Gchq is spying through your smartphone..

[Waldo 96]

According to Snowdon they can! But how? Have they collaborated with Apple / Google and embedded spyware in to the OS? Or are they using another mwchanism?

 

---------- Post added 05-10-2015 at 22:35 ----------

 

Assuming Edward isn't talking out of his pooper....

[altus 540]

According to Snowdon they can! But how? Have they collaborated with Apple / Google and embedded spyware in to the OS? Or are they using another mwchanism?

 

Hacking into them using vulnerabilities they've discovered but nobody else has yet - i.e. so no fix has been developed. They've probably been trawling hacking websites looking for vulnerabilities the hackers have discovered too.

 

Phone manufacturers are notoriously bad at providing updates to phones to fix vulnerabilities anyway so that will help them out too.

[Phanerothyme 12]

It occurred to me that unless you have a phone with a removeable battery, it's not a trivial task for the man on the Heeley Omnibus to tell if it is actually switched off, or simply behaving as if it were switched off.

[geared 311]

Phone manufacturers are notoriously bad at providing updates to phones to fix vulnerabilities anyway so that will help them out too.

 

Phone manufacturers are pretty bad and the network operators are even worse.

 

They pretty much give up bothering to push out the software updates once they stop selling the phone.

[gremlin_mick 10]

I'd be more surprised if the CIA/MI6/FBI etc COULDN'T hack your phones in this manner...

[Cyclone 10]

It occurred to me that unless you have a phone with a removeable battery, it's not a trivial task for the man on the Heeley Omnibus to tell if it is actually switched off, or simply behaving as if it were switched off.

 

The battery having gone down when you turn it back on would be a bit of a give away though.

 

---------- Post added 06-10-2015 at 12:31 ----------

 

I'd be more surprised if the CIA/MI6/FBI etc COULDN'T hack your phones in this manner...

 

Errr, yes, but it's likely to be GCHQ and the NSA...

[JFKvsNixon 11]

The battery having gone down when you turn it back on would be a bit of a give away though.

 

A simple hack to change the battery level display would solve that, then it could be tweaked so the displayed showed a quickly decreasing battery level until it reached the level that the battery is actually at.

 

How often has someone looked at their battery charge and thought - bloody hell I'm almost out of battery life!

 

I don't mind the security services having the technical knowhow to do this, just that there should be more than adequate levels of oversight into how they do it, and a trail of accountability if they overstep their mark.

[Cyclone 10]

Except that a phone 'turned off' for several days at 100% battery would actually have zero battery when you attempted to turn it on... A rather obvious give away.

[swarfendor437 14]

Nothing has changed ... just the technology. A moderator who was an ex-Ranger with the US military told me of the TV sets they used to eavesdrop in East Germany residences.

 

Tapping needs no add-ons just coding - probably part of the licence conditions that mobile phone operators work under may have to include submission of blue-prints to the respective Governments!

 

Remember, Merkel's Mobile was a Blackberry - nothing 'bugged' as such.

 

So from physical bugs the change has been to using existing kit with the correct 'CODE'.

[JFKvsNixon 11]

Except that a phone 'turned off' for several days at 100% battery would actually have zero battery when you attempted to turn it on... A rather obvious give away.

 

So the security services have to make sure that they don't run the battery down. It wouldn't make sense for them to do so, they'd then stop receiving information from that phone.

[Cyclone 10]

If they've got some magic battery saving tech then they could take over the world simply by selling it and becoming the richest organisation in the world.

 

Admittedly the screen remains off presumably, but running the microphone and maintaining data connectivity WILL run down the battery, it's impossible to not do so.

[JFKvsNixon 11]

If they've got some magic battery saving tech then they could take over the world simply by selling it and becoming the richest organisation in the world.

 

Admittedly the screen remains off presumably, but running the microphone and maintaining data connectivity WILL run down the battery, it's impossible to not do so.

 

I'm guessing that GCHQ have managed to invent an off switch to stop them accessing the phone when they want to, for whatever reason that may be, a waning battery being one of them.