We often feel that our smartphones are spying on us, listening to what we say and maybe seeing what we do, is that possible?
Before answering this question, we would like to inform you that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, while posting a picture on his social network page, users discovered that he was placing a tape on both the camera and the microphone of his laptop, and former FBI director James Comey admitted that he covers The camera of his mobile device, describing it as a security measure that must be done, and there are many people who cover the cameras of their devices for no apparent reason, has everyone become feeling paranoid or paranoid due to privacy, and are governments really spying on ordinary people through devices and smart phones?
The answer lies in the information disclosed by Edward Snowden, a former employee of the CIA during a recent interview with him, where he indicated that governments have begun to move to a new approach to surveillance and espionage through the use of people's smartphones because of the proliferation of these devices and phones in a large way, and everyone has become alike. Or a young person who has a smart phone, and according to Snowden, smartphones have become an important and vital means for governments and even technology companies and other sovereign bodies to intrude on you and monitor everything you do, but how does this happen?
Who is Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden, the current refugee in Russia (since 2013) and a former employee of the US National Security Agency, became the most famous spy in recent years after he leaked sensitive and dangerous details and classified documents about what the US government was doing to spy not only on Americans but on anyone from anywhere in the world while he was on A list of the most wanted names for arrest by the US government.
How do smartphones spy on us?
Snowden said that the process of espionage and surveillance has changed since 2013 after the number of smart phone users increased and every person in the world had a smartphone in his pocket, and according to the latest report, there are 5.11 billion smartphone users in the world currently out of a total of 7.7 billion people living on this planet .
Snowden added that mobile and telecommunications companies have become able to track smartphones and even identify their users through the SIM card and the unique identification numbers of those phones such as IMEI (a special and non-repeated code given to each phone) and IMSI (15 numbers and several codes indicating the country. Which the phone works in, the name of the service provider and a number assigned to the phone user).
Thus, when your smartphone is switched on, the service provider records your movement and determines your location accurately through the cell towers, where the communication companies work to analyze the distance between the two signal towers that your phone approached and thus these companies get a complete record of your daily movements and Snowden believes that the communication companies in the past did not She did not care about that information and considered it unimportant, but now she keeps it and stores it as vital and valuable information.
Snowden adds that all that data stored about you is not a bad part of a larger issue, which is a mass surveillance of all smartphone users where governments use this important information to monitor your movements and spy on what you do even if you do not do anything wrong, and this means that every person in the world has it. A smartphone is part of the mass surveillance process that governments and technology companies use to intrude ordinary users.
What else?
There is another problem revealed by Snowden, which is that the average user does not know what his smartphone is doing and what it is connected to, and this matter seems very dangerous, and he explained that Google and Apple can help (but they do not) in protecting users' privacy if they want to do so by providing more Restrictions around the site, ads, applications and other processes that occur in the background as well as bringing many control features that allow the user to know everything that is happening around him and prevent any attempt to monitor him and know what he is doing.
Is turning off the phone the solution?
Snowden says that even trying to turn off your smartphone does not mean that you are unattended or that you cannot be spied on, because your closed phone works in some way and can be reached, but how will you know that your modern and closed smartphone is already closed and you cannot be spied on, with the development of these cell phones it has become possible Access to the phone's camera and activate it remotely, along with the microphone, as well as the applications that have permissions that make them able to eavesdrop and know everything around you, and all this is poured into the quiver of agencies and governments that want to spy on you.
So what is the solution
The answer lies in the old technology and the return of outdated phones that are still used by drug dealers and owners of suspicious operations, and even Snowden said that CIA agents still depend on those old phones such as Nokia, LG, Blackberry and other phones that have disappeared, but why The solution is in old, not modern, phones.
Because old phones can be described as stupid phones and not like the current smartphones, as no person or entity can activate their camera remotely, and it can also be stopped from working by taking out the removable battery, unlike most modern phones that include a non-removable battery.
Also, stupid phones provide features and capabilities that you will not find in smart phones, such as the ability to turn off GPS and even connect to the mobile network. Technology companies such as Google and Apple can collect your data and share it with government agencies with ease, but with old stupid phones, your data cannot be collected because the technology you use These types of phones are unable to do so because they are not at the current level of development, along with the presence of complex encryption services, and that is why we hear a lot about hacking and piracy of Android phones even iPhones, despite their strength, they were pirated by a third party, but old phones are difficult to penetrate because they are phones Stupid not dependent on modern technology.
current situation
Over the past few years, many scandals have emerged about the violation of user privacy by giant technology companies, and the current measures are not sufficient to protect the average user, so from my point of view, I think the best way to preserve your privacy is to keep your digital fingerprint at a minimum.
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