Are you listening to your smartphone? The researchers wanted to test this and found something more scary

Does our

Smartphone listen to everything going on around them? This suspicion is heard again and again. Especially Facebook applications, including Instgram and WhatsApp are suspected. A group of researchers from Northeastern University in Boston wanted to know more. And came with something completely different.

Scientists evaluated data sent from more than 17,000 popular Android apps. Among them, the

applications of the Facebook group. To notice the spying, they examined the smartphone traffic to the media files. Result: Of the 8,000 applications that wanted to access the microphone and camera, none of them could find secretly recorded audio files.

Recording – but different

But the researchers discovered another, as they did scary mesh. Some apps record everything that happens on the screen, and then send those video files to a server. The user does not notice, even his consent is not asked. Even the most intimate data such as pbadwords, photos or personal information can be filmed when they are entered in the corresponding application.

The spy service is based on "Appsee". He wants to help the developers supposedly in the optimization of applications – and saves all the actions within the application. What happens next with the data, is not known.

In the study, only Android devices are affected by the Schnüffelöei, Apps for Apple iOS has not been studied. However, there is also the Appsee service for iPhone app developers.

No clear answer

Incidentally, researchers do not want to give a complete all-clear to Lausch's reproaches. In their study, they explicitly point out that their result does not mean that there are no listening apps. For example, applications may still misuse access to the microphone that has not been studied. In addition, scientists do not rule out that some applications using encryption methods or other methods of concealment hid their listening before discovery.