Your cell phone could be spying on you - Indianapolis WTHR investigates

[DemReadingDU]

Updated: June 29, 2009 10:58 AM
Bob Segall/13 Investigates WTHR.com Indianapolis, Ind.

Imagine someone watching your every move, hearing everything you say and knowing where you are at every moment. If you have a cell phone, it could happen to you. 13 Investigates explains how your cell phone can be secretly hijacked and used against you - and how to protect yourself.

After four months of harassing phone calls, Courtney Kuykendall was afraid to answer her cell phone.

The Tacoma, Washington, teenager was receiving graphic, violent threats at all hours.

And when she and her family changed their cell phone numbers and got new phones, the calls continued.

Using deep scratchy voices, anonymous stalkers literally took control of the Kuykendall's cell phones, repeatedly threatened Courtney with murder and rape, and began following the family's every move.

"They're listening to us and recording us," Courtney's mother, Heather Kuykendall, told NBC's Today Show. "We know that because they will record us and play it back as a voicemail."
How is something like this possible?

Click to read remaining text, also video at link located in top right corner (appx 5 minutes)
http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=9346833&nav=menu188_12

[BlooInBloo]

1. (shrug) Yes, if someone gets a hold of my cell phone, they can do all sorts of things.

[DemReadingDU]

2. They don't have to get your phone

Some phones come with software installed that enable others to listen to your conversations.

[TheWraith]

3. No they do not.

Don't spread FUD.

[DemReadingDU]

5. FBI Activating Cellphone Mics For 'Roving Wiretaps'

FBI Activating Cellphone Mics For 'Roving Wiretaps'
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/2/144114/510


CNET: FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

more...
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html

Well, these articles aren't current, so maybe the FBI isn't doing this any longer.

[TheWraith]

13. Which is completely NOT what you claimed.

The FBI being able to rig a cell phone to activate remotely is a completely different thing than cell phones coming pre-installed with software to let just anybody use them as a bug.

[DemReadingDU]

17. WSJ: Vodafone, Ericsson Get Hung Up In Greece's Phone-Tap Scandal

Behind the bugging operation were two pieces of sophisticated software, according to Ericsson. One was Ericsson's own, some basic elements of which came as a preinstalled feature of the network equipment. When enabled, the feature can be used for lawful interception by government authorities, which has become increasingly common since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The second element was the rogue software that the eavesdroppers implanted in parts of Vodafone's network to achieve two things: activate the Ericsson-made interception feature and at the same time hide all traces that the feature was in use.
more...
http://www.snapshield.com/www_problems/greece%5Cwsj_com-vodafone%20ericsson%20get%20hung%20up%20in%20greeces%20phone-tap%20scandal.htm


I assumed the preinstalled feature was on the phones, i.e., network equipment?

[BlooInBloo]

4. Name one.

[DemReadingDU]

6. I replied in #5, n/t

[BlooInBloo]

8. Requires somebody get their hands on the phone to download software. Next?

[DemReadingDU]

10. Software can be downloaded remotely

"If ordered to do so, mobile telephone operators can also tap any calls, but more significantly they can also remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call, giving security services the perfect bugging device."
more...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4239e29e-02f2-11da-84e5-00000e2511c8.html?nclick_check=1

[BlooInBloo]

11. And that's no different that wired phones. If the government tells them to...

phone companies can tap any wired phone. That danger is not new.

What would be new is if ANYBODY could do it. Which they can't, unless they get a hold of the phone itself. But if they do that, you've likely got bigger problems.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. Isn't that called an iPhone?

My Windows phone doesn't keep secrets from me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Then my cell phone clearly doesn't have enough to do

:)

[pipi_k]

16. I keep mine busy dusting and vacuuming

I also threaten it with physical violence occasionally.

So far it's been too busy and too scared to even give me a dirty look.


:7

[FarCenter]

12. See link for a nice review of popular cell phone spyware packages

http://www.squidoo.com/spyphone_flexispy

[K Gardner]

14. OK. I thought I was paranoid and hadn't mentioned this here before now, but here's what my cell

phone did twice and it was creepy. It's probably some glitch in the phone and nothing more, but your cell phone DOES INDEED work as a microphone.

I'm sitting at home one day and get a call from my cousin on my cell. I pick it up, say "HI" several times and no one responds. I can hear her talking, so I know it's her. I listen for a minute and realize that she is "in session" with one of her patients.. she's a therapist. I thought maybe it was a 911 call, like she needed help and hit a number, but she's not in trouble, so I hang up. I call her later on in the night and she never dialed my number, nor had I called hers recently. She said her cell was sitting on her desk during her client hours and she had not touched it.

Two weeks later, same thing happens, but it's my babysitter calling. I pick up the phone and say "HI", once again no one is there but I can hear him talking to his friends, obviously unaware that his phone had "called me". I mention this to him a few days later, we look on his phone, and there is no record of his phone having dialed mine at the time of the incident.

This is probably not related.. but its creepy all the same. I heard two people's private conversations.. they never dialed me and I never dialed them.. but their cell worked as a microphone without their knowledge.

[backscatter712]

15. Sounds like butt-dialing...

You know, when your phone is in your pocket, and something bumps the buttons and causes the phone to make a call. It happens more easily than you might think - with a lot of phones, you just hit one of the side convenience buttons, and it activates voice-recognition, and it starts listening for something that resembles the sound of "Call Bob", which may very well be some other babble in the room, and when it hears something that it confuses with the name of someone in your phone's contact list, it'll make the call.

Well, that's why I personally prefer flip phones - it reduces the incidents of butt-dialing, and I'm always too lazy to learn the keypad-lock features of candy-bar phones.

[BlooInBloo]

18. I've had it happen with the gf's phone in here purse before.