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What happens when your phone is spying on you

today.ucsd.edu

21–30 of 169 posts

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#21

Something happened to me the other day, I started drafting a text using the regular text messaging app on my android phone, I was sending it to a friend, but I got distracted by a call and never sent the text. Later I went to finish it and send it but he had gone in and put some smart-alec comment in the text of the message I was drafting. I was shocked. He refuses to tell me how he did it. I went through all the set…

[deleted]

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#22

Something happened to me the other day, I started drafting a text using the regular text messaging app on my android phone, I was sending it to a friend, but I got distracted by a call and never sent the text. Later I went to finish it and send it but he had gone in and put some smart-alec comment in the text of the message I was drafting. I was shocked. He refuses to tell me how he did it. I went through all the set…

Were the two of you ever in physical proximity?

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#23
post #17

>They collect a range of sensitive information such as location, texts and calls, as well as audio and video. This sentence ruins the credibility of the article because Android doesn't let you do this. The camera, microphone, can only be used when an app is in the foreground. For location data being tracked in the background it will have a persistent notification telling the user that an app has your location. For an…

Doesn't overlay do the same?

Do you mean having a persistent notification? Yes, it does.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#24

Something happened to me the other day, I started drafting a text using the regular text messaging app on my android phone, I was sending it to a friend, but I got distracted by a call and never sent the text. Later I went to finish it and send it but he had gone in and put some smart-alec comment in the text of the message I was drafting. I was shocked. He refuses to tell me how he did it. I went through all the set…

Option 1:

Sounds to me like physical access is most likely. Your friend, or someone who knows them saw the message on your phone because you left it unlocked somewhere, and added it that way.

Option 2:

Autocomplete randomly added some weird stuff to your message without you noticing it, and your friend took credit for it, because that's the kind of friend they are.

Option 3:

Your draft got synced to some other phone or computer that you were logged in to that your friend had access to. Maybe you logged in on a device that they own or something, or maybe you aren't using any sort of MFA and they just guessed your password.

Option 4:

Carbon monoxide poisoning : https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/ma_post...

If you're interested in narrowing things down a bit, you could give more information about exactly which model of phone you have, what level of jailbreak that it's in, exactly which Android flavor you're running, the patch level of the OS, and exactly which text messaging app you're using (different carriers and manufacturers ship different default SMS apps). Also relevant would be the message you were trying to send, and exactly what got injected.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#25

Something happened to me the other day, I started drafting a text using the regular text messaging app on my android phone, I was sending it to a friend, but I got distracted by a call and never sent the text. Later I went to finish it and send it but he had gone in and put some smart-alec comment in the text of the message I was drafting. I was shocked. He refuses to tell me how he did it. I went through all the set…

First: What is smart-Alec? Second: Does not sound like a friend to me.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#26
post #14
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once an iPhone is jailbroken, yes — anything goes. The paper describes an Android attack that just requires an app install that "[does] not require specialized technical know-how to deploy or operate".

or more generally when you're going up against nation-state level actors, such as in your link. In that case yeah all bets are off, NSA and Mossad (and places commercializing technology developed for them) are gonna get in your phone if they want to. But this is still qualitatively different from android where the threat model is "connect USB cable and run ADB command", if even that much.

At the end of the day, tech-illiterate people are gonna get spyware onto their Android phones much more easily. If a website tells them to download some app directly and ignore any warnings about it being untrusted, they'll do it.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#27

Something happened to me the other day, I started drafting a text using the regular text messaging app on my android phone, I was sending it to a friend, but I got distracted by a call and never sent the text. Later I went to finish it and send it but he had gone in and put some smart-alec comment in the text of the message I was drafting. I was shocked. He refuses to tell me how he did it. I went through all the set…

I would just avoid charging your phone at your friend's place or clicking his links.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#28
I found this article very shallow. It covers only spyware that are installed when a device is physically compromised.

I was hoping it would cover spy/malware that install remotely through many more infection vectors like clicking text messages. I guess NSO/Pegasus malware has this capability.

I barely use any apps and would gladly settle for a flip phone... I value privacy more than the ability to order food through my phone.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#29
post #18

>They collect a range of sensitive information such as location, texts and calls, as well as audio and video. This sentence ruins the credibility of the article because Android doesn't let you do this. The camera, microphone, can only be used when an app is in the foreground. For location data being tracked in the background it will have a persistent notification telling the user that an app has your location. For an…

> The camera, microphone, can only be used when an app is in the foreground. This is not true. This may be partially true on the latest Android, but you can still set permissions to use e.g. GPS all the time, for things like weather or GPX recording apps. But it's also important to remember that the vast majority (easily 90%) of devices out there are running EoL'd Android versions, nevermind Android 12 and 13.

>you can still set permissions to use e.g. GPS all the time

It requires you to manually go into the settings to grant this permission. And as I mentioned it has a persistent notification. This is a part of Android 11.

>But it's also important to remember that the vast majority (easily 90%) of devices out there are running EoL'd Android versions

This is unfortunate. If want to have a secure device it's important to be using one which is still supported and is getting security updates. Else if a vulnerability exists an attacker can install spyware by using the vulnerability despite Android's security model.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#30
post #25

Something happened to me the other day, I started drafting a text using the regular text messaging app on my android phone, I was sending it to a friend, but I got distracted by a call and never sent the text. Later I went to finish it and send it but he had gone in and put some smart-alec comment in the text of the message I was drafting. I was shocked. He refuses to tell me how he did it. I went through all the set…

First: What is smart-Alec? Second: Does not sound like a friend to me.

smart-alec is a smart ass, I was trying to keep it clean,.

agree, he is being a dick.

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