https://www.wired.com/2016/07/snowden-designs-device-warn-iphones-radio-snitches/
When Edward Snowden met with reporters in a Hong Kong hotel room to
spill the NSA’s secrets, he famously asked them put their phones in the
fridge to block any radio signals that might be used to silently
activate the devices’ microphones or cameras. So it’s fitting that three
years later, he’s returned to that smartphone radio surveillance
problem. Now Snowden’s attempting to build a solution that’s far more
compact than a hotel mini-bar.
On Thursday at the MIT Media Lab, Snowden and well-known
hardware hacker Andrew “Bunnie” Huang plan to present designs for a
case-like device that wires into your iPhone’s guts to monitor the
electrical signals sent to its internal antennas. The aim of that
add-on, Huang and Snowden say, is to offer a constant check on whether
your phone’s radios are transmitting. They say it’s an infinitely more
trustworthy method of knowing your phone’s radios are off than “airplane
mode,” which people have shown can be hacked and spoofed. Snowden and
Huang are hoping to offer strong privacy guarantees to smartphone owners
who need to shield their phones from government-funded adversaries with
advanced hacking and surveillance capabilities—particularly reporters
trying to carry their devices into hostile foreign countries without
constantly revealing their locations.
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