Anything that can tell you your phone

Smartphones greatly changed our lives. They connect us with the outside world via email and social networks, show the way, if we lose, and recommend to all kinds of shops and services around us. But only now people are beginning to find out what price they have to pay for these udobstva.Konfidentsialnost network not unreasonably disturbs everyone. Security experts say that one of the biggest mistakes - I am sure that we are safe, if our identity is hidden.

But the facts show how little is needed to identify the users of the network. For example, to make the connection between the man and his "anonymous" accounts credit card, you only need four things. And one of them - a GPS-coordinates, which can be removed from the smartphone. Innocuous, seemingly pieces of information are fraught with the greatest threat to our personal lives. Website describes how it happens.





Using the date, time, geographical position and the serial number, you can determine with great precision all our movements. < This information is collected together, can make a complete picture of our lives.

Geo-tagging is also considered a widespread threat. This function is used by many applications to determine and publish the exact location of the client. On Facebook geotagging is offered as a service, which, if it does not turn off the advance is automatically activated each time we publish status, or send a message. Geotag there and in other applications, for example, Instagram and Twitter, and is known to show the location of people, even when they are not aware of this.

How can it show that I'm doing? h2> Ashley Kist recently robber was arrested after publishing WhatsApp Self smartphone, which he stole. Although before you upload a photo, it is changed in a stolen device sim card, friends robbed the victim learned of his location and call the police.

Computer security expert Graham Cluley says that, fortunately, life Geolocation social networks, you can disable the phone and applications. However, the smartphone collects metadata even if you use it only for calls.

From the phone calls, you can get a lot more information than you might think.

"This does not mean that they are listening to all of your phone calls," - says Cluley of cellular companies. - But they do collect information about who you called, how long it lasted for conversation and where you were at this time ».

Thus, even if the conversation is hidden, you can fill in the missing information, and guess about its content, and it can have serious consequences. "If you call the service" phone sex "at two o'clock in the night and talked 18 minutes, no one knows what you're saying, but I think that people can put two and two," - said Cluley.

But we did not agree on this, is it legal? In fact, we have given his consent. Every time we go to a social networking site or use a free online service, such as Facebook, we agree with the fact that our every move is recorded.

Using online services creates a very clear trail that can be traced to our lives and many of us know. In the "Privacy Policy» Instagram under the sub-heading "How we use your information," explains what they do with user data: "... for the security checks and improve the efficiency of our service».

But all of these documents is so long that most people do not read them at all. According to the consumer protection group «Which?» Total number of words in the Terms and Conditions PayPal - 36, 275, which is more than in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." In the past, the Committee on Science and Technology of the House of Commons of Great Britain criticized the custom of the agreement such social media companies like Facebook and LinkedIn, for its obscurity and length. Head of the Committee described them as "anyone but the American highly qualified lawyer, incomprehensible nonsensical stuff».

What else can show the phone? h2> Celebrities and other famous people believe that meta cause a lot of problems. Last year, leaked data of the New York Commission for Taxi and Limousine. Since this information was made public, Anthony Toker, a graduate student, was an intern at Neustar, was able to determine where stars such as Bradley Cooper and Jessica Alba, took a taxi in New York City, and see just how generous (or not) they leave a tip.

According to the report of the MIT Technology Review, the frequency of phone calls and general use of your smartphone, you can determine the state of mental health. The new application, developed at Dartmouth College, could of user data to identify patterns of stress, depression and loneliness user.

What is the probability that my account has been hacked? h2> The more online sites you use to communicate, the greater the risk of being hacked. An attacker may even be someone you know well, such a jealous partner.

Cluley said that openly sold on the Internet Spyware, which are installed in hacked devices to monitor the movements of a person, his calls and messages. Although such programs are often marketed to parents to monitor children, this does not always mean that they are always used just for this.

There is software for facial recognition. The most popular of these services has become DeepFace, which uses Facebook to recognize photos of our friends. John Bohennon in the journal Science says that the US government is also seeking to develop this technology further and "financing a study of face recognition, which is carried out at the University." This means an even greater threat to confidentiality and privacy.

What is in this connection to do? h2> It is important to understand that when you use social services, you are not only consumers but also the product. Therefore, a very profitable media companies to change their business model for the convenience of users. However, this opens up opportunities for other companies in the creation of software that can hide or destroy our metadata.

Appendix titled CacheCloak designed to disguise the GPS-coordinates of the user by sending Google or Yelp are several possible routes to a destination, rather than that you are using. Passwords with voice recognition - another form of protection of confidential information is in high demand. To unlock the smartphone uses a sample of the voice of the owner.

Fortunately, there are many steps you can take to minimize the amount of metadata associated with the client. The simple solution - go to the privacy settings of the smartphone and choose which applications you allow or not allow access to metadata. By default, all applications enabled "Allow access to the data." But you can choose the option: "always", "during use" or "never." If necessary, you can disable location services, but it would deprive the customer's primary luxury that can offer smart - cards.

With regard to social networks, you can close their accounts in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., So that your posts could only see friends, do not forget to turn off geotagging in the Control Panel application.

By following these tips, always remember the fundamental rule: if you do not want the information and pictures fell into the wrong hands, just do not publish them.

via www.bbc.com/future/story/20150206-biggest-myth-about-phone-privacy