‘Roving Bugs’: Your Cellphone May Be Spying On You
Did you know that any cellphone microphone can be turned into a bug? Did you know that it can be used to listen to conversations nearby even if the phone is turned off?
The technique is called a “roving bug,” and in the first admitted case of its use by the FBI, the roving bug was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice to tap members of a New York organized crime family who had successfully thwarted conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing or physical wiretapping.
The U.S. Commerce Department’s security office warns that “a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone.” An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can “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.”
James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies says, “They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time. You can do that without having physical access to the phone.”
Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone–all without the owner knowing it happened.
And that fancy GPS system in your car that gives you direction and keeps you from getting lost?
Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors’ OnStar to snoop on passengers’ conversations.
Currently it is only legal for your government to spy on you, but hackers are picking up on these techniques quickly. A report released last year says Spanish authorities detained a man who wrote a Trojan horse that could secretly activate a computer’s video camera and forward him the recordings.
As for your celly? If you’re having a conversation about the latest crop of Afghan poppies or next week’s anti-war protest and you’re worried that someone may be listening in, take the battery out of your phone.
