Even if theyre off, cellphones allow FBI to listen in

Wirelessly posted (Walkguru's: LG-CU500 Obigo/WAP2.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Hmmm, i dont know about that.

 

Wow, sending an OTA update to make the phone still give a signal while it's off. That's sick & unbelievable that someone found a way to do this.

If I was ever a criminal, guess I wouldn't want one of the 3 listed phones, but hey if I don't have anything to hide, not a problem.

This may make terrorist's around the world nervous, hearing this can be done & wonder if this wasn't meant to be released yet, since it sounds fairly new.

 

Their are a lot more phones that can do OTA updates then those listed. The fact that this can be done doesn't scare me. It's the fact that we have a government who abuses its powers.

 

That's easy to defeat. Just take out the battery! I doubt it will work then.

 

i dont see how it could work if its turned off,

 

There must be parts of the phone that require power all the time & this must be how they get the OTA update to activate the phone without anyone knowing about it.

I do agree bobolito, removing the battery would be the only option if you are someone who is trying to hide for a reason.

 

Just turn off the 'radio' like you would for an airplane ride.

 

I didn't think this was a political forum....did I miss something?

 

Agreed. Let's try and discuss this without it getting too polictical

 

The simplest answer is usually the one that works. I'll be sure to keep this article in mind next time I plan out my next big heist.

 

Most electronic devices nowadays use a soft-switch which merely puts devices in standby mode rather than completely turn them off. Back in the early 80's most devices used a hard switch which actually cut all power to the device, but during the 80s this started to change with the use of integrated circuits, fuzzy logic, and digital components. When a device is in standby most or all of its visual indications that it is on are turned off and only certain elemental components are kept powered for different reasons even though the device appears to be off. For instance, home stereos, televisions, cable/satellite boxes, VCR/DVD players, etc. are just a few examples of devices that remain in standby. This is how your cable and satellite boxes receive software updates and transmit PPV subscription information back to the service provider. And let's not even mention your computer; thanks to standby mode we can now setup our computers so that they can be powered on via a dialup modem or even through the Internet.

On cell phones it is possible to have preset alarms that go off even if the phone is powered off. Obviously, the date and time must be kept running for this to happen which means the phone's clock is still on while the phone is apparently powered off. In addition, you need some software and hardware running to actually tell the rest of the phone to turn on when the alarm time arrives.

I am not sure this is how the OTA arrives since prior to the OTA the phone has no Tx/Rx capability when powered off. The OTA would get programmed on the network so that whenever the phone is powered on it will download its instructions automatically so that the next time the user powers it off it will then maintain its Tx/Rx capabilities active fooling the user into believing the phone is powered off. But now that they published this article, a savvy user who can read this will get smart and remove the battery.

Good idea....but that could still be useless if the OTA instructs the phone to remain active making the user believe the phone is in Airplane mode.

 

Very cool, I for one will give the FBI a big hi five and hope they keep up the good work, keep the bad guys on their toes!!!!

 

The above statement leads me to believe that it would actually be essentially turning on a muted speaker phone while the phone is on but not in use versus actually using the TX/RX capabilities when the phone is powered off.

 

I think turning on this capability will certainly make batteries run out much quicker than usual, unless the FBI can selectively turn on/off the microphones whenever they want. Let's not forget that the phone's transmitter also must be active to send the sound captured by the microphone. If the battery runs out quicker than usual, the user will probably realize there's something wrong immediately.

But who knows? there are other ways I can think of the FBI can do this. How about instructing the phone to merely record conversations into its built-in memory and then automatically transmit those conversations later on when the phone is back on or on a set schedule? This way they can obtain conversations even if the user goes into a basement where there's no signal! and let's not forget that the phones can triangulate its position or use A-GPS and then transmit that location information along the recording and sugar-coat it with a timestamp!

 

There is one other way that they can do it to (I've seen it personally), the battery itself has a bug planted in it so the "phone doesn't have to be powered up.

 

Yea, they said that in the original post...