Can the NSA really listen to your iPhone’s microphone even when it is turned OFF? Possibly (video)

UK Daily Mail ^ | 9 June 2014 | By MARK PRIGG

[Swordmaker]

Can the NSA really listen to your iPhone’s microphone even when it is turned OFF? Experts say it is possible - but reveal the trick to beat it

• Technique known as an 'implant' (requires physical access—Swordmaker)

• Allows phone to appear switched off - but still operate some communications

The NSA could technically listen in to the microphone of an iPhone even if it switched off, experts have revealed.

The claim was first made by Edward Snowden during an interview with Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News.

Today, experts confirmed the technique was technically possibly - and revealed a way to sidestep it.

The claim the NSA could technically listen in to the microphone of an iPhone even if it switched off was first made by Edward Snowden during an interview with Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News.

The claim the NSA could technically listen in to the microphone of an iPhone even if it switched off was first made by Edward Snowden during an interview with Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News.

Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News, holding his iPhone aloft during last Wednesday’s interview, asked, “What can the NSA do with this device if they want to get into my life? Can anyone turn it on remotely if it’s off? Can they turn on apps?

'They can absolutely turn them on with the power turned off to the device,' Snowden replied.

Security researchers claim the technique is possible, and that software could make the phone look like it’s shutting down but actually entering a low-power mode that leaves key communication chips on. . .

This 'playing dead' state would allow the phone to receive commands, including one to activate its microphone, Eric McDonald, a hardware engineer in Los Angeles told Wired.

[Vendome]

Ridiculous question.

They do listen, archive and index everything.

Think of like this; just 15 years ago it cost $1,000 for a 1 gigabyte hard drive.

Today, you can purchase a 64 gigabyte thumdrive for $50 bucks!

What is the cost for storing 1,000,000 times more information? And how much “zero” “real estate” will it take to store your life, a meta file or cycle?

[Vendome]

Launch one. ..x

[fso301]

If you think your phone is off but it isn’t, you will have decreased battery life because the phone really isn’t off.

[Objective Scrutator]

I wish it were true that only hippies, hipsters, and those smug “fair traders” at Starbucks used Apple phones, and that the NSA didn’t know how to wiretap other smartphone brands. That way, I would be confident that the NSA isn’t trying to spy on upstanding citizens, and that it would actually be doing something useful with our tax dollars.

[Swordmaker]

Most telling for the chinese though is if a virus or backdoor is discovered (usually by the 'nix crowd since the macophiles are usless for things like this)

Oh? Really? Were you aware that 98% of the malware for mobile devices is for Android, a 'nix derivative. The other 1.9% is for Symbian and Mobile Windows Phone and RIM. . . with iOS, a subset of UNIX, bringing up the final 0.1% and that is only for JAILBROKEN iPhones? And you think that "Macophiles are useless for things like this" do you? What about these Macophiles?

This image shows Curiosity's Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) "war room" and its staff. On the night of Aug. 5, 2012 PDT (early morning Aug. 6 EDT), 34 engineers gathered in this room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to support the landing with their personal computers.


Curiosity Mars Lander Control Room. . . also with their personal Mac computers.

Of course, these Macophiles couldn't be bothered to look for discovering backdoors into their devices. . . they are too busy doing real work rather than doing "things like this."

Not to mention forever marketing overpriced by at least 2x machines that continually lag behind others in the market.

Apple MacPro — base price $2999 — Complete specifications

Please, Utilizer, tell me what computer is ½ the cost of this Apple MacPro computer that is also far ahead of it? Make sure you make an effort to match your components as closely as possible. This is a workstation grade machine, not a bottom of the barrel computer. It uses an Intel XEON™ grade processor and comes with 12GBs of 1866GH DDR3 ECC RAM as well as a high end SSD. . . and has the ability to connect 39 external devices at 20GB/sec transfer rate as well as three 4K displays, or six 2560 X 1600 simultaneous displays through dual AMD FirePro 300 graphic cards with 2GB of GDDR5 SDRAM each providing 2 Teraflops each of computing power. Oh, it also comes with a complete suite of software, including Apple's word processor Pages, spreadsheet Numbers, and Keynote presentation software. . . all of which are MS Office file read/write compatible. . . plus the entire suite of software in OSX.9 Mavericks. This computer can also run every version of Windows and Linux. It is a fully certified POSIX compliant, UNIX™ and can run all that software, out of the box. Oh, and under load its sound level is under 10 Decibels according to Ars Technica's review. Anything you come up with should be able to do all that as well.

[Tzfat]

If not jail broken? No. Positively no. Anyone who thinks so, also likely believes in “chemtrails” and aliens being held at Area 51.

[BBB333]

Boy-Oh-Boy-Oh-Boy!

You sure come off as an a$$hole sometimes.

Just my 2 cents.

[TXnMA]

"You sure come off as an a$$hole sometimes."

Definition of the pejorative term:

"Anyone who consistently overwhelms the FUD of BBB333 and his slimy ilk with hard, cold facts."

[HamiltonJay]

ANY speaker can be a microphone, this isn’t news. The vibration of the speaker when noises are being made by something around it is enough to generate its own electricity and that can be used to power a transmitter.

This isn’t something unique to any smart phone, its been around for just less time than the modern speaker system existed.

[BBB333]

I guess you are one, too.

The point is the dentist could be a bit more pleasant.

Do I have a Mac? Yes, 2.25 TB of internal storage on two internal HDs, running Windows 7 via Parallels 8.

iPhone? Two, thank you for asking.

iPad? Check.

Apple TV? Two as well.

