Is Your Smartphone Listening?

[texastoast]

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/smartphone-apps-they-may-be-listening/5378?tag=nl.e101


Full article at link above. Just a snippet below.

Surprise, surprise
Mr. Laporte and the panel of guests were discussing smartphone apps and why the apps were turning the microphone on. That certainly grabbed my attention. Especially, Mr. Laporte asking:

“Does it scare anybody we’ve learned that this program (referring to Color) turned on the microphone and was listening? Now, they’re not using it in any nefarious way.


But they didn’t have to tell us. They just did it. Doesn’t it mean that there may be many other apps that are doing the same thing? Doesn’t that bother anybody?”

I’ll get to this later. First, I want you to read what panel member, Robert Scoble points out:

“By the way it’s not the only app (Color) that uses the microphone. Shopkick uses the microphone to know when you entered the store. You turned on Shopkick and it’s actually listening for an inaudible signal.


So they have a speaker in front of Macy’s that when you take your iPhone inside Macy’s, inside the front door, it senses the audio signal and gives you points for entering the store.”

[MadHound]

1. Ongoing evolution of the invasive state,

And sadly people are buying their own chains.

Regular cell phones basically act as people trackers, and their mics can be turned on remotely. Same thing with Onstar. Other onboard computers record exactly what was going on with your car, where you are going, when you turned, braked, etc. Heck, even those discount cards that so many stores have are nothing but data collection devices.

The brave new world, where people purchase the means to strip privacy right out of their lives.

[bobbolink]

2. When people stop taking their phones into public restrooms and talking to friends while they pee,

that is when I will think that maybe they might care about being heard by companies.

[Skidmore]

3. I'm never ever going to own one of those things.