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What happens when your phone is spying on you

today.ucsd.edu

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Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#81

Post by tptacek »

charcircuit wrote: post #12

>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…

There's a whole section in the paper (3.3) about how they accomplished this.

For example, with respect to the camera, they documented a "standard" way to abuse Android APIs to do it (create a Preview, which unlocks the camera, but hide it in a 1x1 or transparent element), and two "new" ones --- raw frame access with `SurfaceTexture`, and creating a 1x1 WebView.

When you see articles like these at university sites, they're virtually always announcing a paper that got accepted somewhere, and you need to read the paper and ignore the press release.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#82

Post by 867-5309 »

nichohel wrote: post #73
eternityforest wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most privacy advocates probably do plenty of things I would be perfectly happy to see made illegal, but we don't just ban them because we don't want a complete dictatorship of one segment of the population over everyone else, and because it seems the people realize it would cause problems for some people, and we need to be careful to find suitable replacements before we ban things. A lot of the tech I imagine you are…

What do you mean by "Most privacy advocates probably do plenty of things I would be perfectly happy to see made illegal"? Can you give some examples of what you mean by things you want to see made illegal?

eating meat, burning coal, owning pets, paying taxes, cycling, sunbathing, crochet, wearing crocks with socks, shitposting..

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#83

Post by bartvk »

sizzle wrote: post #5
victor106 wrote: post #3

The title needs to be updated to say “Android”

There are surreptitious ways to achieving covert monitoring on iOS. To say this applies to Android only is simply untrue. You can do things via MDM on iOS for example and install spyware “monitoring” apps/set OS level permissions that are invisible to non tech saavy users. Also if you have access to the device and the iCloud password/device pin (e.g. abusive partner scenario, etc.) then non tech saavy people don’t st…

> You can do things via MDM on iOS for example and install spyware “monitoring” apps

Can you name one?

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#84

Post by the_pwner224 »

zw123456 wrote: post #34
px43 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have a Galaxy S21 5G with Android 13 I also changed my pin because I suspect he saw me entering it, but when this occurred he was at the other end of town so it would have had to have been some sort of remote access. I am thinking maybe phone link, which I had been using with my laptop, I disabled that. It was definitely not autocomplete because he said something that only he would have know regarding the message I…

Wow, that's very interesting. Please post an update once you find out what the attack vector was.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#85

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #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…

Flip phones are available. SBF has been issued with one under his latest conditions of release.

Remember though, privacy comes at a cost. Thousands of parasitic "startups" that live off of VC, produce nothing for sale, have no profits and rely on surveillance to demonstrate speculative "value" might suffer or even "go out of business", "Big Tech" might not rake in billions per quarter for selling ad services, "tech jobs" might be lost. It could be catastrophic. The entire economy could crash. It could put an AI-driven utopian future at risk. All because of the desire to maintain privacy. This is not just another HN comment conatining only FUD or hype-based predictions with zero factual support. "We take privacy seriously." It's threat to what we do. As an "industry" it's vital that we maintain peoples' trust while we surveil them. /s

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#86

Post by zw123456 »

sizzle wrote: post #52
px43 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

love this list, especially Option #4 that is not on everyone's radar but a very real issue clouding people's judgement.

I am pretty sure I would not have written "Hey buy me drinks to see how I did this." even if I was CO intoxicated, that seems pretty unlikely.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#87

Post by zw123456 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #51
zw123456 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he will fess up eventually, but is sort of being a dick about it for sure. I was hoping HN could give me ideas, but now he will probably read this on HN and then really give me a hard time about it.

Instead of freaking out about it, it would be more fun to do a similar joke to him. What's fair is fair.

Yeah, I sure want to, especially on April 1st. Maybe I should do and Ask HN, how do I get back at my dickhead friend on April fools day :)

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#88

Post by enneff »

zw123456 wrote: post #34
px43 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have a Galaxy S21 5G with Android 13 I also changed my pin because I suspect he saw me entering it, but when this occurred he was at the other end of town so it would have had to have been some sort of remote access. I am thinking maybe phone link, which I had been using with my laptop, I disabled that. It was definitely not autocomplete because he said something that only he would have know regarding the message I…

You should not buy him anything. You should cut him out of your life entirely. This is an egregious trust violation. I’d forgive a teenager of such thoughtlessness but if they’re an adult then they’re going to abuse you in other ways. They don’t care about you.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#89

Post by zw123456 »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #84
zw123456 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Galaxy S21 5G with Android 13 I also changed my pin because I suspect he saw me entering it, but when this occurred he was at the other end of town so it would have had to have been some sort of remote access. I am thinking maybe phone link, which I had been using with my laptop, I disabled that. It was definitely not autocomplete because he said something that only he would have know regarding the message I…

Wow, that's very interesting. Please post an update once you find out what the attack vector was.

I will, assuming I buy him enough drinks, I am sure I will wriggle it out of him. That little F---er.

Re: What happens when your phone is spying on you

#90

Post by enneff »

zw123456 wrote: post #35
jabroni_salad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to me this is an unacceptable boundary to cross. I would never be able to trust someone that does that.

Yeah, I sort of feel that way too but maybe also is a good lesson learned.

What’s the lesson here? That software is insecure? Or that you shouldn’t trust your friends? Sad.
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