Sunday Times: Apps spy on phone messages

David Moss · **Joined:** Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:29:05 +0000 **Posts:** 2842

Quote:

Companies are using smartphone apps to extract vast quantities of private information about users’ lives, in some cases reading their text messages and intercepting calls.

Among those that admitted reading text messages this weekend was the internet giant Facebook, which said it was accessing the information as part of a trial to launch its own messaging service ...

One academic said many apps were simply a “front” for the mining of private information, and a smartphone entrepreneur confessed his sole purpose for releasing apps was to “load them with advertisements” ...

Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, a civil liberties organisation, described the apps market as “an unregulated Wild West”.

Emma Draper of the Privacy International campaign group warned: “Your personal information is a precious commodity, and companies will go to great lengths to get their hands on as much of it as possible.”

David Moss · **Joined:** Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:29:05 +0000 **Posts:** 2842

EmmaL wrote:

so, how can i know if spy software is installed in my mobile phone?

Good question.
I don't know the answer.
It's not just your phone. Laptops are affected also, with their handily built-in cameras and microphones. Also cameras. You may have noticed how your photographs these days are stored with the location they were taken in. How did that get there?

MrBester · **Posted:** Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:57:02 +0000

Android apps always list the permissions they want to have. These are listed on the Play Store before you even install it, listed again when you install and are visible in the Settings -> Applications (-> All) -> <app name> page.

Specifically for calls and SMS there are READ_PHONE_STATE, READ_CONTACTS and READ_SMS.

READ_PHONE_STATE is fairly benign as that is used to suspend an app when the phone is in use (making or receiving call) and as such is in most apps.

If an app has a permission you don't want to accept you can either root and install a permissions manager (which might render the app unusable if it is coded to verify before running) or you can not install the app in the first place.

iSpy · **Posted:** Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:00:20 +0000

This reminds me of when Alan 'my products are a bit rough n ready :lol:

Sugar said was the real intent behind the e-mailer (can you still buy them? :lol:

) : "to get an adversing billboard in every front room" and the strange thing is we

are stupid enough to pay for devices which are nothing more than a "front" for dating-mining, marketing and advertising :twisted:

It's like when google develops a new "app", it's really just a data-miner, marketer cum spy cleverly disguised as "app", "browser" or whatever :mrgreen:

Sent from my iphone via gmail

NO2ID

Sunday Times: Apps spy on phone messages

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