks in Korea or Japan, well, no thanks.

@Here2_4 you need to take a realistic look at what threats are real, and which are nothing to worry about.

@elbanditoroso You wrote: “If the price of a new TV is giving up my privacy to some unnamed folks in Korea or Japan, well, no thanks.”
Or China, or Eastern European hackers, or NSA…

You know. It is just not that difficult for me to push the button on the remote. I don’t have to say “Volume up” to make it louder, or “Change Channel” to change the channel. I just touch the button. Easy. I am not willing to risk having a camera looking at me while I watch TV in my undies.

I’ve mentioned this before. I work with a bunch of very technically savvy guys. Every single one of them, Including me, has a piece of tape folded over the camera on our PCs. The “office” did not tell us to do that. It is not company policy. Independently, we all felt uncomfortable about that device and came up with our own solution.

And don’t think your cars are safe either. Now, that one led to a recall so that they could fix the software vulnerability, but it makes me think that having a TV listen in on conversations is relatively trivial compared to what else a competent electronics guy can do.

@jerv The TV also records video frames. It is looking right there in your living room. And if you have friends over to watch something it can potentially run a face search through google goggles and see who is visiting.
Hopefully they will fix the car invulnerability but you know there will always be holes they missed. The TV OTOH needs to look and listen in the room if lazy people can’t be bothered with pushing buttons. At least they are now telling people how to turn off that nonsense.
But is it really off? Who knows. Time for some tape over the camera lens.

Most people have no idea… There is a car ad now that shows 20 somethings raving over the new car. One of the “customers” says she loves it because it has Bluetooth! That’s the feature that makes you love the car?!?! Seriously?!?! Ugh. I will resist having my car communicate with the internet as long as I can.

@Dutchess_III , I don’t understand why you repeated what I had just said. If you were making a point, could you clarify, please?

This is all starting to sound like the plot in the animated G-Force. I don’t know whether to cower in fear or laugh. It seems like we have technologied ourselves right to Hell. Nature’s cure? Some species perish because they don’t reproduced well. Some eat their food supply into non existence. Humans get smart enough to conquer our own frailties, and succumb to technology which advances too far for us to turn back.

Took me a minute.
OK, the thing is, there is no way to tell which threats are “real” and which are not. To me, “bunk” means…. it isn’t true. Well, they may well be tapping into your phone,and that’s not bunk, because it’s true. But is it a “real” threat? No. Not IMO.

You may feel your phone conversations are innocuous, but suppose they are not. Suppose someone finds out what interests you most, and uses that to target you. Suppose they listen in to hear when someone has an urgency and a kid(s) will be alone until you get there.
What about photos? How would you feel learning someone had snapped photos inside your house so they know the easiest way in, or out.
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/how_hackers_spy_on_women_through_their_webcams/

@LuckyGuy Some people love to hook their cars to their phone just by being in the car. Personally, I prefer to take the extra two seconds to plug in a cord when I want the music on my phone to come through my car’s speakers, but I think that by today’s standards, preferring hardwired connections over radio transmission is kind of quaint to all those outside the intelligence community. And boy, do wardriving hackers love the kids today for giving up so much security for just a tiny bit of convenience!

@jerv I’m with you! What is so difficult about pushing a button to change channels?! Are people willing to give up their privacy to Samsung (definitely), third parties that Samsung works with (definitely), china (definitely), NSA (probably), hackers (low probability) just so they can say “Change channel”?!?! Are they really that lazy?
Don’t they realize that invasion is the first step to targeted ads?!?! The men will be bombarded with Viagra and Cialis ads; Women with anti-depressants, and kids alcohol and cigarettes.
Ugh!

@LuckyGuy Now I want a Guy Fawkes mask and a Darth Vader voice-changer.

@jerv ,LOL GA, GA, GA, GA! I am now picturing lazy tv watchers all across America wearing a getup like that, so they can keep their “smart” tv. That’s funny.