Should I overlook the dentists a$$holeisness?

No, and neither should YOU!

[sten]

i didn’t say the machine was waking up. just that you can power on the nic card

[TXnMA]

Congratulations on surviving a whole year on FR...

[BBB333]

Thank You!

[Defiant]

See, this is why you get grief from people here for being such a fanboy. I own a Macbook Pro, Mac Mini, iPad mini, and iPhone. I've been running Mac to run my office for 5 years, and before that, from 92-99. My first Apple computer was an Apple Iic, purchased in 1984. Our household is all iPhone, 5 of them. Have been for years. Daughter has a Macbook and I just ordered one for our son.

And yet, if I mention that it would be nice if iPhones have a removable battery, you go ape and respond as though your honor had been personally attacked. Get a grip, man! Steve Jobs told people who had antenna problems that they were holding the phone wrong. You suggest putting the phone in the microwave. Both ridiculous of course. The fact is, Apple makes such choices to prevent the user from having more control over the device, and of course, to maximize profits. Apple hates when third parties make accessories that allow them to make a buck, and so they create proprietary cords and work hard to make working on an iPhone, iPad or Macbook Pro as difficult as possible for non-Apple techs.

Many of us know this and buy Apple products in spite of it. There are many things people like me love about Apple. But I, unlike you apparently, admit of the possibility that Apple may not be perfect. It is a choice, with tradeoffs, and one of those tradeoffs is, they HAVE to control everything. Including batteries. There are many reasons why a removable battery is nice, and NSA spying through the microphone (whether they have to have PHYSICAL ACCESS TO YOUR PHONE or not, is just one of many.

Have a great day.

--written on Macbook Pro Retina

[Alvin Diogenes]

Also, Apple has hardwired the camera light on iMacs and MacBooks so that if the camera comes on, the light will light. No software way to avoid that.

That's not correct -- this has been broken in software:

Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning (The Washington Post)

iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED (Johns Hopkins University)

PDF of technical report on the above from Johns Hopkins Univ.

I don't know if Apple has plugged up the specific security hole these people used, but it was thought at the time that there was no way to do this because of the hardware interlock. This shows how clever techniques can do something that seems impossible.

A good rule of thumb is that if somebody thinks that something can't be hacked into, they just haven't thought about it hard enough or they don't know enough about the internals of the system. [And that's even ignoring the possibility of social engineering.]

[grey_whiskers]

I like the fact that the girl in the purple blouse to the extreme right hand side of that NASA room looks a lot like Penny (Kaley Cuoco) from The Big Bang Theory.

But where's Howard Wolowitz?

Cheers!

[Swordmaker]

That's not correct -- this has been broken in software:

Did you read the part in your links specifying the so-called vulnerability was a PROOF OF CONCEPT?

It is not, as you imply, an out of the box, easy exploit applicable to every Apple Mac out in the wild.

This is déjà vu for me because I have posted this explanation before sometime ago when it first was publicized.

For this "vulnerability" to be exploited requires the person who turns off the LED have remote administrator privileges. This requires, Alvin, that the Mac which is to be exploited has to have been physically in the hands of someone for them to set it up FOR remote administrator privileges to be granted. While this person had possession of the targeted Mac, he would have to have super user access, which is even a higher access than administrator! because the Mac's iSight Camera module EPROM has to be reflashed to by-pass the software lockout so the remote administrator can controllably turn on the camera without the LED. This cannot be accomplished with only an administrator access.

Once all of that has been accomplished, your Peeping Tom, wanting to watch some one in her boudoir, has to log in to her prepared Mac with the administrator's name and password before he can do diddly squat about surreptitiously turning on her camera.

In other words, Alvin, it was NOT "broken in software" without a lot of preparation of the Mac to be "broken."

I posted this on FreeRepublic back when Miss Teen USA came out about the invasion of her privacy. . . and it turns out that although the media used this as a reason to talk about whether Apple Mac cameras could be turned on remotely, Miss Teen USA, it turns out owned an HP computer! It was not even an exploit of a Mac that started all of this hoopla!

[Swordmaker]

You sure come off as an a$$hole sometimes.

Just my 2 cents.

Why? Because I challenged a troll who came on an Apple thread and INSULTED every Apple user on FreeRepublic by showing him that his A$$holic assumptions were WRONG and challenged him to prove his assertions? That makes me an A$$hole?!? Let him put facts where he put his mouth. I do. In case you didn't notice, I did not insult him or call him names. I challenged his facts.

I've given up with abiding rudeness including YOURS! You get no change from your 2¢

[Swordmaker]

ANY speaker can be a microphone, this isn’t news. The vibration of the speaker when noises are being made by something around it is enough to generate its own electricity and that can be used to power a transmitter.

ROTFLMAO

Where did you study electronics?!?! The micro-currents generated from a speaker moving through the SEMICONDUCTORS of the amplifier circuits that drive it, many of which are going to be DIODEs (read UNIDIRECTIONAL, passing current only one way) will not be sufficient to power any kind of transmitter, once you encounter any form of tuned circuit, ignoring that would be the output of the phone's Audio circuitry or CPU! This is an absurdity. Or are you thinking there is some switching circuitry between the speaker and the CPU and the transmitter that the micro current can bootstrap itself to switch from speaker mode to microphone to transmitter without a CPU being powered on? Yes, an engineer can design a speaker that will double as a microphone, but it will neither be a good speaker, nor a good microphone. . . But an unpowered speaker will never provide the wattage to send a radio signal any appreciable distance. Pardon me while I stop and gasp for breath.