Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “5 TERRIFYING Things your Smartphone can do!”.
So, to get one thing out the way, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I do think that when a lot of people buy a smartphone, they have no idea what they could be getting themselves into now, a quick warning watching this video will probably alarm you, but As long as you stay safe, you be careful. You install safe applications from trusted developers. There won’t be a problem anyways, let’s get right into it. So the first thing your smartphone is listening. Now there have been a lot of applications in the past on the Google Play Store on the Apple App Store which have actually been removed in the past, for using your conversations for malicious purposes and even applications as established as Facebook have been accused of this. So there was a researcher who was going through the code of the mobile app and he claimed that Facebook was using a phone to listen to your conversations throughout your day and to use that to better tailor ads to you now in the case of Facebook. This was never proved, but the scary thing here is that in the other cases, people were doing it voluntarily without really realizing it it’s when they download applications.
They are taking a little box which says I give this out permission to use my microphone and while, if the developers may justify that permission by saying oh, we need access to the microphone. So you can use our app to send voice messages which could be true. What you’re actually giving them is the ability to use your microphone anytime whenever they want to now. This one is very relevant. There was a bit of a scandal recently in London, but people with contactless cards realise that thieves were stealing their money. The only thing you need is an Android device with NFC compatibility which to most of them, have now and certain applications, and you can actually swipe your phone against a con telus card and more or less steal that person’s money.
It works through the same technology as your Android pay, or your Apple pay, but unfortunately, that potentially good technology is being used for very bad purposes. Then we’ve got fake charging stations and I’d say I find this one really interesting in particular, because it’s so discreet and normally thinks about it. So there have been cases in the past where a person has gone on to a public charging station plug the phone into the socket and not traced back where the cable is coming from. If they had done, they’ve realize that their phone is not actually being plugged into a wall socket, but actually a powerful computer that is stealing their information. When you connect your phone via a hard wired connection to a computer which has the right software installed on it, you’re, essentially giving access to anything. And, of course the problem gets worse if you’re actually using the phone, whilst it’s being charged at this supposed charging station.
Because what you’ve done is you’ve unlocked it for them, and I find this one truly terrifying. So back in 2011, there was a study on the iPhone and what it was capable of and the researchers who were conducting the project realized the iPhone knew what you typed, and not just what you typed on your smartphone. So when a person goes into work, they might be typing on the actual physical keyboard here, whilst the iPhone is sitting next to them on the desk, and what these researchers realized was that the accelerometers within the iPhone was so precise and so powerful that it could Detect the difference between a keystroke here and a keystroke here, and what that essentially means is that, with an 80 percent level of accuracy, it could know, even when it’s sitting on your desk over here. What you are typing on your physical keyboard here and if you typed in a password enough times, because it can guess 80 % of the letters it would be able to piece together what those two things you typed in had in common and be able to fill In the gaps, so something which is again very relevant in today’s day and age are the front cameras now, we’ve seen this happen with laptops half the people.
I see now walk around with tape covering the front of it, but it’s actually more of a problem on your smart phone. Your smartphone isn’t even more connected device than your laptop and they have been cases in the past where certain bits of malware have been developed to actually take advantage of that. So you may have heard of something called place. Raider. It was a piece of software developed for military purposes and it can inhabit your phone and constantly use your camera without you ever knowing within a few days of it being installed.
It would probably know where you lived, and also what the interior of your home looked like any Android device running, Android, 2.3 or above which, in today’s day and age is an ancient piece of software was completely vulnerable. Luckily, for Apple users, the iPhone never seemed to be infected by this. I think because it’s software was little bit more closed in a little bit more restricted.
The developers of it found it a bit harder to penetrate, but the really scary thing with this one is that people would have no idea. They would have no idea that they’re being watched, they’re being monitored and they’re being tracked. So the next one is a bit less about what your smartphone can do, but more about what can happen to your smartphone.
So there was a pretty serious case a few years ago, where a group of hackers managed to acquire these pseudo cell phone towers. So these were essentially rather expensive boxes that transmitted more or less the same signal as burnt our so when in range smartphones would automatically connect to these towers and by hacking a phone through this method, the hackers could completely bypass the security software, an entire operating system And so because people’s calls people’s SMS messages are sent through these cell phone towers by operating a fake one. These hackers were managed to retrieve all of that information so guys.
I really hope you enjoyed the video it wasn’t made to scare anyone. I just thought it was kind of interesting and I also think it’s a good idea to have some background knowledge of how to be more careful. But that being said, I’m Steve he’s the boss and I’m saying .