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From the “Freaky Crap You Wish You Didn’t Know” department comes a tale of a dead iPhone that tracked its owner’s movements for four days while the battery was dead. From Redmond Pie:
Reddit user Glarznak was out travelling when the unthinkable happened – his charging cable broke. Instead of seeking a new connector, though, he decided to throw his device into his bag, and continue on his merry way.
Only, upon his return, he noticed that Argus – a third-party step-counting app for benefit of the uninitiated – had continued to log steps during the four days in which the device was supposedly dead.
Some, including the article’s author, think that this is actually a point in favor of the iPhone 5’s improved battery. VG readers, however, will probably take a dimmer view of it all. So much for turning off your phone during private conversations, because we already know that Facebook Messenger can and does record you even if you’re not using the app. We know that webcams and phone cameras are compromised. Now we learn this? Not sure about you, but I’m thinking that it’s high time to get rid of the smartphone.
Oh, and one more thing: If you haven’t updated to iOS 7.0.6 yet (and for you jailbreakers out there, Evasi0n7 1.0.7, then right now as we speak, your iPhone is wide open to hackers, and not just the government kind.
A critical iOS vulnerability that Apple patched on Friday gives attackers an easy way to surreptitiously circumvent the most widely used technology for preventing eavesdropping on the Internet. That made the security bug about as dire as one can be. Now, there’s strong evidence that the same flaw also exposes sensitive e-mail and Web communications on fully patched versions of OS X, with no indication that there is a patch currently available for the millions of people who use the Mac operating system.
At this early stage, the vulnerability has been confirmed in iOS versions 6.1.5, 7.0.4, and 7.0.5, and OS X 10.9.0 and 10.9.1, meaning it has silently exposed the sensitive communications of millions of people for weeks or months. Security researchers haven’t ruled out the possibility that earlier versions are also affected. Readers should immediately update their iPhones and iPads to versions 7.0.6 or 6.1.6, preferably using a non-public network.
Get an Android and run Replicant on it.
VALman says: Carol to Bob: Where in the world have you been and why didn’t you call? Where you playing cards at Ted’s?
Bob: No, dear, I wasn’t playing cards. There were some last minute details on the new contract. I just lost track of the time.
Later, that night, Carol to Bob’s “smartphone”: Okay, give! Where was he really?!
Fat Freddy says: I admire you ladies and am mucho impressed with your writings – but not this one. The article never said the battery was ALL dead. The motion sensor was designed to be *extremely* low-power because it’s intended to run continuously. It’s logical to expect it to be the last chip alive in the phone. It wasn’t sending its info out to any government agency. All data still belonged to the owner and no privacy was violated.
I agree that our smartphones need not to be spying on us. I just think you are overreacting on this story.
If this bothers you, though, just wait till Apple’s iWatch comes out! You are going to have a stroke.
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