Are they really spying on us via a cell phone? Scientists have studied it and the result is worrisome

Many people are convinced that they are spying on us through their cell phones. Even in the media and social networks, people often doubt whether they record us when the phone is operational or they even have access to the camera to see what we are doing.

During the past year, Elleen Pan, Jingjing Ren, Martina Lindorfer, Christo Wilson, and David Choffnes conducted an experiment in which they studied more than 17,000 popular Android applications to see if they secretly use the microphone or the phone's camera.

Applications include those belonging to Facebook, as well as more than 8,000 applications that send information to the social network

But, unfortunately for conspiracy theorists, this survey does not include found no evidence of an application that unexpectedly opens the microphone and recordings or the camera.

However, discovered a different and disturbing practice: apps that capture the phone's screen and send this information to third parties.

Of the 17,260 requests studied, more than 9,000 had permission to access the camera and microphone. As a result, the possibility of data overflow is high.

The strange practice that they discovered was that screen captures and video recordings of what people were doing in apps were being sent to third-party domains.

For example, when one of the phones was using an instant messaging application, the interaction was recorded and sent to an affiliate domain that was a mobile badytics company. The video includes a screen containing personal information, in this case the postal code.

What bothered the researchers was that at no point was it obvious to the user that their behavior was recorded and was not even mentioned in the video.

A spokesperson for Google, who runs the Play Store, says, "We always appreciate the hard work of the research community to help improve online security and privacy practices. After reviewing the researchers' findings, we determined that some of the AppSee services might jeopardize some developers from violating the Play policy. "

A screenshot or a video of the application's interaction can capture private messages, personal information or even pbadwords – in other words, until the smartphone manufacturers notify us when the screen is being recorded or give us the opportunity to turn off that feature, there are signs of paranoia. [19659014] ASSOCIATED VIDEO

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