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Are cell phones really that insecure.....??

3K views 43 replies 26 participants last post by  Eddie_T 
#1 ·
Are cell phones insecure...??? I have never owned a cell phone. Are they really only secure if the battery is removed....??? Can they be turned on remotely.....?? Can they be used as a listening devise to covertly overhear any sounds.......??? Can they really be used as a locator beacon....???

Is this valid for all cell phones or just some brands and models....???
 
#2 ·
Are cell phones insecure...???
Very insecure.

I have never owned a cell phone.
Very smart.

Are they really only secure if the battery is removed....???
Usually yes, but not always. Some have responder circuitry that can be pinged and the device located even without a battery. Only in a true Faraday cage are they secure.

Can they be turned on remotely.....??
Some can. Not all. Hard to find out which is which.

Can they be used as a listening devise to covertly overhear any sounds.......???
Again, some can. Not all. Also hard to find out which is which.

Can they really be used as a locator beacon....???
Almost all smart phones can. Probably a couple of exceptions.

Is this valid for all cell phones or just some brands and models....???
Just some. And primarily the smart phone types. Some of the earlier cellular phones had some vulnerabilities, but almost all smart phones have several.

Some can be mitigated by how you use it. And one has to be very careful of what apps are on the phone already, and what you download and install. Some of the built in ones monitor and transmit pretty much every use, and many of the apps available have similar functions in them. Take a flashlight app, for instance. If it is larger than a few kilobytes or needs several permissions to work, it is much more than a flashlight. It is doing a whole bunch of other stuff.
I have and use a smartphone (Galaxy S6), and when I can get the screen fixed on my old S4, it will be in my prep gear. Also have a really old S. Without the SIM cards, they cannot be used as phones, but can still do wifi connections, and most importantly, will run lots of useful prepper apps off-line.

Just my opinion.
 
#3 ·
Thanks.........I was reading a novel (Enemies Foreign and Domestic) and it was very eye-opening what it alleged that the FBI and NSA and CIA and BATF&E could do with other peoples cell phones. (Great novel by the way)

Do most people know that some of those cell phones can do that stuff.....??? I keep thinking about a cell phone turned "OFF" and on the night stand next to the bed. If they can turn it on and overhear and record what happens in bed.....??? Or any other private exchange......legal or illegal, moral or not.
 
#4 ·
They probably could if they wanted.

I remember reading about infinity transmitters in "Strangers" and I have never trusted a telephone since.

You also need to be careful what photos you're taking, as that can be accessed even by an app.
 
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#40 ·
Curious about "Strangers" Movie? Book?

Infinity transmitters require physical access to the telephone instrument. The CIA worked out a better technique of pumping a radio frequency carrier into a standard phone and it would turn the microphone into a miniature AM transmitter.
 
#5 ·
One key aspect of cellular communications is that they do not have the same legal limitations on collection as a land line.

With a land line the user has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" and that line cannot be tapped or monitored without a court order. Since the user of wireless technology launches their communication into the air, there is no "reasonable expectation of privacy" and it can be collected by the government, industry, or whoever feels like it without any judicial review.
 
#8 ·
Cell phones really are that insecure.
 
#13 ·
Interesting that in this thread people seem to be interested in the tracking. I would have expected people to be shocked that it can be turned on remotely. How hard is it to quickly remove the battery and replace the battery. It seemed the only way to keep them from turning it on and either tracking or listening is battery removal.
 
#14 ·
I honestly don't understand the great concern. If you ever use google or most any other search engine you leave a trail. It is easy to find trails that lead to places like survivalist boards or any other spot on the net.

These nasty terrorist cant be caught this way (apparently) so I doubt they will be looking for someone googling automatic weapons or bullet proof alloys or any of a thousand things one could search for that might cause questions. We do still live in a pretty free country, not even the judge would want you scrutinizing his google searches
 
#18 ·
6.8, my battery can't be removed. It's hardwired.

Now, I live a pretty boring life but it still creeps me out.
 
#19 ·
Cell phones by themselves are only part of the security risk. Hackers can infect you phone with viral programs that record other accounts you access such as bank accounts, steal passwords and drain your account. You need to use good anti-virus software and every account must have a separate pass word, and also good to have bank accounts with different email addresses than what you use for internet searches, ordering, email, constantly monitor all your accounts, sign up for credit monitoring service, freeze your credit reports, etc, etc. I have been reading up on this stuff and it is scary how many ways you can get hacked and have money or credit, even fake loans and mortgages on your home created without you ever knowing it.
 
#34 ·
No, the problem isn't "hackers", the problem is idiots inputting their information such as bank accounts, passwords, logins in any screen which asks.

Someone who "hacks" my smartphone, will get euhm, some pictures of my friends, none of which are incriminating and most of which are put online somewhere by them.

