Article is from 2018. Someone must have pasted the url from hacker news where the same story was dug up recently.
Hundreds of smartphone apps are monitoring users through their microphones
Submitted 19 hours ago by lebkuchen@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
solrize@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
nalinna@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Is that to say that it’s no longer valid? Or just that it’s old news? The list of apps associated with the software is still pretty extensive; Google Assistant even showed up.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
Well these days Android asks for more permissions so I guess it would prevent it in many cases by preventing access to the microphone for apps where you don’t want it…
thangcuoi@lemm.ee 16 hours ago
7 years is a long time in tech.
Google Assistant is supposed to listen for the “Hey Google” trigger word. How else do you expect to use your device hand-free.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Old news. It was old news in 2018
Psythik@lemm.ee 5 hours ago
Use NextDNS with strong filters and the DDG app with App Tracking Protection turned on. Stops the vast majority of privacy-invading shit from getting to 3rd parties.
masterofn001@lemmy.ca 1 hour ago
I use shizuku for hidden api/shell access…the devs of that have an app called appops which, you guessed it, allow you to change any appops permission for any app. Allows denying/ignoring clipboard access, device identifiers, location, microphone, etc.
::: spolier Appops screenshots
Image :::
Psythik@lemm.ee 1 hour ago
App Ops still works? I haven’t used it in over a decade.
viking@infosec.pub 6 hours ago
And people wonder why I keep rooting my Android phones.
Without advanced permission denial and file access restrictions, phones will spy on anything and anyone.
Auli@lemmy.ca 19 hours ago
Wasn’t there just a storey a couple days ago that apps where not doing this but taking screenshots and videos on the screen and sending that.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
i used to think this as well (i have never used any facebook apps), but last night something happened that made me question it.
My wife and i were going through a chipotle that was right next to a Popeye’s. As we were waiting i looked over to popeyes and saw some posters for their new pickle chicken stuff and asked my wife “the fuck is a pickle ‘glaze’?”
literally a few seconds later she opens instagram on her phone and is shown a video of a person making pickle brined chicken.
yes yes it could be a coincidence, but i am a lot less certain of that now.
slumberlust@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The way I’ve heard it is that it’s not just coincidence nor microphone scanning, but just the effectiveness of targeted ads in general. You could be within wifi range of other users who are searching for pickle stuff or you yourselves have a history of pickle purchases, etc. This stuff is scary specific already.
0x0@infosec.pub 9 hours ago
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-21083
I guarantee you that the green dot means diddly squat.
chaospatterns@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Past vulnerabilities doesn’t mean there is active mpdern vulnerabilities especially ones in widely tested operating systems that’s exploited by as many apps as people claim are listening when security researchers also regularly reverse engineer and analyze the source code of popular apps to figure out what they’re doing.
Its one thing to claim there’s some a system level bypass for the icon that the NSA uses to spy on its enemies, it’s another thing to claim that it’s being exploited on a wide scale by a tech company.
AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 17 hours ago
I know I’m usually on the more paranoid side, but I’ve always assumed everything I do on a smartphone is potentially being monitored via camera or mics.
If the apps are just taking screenshots, or recording a few seconds of data via mic, it would be almost guaranteed that certain corrupt (and also paranoid) governments that are dismissive of privacy rights could force or bribe those apps to allow them to also access screens, mics, and cameras anyway, right?
I’m in the U.S., and especially with how glitchy my phone has suddenly become over the last few months, I’m just at the point where I just assume that’s what’s going on.
I had the same android for like 4 years without many issues, then suddenly around February it just became almost impossible to use. Weird glitchy things with the size of the tool bar at the bottom of my screen and the popup keyboard. Redirect notifications all the time for certain websites, and my VPN connection is just constantly interrupted and having to be reset.
I finally was like fuck it, this is an old phone so maybe that’s it. Brand new phone, but most of the same issues.
I use signal instead of text most of the time, and switched a lot of things to proton mail, but if someone is potentially recording your screen, does it really matter if what you’re doing is encrypted?
thangcuoi@lemm.ee 16 hours ago
Which VPN provider are you using? How do you know they are not the one monitoring your phone?
Did you obtained your phone from a trusted source, such as an official seller. Some phones purchased from overseas might have “International ROM” installed by the seller, which compromises the integrity of the device.
Consider having a trusted tech friend look over your phone to see if the device has malware installed.
Korne127@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
But… they can’t access the microphone without the user explicitly allowing
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Only on iOS
pHr34kY@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I can be absolutely certain no apps can access my mic in the background. Even when in the foreground, there is a hot-mic indicator.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
Not only on iOS. I use Android and my microphone is always off unless I allow a specific app to use it, and even then, I have the option of only allowing it for that one time.
Mic and camera are always off.
stebator@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Because it is software-based access control, it is impossible to guarantee that access really has been disabled. Thanks to Apple’s design, we now live in a world where users are not supposed to detach batteries or physically turn off microphones and cameras; it’s all software-controlled. The problem is that software can be hacked and have backdoors. Also, thanks to Apple’s smart design, users can no longer upgrade the memory sticks on their Mac Minis and MacBooks. Why do I say it is all Apple’s fault? Unfortunately, other manufacturers copy these design ideas…
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
me to my phone right now
Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I keep my phone in a chip bag and only pull it out to LARP the preparation for the assassination Franz Ferdinand in general terms without naming actual places or names.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
That’s a good way to always keep chips on hand.
Ileftreddit@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Instagram at least listens thru your mic, for sure. At least on my wife’s phone, she gets targeted ads based on conversations we have in the car with no music playing
altphoto@lemmy.today 6 hours ago
How can they tell I’m popping?.. Oh…what if I stopped flushing? So is that why some people don’t flush? They’re trying to be stealthy!
WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 44 minutes ago
I used to work for a mobile advertiser, and we installed hella bloatware on phones.
This idea was floated a couple times but was deemed not very effective cause you’d have to store and process hours and hours of audio data that didn’t tell us much more than just having a week or so of GPS data, your Facebook profile, and your phone IMEI.
It’s pretty easy to see if you’re near a Popeyes and what other IMEIs are connecting to the same tower, extrapolate that to you being near your wife and you and your wife thinking about shit on the Popeyes menu.
Boom targeted ad/video for fried chicken.
The rest is general tech paranoia leading to Apophenia.
There’s no microphones or cameras, it’s just the already gigantic mountain of data anyone who uses a smartphone is constantly broadcasting getting ground through the big data machine that has been the pillar of all tech since the last recession.
Ulrich@feddit.org 24 minutes ago
I mean that could be solved as simply as a local transcription service…
WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 19 minutes ago
And do what? Sentiment analysis on the conversation you were having?
Remember semantically aware models are still fairly new and even they lack the context for a particular field if text. That’s something even the new fancy LLMs struggle with.
Unnecessary when there’s way better targeted models trained on years of data that people willingly send as part of everyday smartphone use.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 minutes ago
But wouldnt it be a moot point if I restrict access to GPS for all apps?
How much of that data is from Google/Apple (e.g. Google Maps).
WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 24 minutes ago
If you use android google grabs your GPS data regardless, you have to root and disable it.
Apple does the same thing but they didn’t have their pants occupied by third-party network’s fingers like google did until the pixel came out.
Google maps is basically a beacon for AdMob to target you nearly perfectly.
Also using “fine location” in any app grabs the nearby wifi list and sends it to Google/apple if it’s not cached.
Also most ad providers these days have made deals with major networks that let them tell what tower your IMEI pinged off of.
It’s why google tried to push android/ad IDs, way less info for the networks to advertise over, and it also put the tracking in their hands instead.