The accusations around Chinese tech giant Huawei have left phone owners and internet users with a real dilemma. The choice is not so much what features you want on your handset, but which spies you’re most comfortable with. Huawei has strongly denied the accusations which appear to be based, not on publicly available evidence, but…
If you’ve ever had the sneaking suspicion that your phone might be watching you, new research suggests you’re not being paranoid. Research scientists at Northwestern University in Boston spent a year trying to determine whether or not smartphone applications are secretly recording our private conversations to send personal data to advertisers. Fortunately, the researchers did…
A couple years ago, something strange happened. A friend and I were sitting at a bar, iPhones in pockets, discussing our recent trips in Japan and how we’d like to go back. The very next day, we both received pop-up ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to Tokyo. It seemed like just a spooky…
New revelations show that Iran has posted apps found on Google’s Play Store which give the Iranians the ability to easily spy on anyone who downloads them to their smartphone. Some say these are “weaponized” smartphone apps. Most people don’t realize that the mobile phone is probably the most dangerous device available today. It is more powerful…
U.S. military officials were recently caught off guard by revelations that servicemembers’ digital fitness trackers were storing the locations of their workouts – including at or near military bases and clandestine sites around the world. But this threat is not limited to Fitbits and similar devices. My group’s recent research has shown how mobile phones…
Our mobile phones can reveal a lot about ourselves: where we live and work; who our family, friends and acquaintances are; how (and even what) we communicate with them; and our personal habits. With all the information stored on them, it isn’t surprising that mobile device users take steps to protect their privacy, like using…
