How your smartphone is watching you and why tests on social networks are dangerous, says the famous IT security expert Igor Ashmanov.
Surveillance 24/7
They say that all equipment with cameras - laptops, tablets, phones - follows us, takes photos and videos whenever she pleases. It's true?
- Yes. It's not for nothing that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, a technically very advanced person, is sealing the camera on his laptop with tape - and he started doing it 7 years ago! Your phone always "listens" to you, always detects your location, and constantly looks at the camera at you - even when it seems to be inactive. At the same time, the phone understands if the picture was taken in your pocket and the screen is dark. Pictures with faces, people, some situations, devices are sent to "central servers" - who are the beneficiaries of this information, one can only guess … Data from devices with Android OS have access not only to phone manufacturers, but also to the NSA, to which the owner of the OS is obliged give data according to the law.
So you need to turn off your phone when you are not using it?
- It won't help. You need to understand that there are many surveillance channels. We must try not to do anything compromising. Because even if you think that the phone is turned off, it is far from the fact that it is. Shutdown guarantee - battery removal from the device. Almost all modern phones have a non-removable battery. Turning off is also not easy: the device can play you a shutdown animation and turn off the screen - but remain active. There is another option, how to complicate the surveillance - to buy a "babushkophone" like Nokia-6610 and not use smartphones.
You are a well-known expert in the field of digital security - show me what kind of phone you have?
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- I'm not an expert, sorry. I have one of the latest Korean smartphones. And the camera is not sealed, here, look. Wiretapping and surveillance carries an immediate risk for people who are dealing with some kind of mystery. These are officials, representatives of special services, big businessmen and criminals. Servers collect arrays of data without specifically identifying me as a person (for now). Chances are, the phone maker and the NSA don't follow the personal ups and downs of my life. In any case, I try not to use the phone in specific situations: in negotiations, in the sauna, in the bedroom, etc.
That is, you should not be afraid that someone's wife will find out about the betrayal, because the phone is following her husband?
- Well, the wife usually does not have access to the data that the smartphone sent to the USA. It's easier for a wife to take her husband's smartphone and read what and with whom he is texting there. But those special services who collect data, of course, can blackmail her husband. If the husband is worth it (he is a big shot, for example).
Encryption not working?
They say messengers (Telegram, Votsap, Viber - ed.) Encrypt information - and unlike SMS and e-mail, they are safer. This is true?
- Not sure. Nobody can know this for certain. This is marketing. Is the encryption algorithm reliable, on whose servers and in what form is your correspondence stored? A simple example: you know that public mail (for example, Google) "reads" the content of your emails? She offers you an advertisement for what was being talked about in the letters. And Google is legally obliged to give data to intelligence. All communication services are arranged in a similar way: of course, it is not real people who read, but artificial intelligence with linguistic analysis. And the Windows-10 operating system in the initial delivery has a built-in keylogger that sends all your keystrokes to Microsoft.
Take care of children
Many people post photos of children on social networks, mark their location - how safe is it?
- Our family had such an experience - my wife's son was kidnapped. All and sundry people then reported that he posted everything about himself on social networks. And although this was not the case, and the son was stolen on a tip, we are extremely nervous about information about children in the digital space, and we do not allow our daughters to do so. If you can see on the Internet how our children look and where they go, this means that later they can be recognized on the street, in the park, in the sandbox.
Tests are constantly being shared on social networks: how will you be in old age, what kind of dog you are … At the same time, to get the result, you need to provide access to profile data. It's safe?
- You can also download a public profile with external programs. The danger of tests, in my opinion, is different. This is mass training of people, coaching them to do something on command. The mechanism is simple: most people do not have enough attention to themselves, but here they say that you are a talented cook or look like a celebrity. Nicely! What animal are you, who were you in a past life - a million idiotic results that everyone shares with friends. Training consists precisely in "sharing." Flash mobs have the same meaning: pour water over yourself, or write how you were raped. This is how mindless mass behavior is trained, like lemmings. They tell me - I do: everyone ran, and I ran. Anyone who collects massive data puts a note: these users are inclined to take massive action. The work is essentially the sameas in the "death groups" (which are far from the worst thing that is now on the network). The trained masses of people can be given tasks more and more difficult, and they will willingly complete them.
You said there is something worse than death groups. What?
- Groups of thug romance AUE, groups of romanticizing school shootings (in English "school shooting"). In fact, this kind of cybersecurity should concern both the family and the state in the first place. When the password was stolen, it's not bad. But when the brains were stolen, it is much worse. There are thousands of manipulators in the network now, and they are becoming more sophisticated. Check what your children are doing on the Internet, in which groups they communicate with km, what tasks they perform - this can save their lives.
Daria Buravchikova