Facebook’s new mobile spy app which listens to a user’s background noise by utilizing the device’s microphone is merely another backdoor via which the NSA and other government agencies will be able to spy on conversations in real time, a technique that we warned about eight years ago.
“Each time I think they’ve become as creepy as possible, somehow they find a way to be even creepier than that,” joked comedian Jimmy Kimmel in response to the announcement, before a skit about how Facebook would soon automatically post your thoughts as a status update.
“Facebook is to release a new feature on its mobile app that “listens” to your music and TV shows,” reports BBC News. “The feature, which will be available in a few weeks’ time, uses the microphones inside users’ smartphones to detect nearby music or TV shows.”
Although Facebook claims the app cannot record conversations, the user agreement for Facebook’s messenger service includes a term that necessitates users to agree to allow their audio to be recorded without permission. Given that microphones on cellphones exist for the sole reason of sending audio of speech, Facebook’s claim that its new app cannot also do so is dubious to say the least.
Such technology was already being mooted eight years ago, when we published an article entitled,Government, Industry To Use Computer Microphones To Spy On 150 Million Americans, in which we explained how, “Private industry and eventually government is planning to use microphones in the computers of an estimated 150 million-plus Internet active Americans to spy on their lifestyle choices and build psychological profiles which will be used for surveillance and minority report style invasive advertising and data mining.”
Given new reports based on the latest Edward Snowden documents which show that the NSA is recording nearly every phone call in entire countries, to think that the federal agency isn’t already utilizing or at least planning to use open microphones on cellphones to spy on Americans would be incredibly naive.
Back in March it was revealed that the NSA is masquerading as Facebook in order to infect millions of computers around the world with malware as part of its mass surveillance program.
“We are sure this will not be abused or hacked by the NSA… and we are sure there will be plenty of small digital print that users will understand… One wonders though, is there any way for non-Facebook users to know that they are being eavesdropped upon?” asks Zero Hedge.
The answer is that every virtually single user of smartphones has given their permission to have their conversations listened to via the device’s microphone. As we have previously highlighted, terms of agreement for both Android and iPhone apps now require users to agree to allow their microphone to be activated at any time without confirmation before they can download the app.
Earlier this year we also reported on how a computer programmer discovered that Google’s Chrome browser had the ability to record conversations without the user’s knowledge.
Credit to Info wars
No comments:
Post a Comment