Yes, your phone is spying on you and these researchers have proven it – BGR

Surely that says something about the dark side of technology that, over time, is more and more likely to believe the worst of what is alleged about our devices. That we are used, manipulated, spied upon, listened to, watched, put to use in the service of the sale of ads – even if evidence is presented on the contrary.

Some scholars at Northeastern University have recently been searching in such a long-held assumption of the zombie conspiracy that no one ever seems to be able to kill if our phones are secretly listening to us as to what advertisements we present. A conspiracy that no less than Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, tried to shoot down when he was grilled by Congress earlier this year.

What the researchers have found: Your phone probably does not spy on you. At least, not like that.

The study examined 17,260 Android applications and specifically paid attention to the multimedia files sent by them. As summarized Business Insider : "The researchers found no instance in which these applications would turn on the phone's microphone and send them sound. But they found that some applications sent screen recordings and screenshots to third parties. "

Or – we are all concerned about the wrong kind of espionage.

This is the kind of headline that exploits a disaffection among technology users who are built on emotional elements like that the facts of the question are almost not important.It is the same with the recent title on third parties who read your Gmail account; Cambridge Analytica; and so many others. The average user see all this, the fundamental truth on which it freezes – I take advantage of it, and I can not do anything about it.

Let's go back to the new study, which researchers will present the results next month to the conference on the "Privacy Enhancing Technology Symposium" in Barcelona. Gizmodo analyzes and extracts examples such as that of the GoPuff junk food delivery application, which the site describes as monitoring the interactions of users with the # 39; applicat ion and sending them to a mobile analytics company called Appsee

did not say anything about it, even though it is common for developers to rely on companies of the same name. Analysis like that. Once GoPuff was queried about this – of course – they updated their policy to mention the "Personally Identifiable Information" given to Appsee.

That's how things go with everything, not just technology, is not it? Money talks, and the other things work.

We should also add – the Northeast researchers have not completely debunked this whole affair of espionage. Researchers: "Our study reveals several alarming privacy risks in the ecosystem of the Android app, including applications that over-provision their media permissions and apps that share data from outside." 39 images and videos with other parties unexpectedly, without knowledge or consent of the user.We also identify a previously unreported confidentiality risk that comes from third-party libraries that record and download video captures. Screen and videos of the screen without informing the user.This may occur without any user permission. "