Maybe they can get my text messages too, basically amounting to: hey, got time tonight, want to have a drink? :p
 
#20 ·
I have an LG flip phone, I've had it for about 4 years, maybe 5, and while mine is a discontinued model they still make a very similar one.

But what gets me is it's 3G. I guess that's for playing games or something, but I can't imagine surfing the web on a screen that is not even 2" square.

There are no apps on it that I know of.

But I still wonder if it is able to be turned on and off remotely. I had that problem with a new HP laptop I bought several months back. It would turn itself on, without any sort of alarm feature or 'wake up' program that we could ever find on it where it would be programmed to turn itself on. If there was such a program in it, we were never able to find it, so I still wonder why it was doing that.

People mock at the idea of their devices being turned on, thinking their lives are too boring for anyone to listen in on, and I'd say the same for myself. My life is very mundane. But in my opinion, that wouldn't preclude a company or agency randomly listening in on people to see what they might turn up, even if it's only information they could use to show you advertisements.
 
#21 ·
As I said I have never had a cell phone, and likely never will. I was sitting in the waiting area of a large dental office, there was about 14 and maybe 16 of us waiting. I was the only one reading a magazine, everyone else was doing something on their cell phone.
 
#29 ·
I know it's not exactly on topic but I really feel sorry for today's kids. We're going to have a bunch of sociopaths out of today's generation. Kids are raised with almost zero attention and affection from their mothers. I see kids with mom in the grocery store and mom shopping with the phone in her hand. I see mom at the doctor's office, kids in tow, phone in hand... All the places where mom had time to talk to her kids before is taken up with phone in hand. Tossing a little cutesy smile at a kid once in a while is not like having mom's undivided attention that my kids had and my grandkids got from their mothers.
 
#22 ·
I definitely relate to that. When I have to go to the dr. or some other situation where I have to sit and wait, I always take a magazine. I'm not about to touch the magazines in a dr office, God only knows what pathogens are on it. I take my own. And I'm also the only one looking at something other than a smart phone.

Magazine, or close my eyes and rest while waiting.
 
#24 ·
I have a smart phone provided by work. Which means it's constantly updated and reviewed by our IT group to meet certain standards.

Still, I limit the apps I put on it, I've gone through it to disable services and built in apps, plus turn off things like locations. I've read up and increased it's security and the security of any app through basic settings. I never take it anywhere I want privacy or use it with the expectation that it will be private.

The phone did completely lock up over Christmas when I was in the lowest level of a mall shopping with my daughter. It's like it couldn't figure out where it was in the world and the software crashed. I rebooted it in the car then it did the same thing at the next mall. I'd never noticed it before, because I haven't been to a mall in a decade.

I may try to put it in a metal ammo can in the basement and see if it goes nuts again. That may be an indication the phone's core software or an installed app doesn't like it when the phone can't be seen.

If it was my private phone, I'd root it and increase the security another level.
 
#25 ·
I use a flip-phone. I do not think that anyone can remotely install any software on it. Though it is digital, so it does have a GPS and 'people' [LEOs?] can access the phone's location.

I have been thinking about getting an Android knockoff. I like some of the apps that I have seen for the Android system.

Whatever you do, I think it is important to go through all of the setup options for any phone. Maybe once a month, just to review and to make sure that only the features you want are enabled.
 
#26 ·
My Samsung Convoy flip phone bit the dust last summer. I got one of the cheapest droids possible, $168. It works well, I don't use many of the apps that I could. I often leave it in the car if I have an appointment or am in the gym.

I sure as hell don't plug in into a PC at work and charge it. That got a couple of people booted at work which I don't fully understand. I use the wifi at work but am careful how I use the phone.

It is probably still an umbilical into letting the IT department see what's on it. But I still thing my GF looks good naked at age 63.
 
#27 ·
I sure as hell don't plug in into a PC at work and charge it. That got a couple of people booted at work which I don't fully understand. I use the wifi at work but am careful how I use the phone.

It is probably still an umbilical into letting the IT department see what's on it.
If your company has a policy about unauthorized storage devices being connected to their computers, the phone would be seen as one and with the correct software logged as a security breach.
 
#31 ·
I worked in the Cellular business from the very first days before the first cellular systems went live in production. In our trade papers and industry presentations was the story of a cellular technician lost in Chicago and they couldn't find him for 2 days until engineers used the sector antenna systems of the cell towers to triangulate his location. No digital, no GPS, just pure analog radio. So tracking locations has been done since before the first production systems were opened for commercial use.
 
#42 ·
I have a Samsung Gusto II flip phone which is 3G CDMA, It's my understanding that CDMA will end (at least with Verizon) at the end of 2020. My plan is $100 per year with more minutes than I use.

I don't know what I will do when CDMA ends but I hope some of the MVNOs such as Straight Talk and Tracfone will come up with a plan for the flip phone crowd. But the flip phones will have to be 4G LTE.
 
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