Despite living in exile in Russian Federation, former National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden is reportedly working with a researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab to build a device which will protect smartphones from government spies. The wires from the device will be able to read electrical signals from the two antennas of the phone that are connected to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS and cellular. “Their smartphones are also the flawless tracking device”. According to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, your smartphone may be giving you away by sending transmissions about your whereabouts.
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Snowden said the device was meant to prevent those doing sensitive work, like journalists and human rights workers, from having their locations monitored via their smartphones.
In a research paper, Snowden describes a sleeve that slips over the bottom of an iPhone, connects to the SIM card port, and watches for outbound signals.
For Snowden, the need for such a device is simple: the current methods for blocking radio signals on consumer devices, such as turning off radios via airplane mode, sealing it within a Faraday cage or straight-up turning the phone off, are not 100 percent viable solutions when you, the owner, have to worry about the government spying on you.
Snowden is collaborating with American hacker Andrew “bunnie” Huang on the project.
Any unusual activity can trigger an alarm.
He and Huang, who authored a book on hacking the Xbox, presented their paper on Thursday at the MIT Media Lab, with Snowden speaking on video from Russian Federation.
To guarantee that no signals are sent out, the case also comes with a “kill switch” that disconnects power to the phone. One good example of this, as Edward Snowden noted in his speech, was an attack in Syria that left an American journalist, Marie Colvin, dead while she was reporting for a London media group. “The introspection engine has the capability to alert a reporter of a risky situation in real-time”, Snowden wrote. Ms. Colvin’s family has filed a wrongful death suit against the Syrian government, alleging that they tracked her movements by monitoring her electronic communications.
For journalists, especially those working in foreign countries, the phones’ ubiquity – as portable cameras, recording devices, and notepads – make them particularly vulnerable to sophisticated spying technology, Snowden and Mr. Huang say.
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A working prototype is likely to be out by next year and the long-term goal is to launch a Chinese supply chain of modified iPhones that can be supplied to journalists. According to the abstract, journalists and other high-value targets could easily be the target of an enemy with the technology needed to pick up the information that your mobile devices like smartphones put out.
