The question, is your cell phone spying on you dates back quite a few years. Many have likened it to “you better put on your tinfoil hat”, but now there is more than enough evidence to prove that governments and corporations have been doing it for a long time.
infowars.com reported in early 2011 that:
“Your cellphone has been tracking you for nearly a decade”
“The controversy generated as a result of computer researchers discovering a hidden file that allows Apple to track the location of iPhone and iPad users has been treated as a shocking revelation by the media, and yet since October 2001, the FCC has mandated that all wireless carriers track the location of their users down to within 50 feet.
“Stunned iPhone and iPad owners have only just found out that all of their movements are tracked and stored in a hidden iOS file which gets synced to their PC every time they connect the phone,” reports Gadgets and Gizmos. “The name of the file is Consolidated.db and it uses the Apple devices’ GPS function to record your location and the time you were there.”
The secret file was found by computer experts and made public at the recent Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.”
Now fast forward to August 29 2012 and a program called FinFisher (a mobile spy program) has been found on cell phone networks around the globe.
According to bloomberg.com
“FinFisher spyware made by U.K.-based Gamma Group can take control of a range of mobile devices, including Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM)’s BlackBerry, an analysis of presumed samples of the software shows.
The program can secretly turn on a device’s microphone, track its location and monitor e-mails, text messages and voice calls, according to the findings, being published today by the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs’ Citizen Lab. Researchers used newly discovered malicious software samples to further pull back the curtain on the elusive cyber weapon.
The hunt for clues to the software’s deployment has gained speed since July, when research based on e-mails obtained by Bloomberg News identified what looked like a FinFisher product that infects personal computers. In that case, the malware targeted activists from the Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain.
The latest analysis, led by security researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire, may demonstrate how such spyware can reach a broader range of devices to follow their owners’ every move.
“People are walking around with tools for surveillance in their pockets,” says John Scott-Railton, a doctoral student at the University of California Los Angeles’ Luskin School of Public Affairs who assisted with the research. “These are the tools that can be used to turn on your microphone and turn your phone into a tracking device.”
Global Reach
The new study also sheds light on FinFisher’s global reach, bolstering separate findings by researchers who said on Aug. 8 that computers in at least 10 countries on five continents show signs of being command servers to which computers infected by FinFisher send their pilfered data. That study was led by Guarnieri of Rapid7. ”
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thestar.com has reported even more of the reality that we face.
“Ron Deibert, director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab, said surveillance malware is being sold by a number of private companies profiting from an escalating global cyber spying arms race.
Deibert charged that the industry lacks regulation and transparency and has not fully acknowledged responsibility for the consequences of its products falling into the wrong hands, or being used by governments to suppress dissidence.”
There are command servers for this software in 10 countries that cover 5 continents, and private firms are selling this software it what is being called a global cyber spying arms race.
This statements and the facts that we now have in the public domain, eliminate any doubt. Our governments are spying on us through our cell phones. Listening in to conversations, reading text messages, etc. And from what I can tell. It is all being done without any judicial oversight.”
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This becomes even more scarier of a thought when tech companies have estimated that land line telephones will become “extinct” within the next 10 years. Giving people no choice but to have a smart phone.
My advice is to get rid of your smart phone and go back to using a land line. Yes it is not as convenient, but we all have to ask ourselves where our priorities are. Do we simply continue on and allow governments to spy on us, or do we we take a stand. Boycotting any product that will aid in our enslavement?
