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Hundreds of smartphone apps are monitoring users through their microphones
(www.the-independent.com)
ok thanks, but where's the list of these apps?
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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iOS and Android. If you have one of those people are listening.
Eh, you can be reasonably sure that GrapheneOS or other Android ROMs without any Google Play apps is private.
No
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These type of articles never list the apps they're discussing.
But… they can't access the microphone without the user explicitly allowing
Tell that to Facebook. Shit, I'll talk about something with my wife and see ads about it ten minutes later. Been happening for years.
That's monitoring you and your closests' other behavior, as well as monitoring then nudging you towards wanting certain things. The ad itself is the last nudge in that chain that tries to go "you wanted this, don't you?" after all of the other thinking it's making a case for your life being better with it.
my wife and I had been married for 2 years. been together for close to 10.
not once did we EVER say "Adirondack Chair". Just never came up in conversation. we were broke as fuck and couldn't afford something as superfluous as one of those.
One day, were driving down the road home and see one on the side of he road.
what's that?
looks like an Adirondack Chair
Adirondack Chair? For free?
yeah, it looks broken though.
we get home go inside. I sit down to veg on my phone on the sofa. what does Amazon put in my "things you like" feed? mother fuckin Adirondack Chairs. Google news feeds? Adirondack Chairs on sale.
My wife had YouTube videos that were reviewing Adirondack Chairs.
this was ten years ago. Imagine what they're doing now...
This is stuff they could've gotten from location-data, or if your wifi was on, as you drive through different peoples' wifi connections (both seeing where you've been, and hooking the data from you into data of people in your area to form connections of what's trending and what they can get you to think about)
I'm not saying they're not mass-surveilling in the most efficient ways they can, but hot-mic while sounding frightening, is the least useful tool ever for their means, and as has already been mentioned in this thread, android auto locks out that permission now anyway, making this a bad focus in the sense that it is not over just cause they can't get to your microphone.
It's more likely that your wife or someone nearby was further researching the same topic you were talking about.
Facebook and other ad companies use your location, relationships, and other data they already had on you to serve you relevant ads.
At this stage, they know more about you than the government, or your wife.
I’ve read about this phenomenon in the past. Generally it’s found that due to audio processing cost and the sheer amount of other data easily gathered, there’s no reason for them to snoop with your microphone because other data is so readily available, much easier to process, store and ship.
I read about that recently as well. There is a problem though. Your phone can turn your voice into text instantly. It’s a feature built in to your keyboard. They could turn the audio into text and then transmit the text only. Saves much data that way.
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Bullshit. The amount of times I’ve had random conversations about odd topics for the very first time with my wife and the fucking subject appears in a FB add three hours later.
Nope, go peddle your corpo propaganda elsewhere.
I tested this with my Facebook app in 2013. Found a Spanish radio station, set my phone down next to it overnight, and for several weeks I was seeing ads exclusively in Spanish. Deleted the app the first day I saw them in Spanish, and deleted my account not long after that.
My wife still uses them after 5 years together and me pointing out all the times it's obviously eavesdropping on us, and she's even been creeped out by it before. Still uses it...
Unless my microphone and camera have physical switches, I will assume they are being used. Those little "your camera and microphone are off" icons in the corner of the screen don't reassure me.
Did you receive the Spanish radio signal over the traditional airwaves or streaming. Was it a digital radio, as those can also be tracked.
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Only on iOS. Also a lot of apps can present valid uses for microphone access, which prompts users to allow unlimited malicious use
Because it is software-based access control, it is impossible to guarantee that access really has been disabled. Thanks to Apple's design, we now live in a world where users are not supposed to detach batteries or physically turn off microphones and cameras; it's all software-controlled. The problem is that software can be hacked and have backdoors. Also, thanks to Apple's smart design, users can no longer upgrade the memory sticks on their Mac Minis and MacBooks. Why do I say it is all Apple's fault? Unfortunately, other manufacturers copy these design ideas...
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I keep my phone in a chip bag and only pull it out to LARP the preparation for the assassination Franz Ferdinand in general terms without naming actual places or names.
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Article is from 2018. Someone must have pasted the url from hacker news where the same story was dug up recently.
Is that to say that it's no longer valid? Or just that it's old news? The list of apps associated with the software is still pretty extensive; Google Assistant even showed up.
Well these days Android asks for more permissions so I guess it would prevent it in many cases by preventing access to the microphone for apps where you don't want to allow it...
Android also shows an indicator when any app is accessing the microphone or camera now.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-21083
There are probably other exploits around that as well
it has always asked for mic permission so no change on that front
Yeah, most people just click beyond that in a millisecond because it's just an an annoyance between them and the needed dopamine.
I think app stores can do a whole lot more, especially with he insane amounts of money they're earning from it (hello and fuck you, apple). They can make microphone access a special privilege that requires the developer to make a special request that gets verified on the app store before the app can be released, for example
7 years is a long time in tech.
Google Assistant is supposed to listen for the "Hey Google" trigger word. How else do you expect to use your device hand-free.
No, 2018 wasn't 7 years ago... No... Wait please..! :'(
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Wasn't there just a storey a couple days ago that apps where not doing this but taking screenshots and videos on the screen and sending that. And both iOS and Android have the microphone notification now.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-21083
I guarantee you that the green privacy dot means diddly squat.
Past vulnerabilities doesn't mean there is active mpdern vulnerabilities especially ones in widely tested operating systems that's exploited by as many apps as people claim are listening when security researchers also regularly reverse engineer and analyze the source code of popular apps to figure out what they're doing. You can decompile Android apps pretty easily to see what they're doing. Some are obfuscated so it takes some effort.
Its one thing to claim there's some a system level bypass for the icon that the NSA uses to spy on its enemies, it's another thing to claim that it's being exploited on a wide scale by a tech companies on different apps, iOS and Android, multiple versions/devices.
The reality is that we leak tons of info through other mediums that are easier and cheaper to collect than through microphones.
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I know I'm usually on the more paranoid side, but I've always assumed everything I do on a smartphone is potentially being monitored via camera or mics.
If the apps are just taking screenshots, or recording a few seconds of data via mic, it would be almost guaranteed that certain corrupt (and also paranoid) governments that are dismissive of privacy rights could force or bribe those apps to allow them to also access screens, mics, and cameras anyway, right?
I'm in the U.S., and especially with how glitchy my phone has suddenly become over the last few months, I'm just at the point where I just assume that's what's going on.
I had the same android for like 4 years without many issues, then suddenly around February it just became almost impossible to use. Weird glitchy things with the size of the tool bar at the bottom of my screen and the popup keyboard. Redirect notifications all the time for certain websites, and my VPN connection is just constantly interrupted and having to be reset.
I finally was like fuck it, this is an old phone so maybe that's it. Brand new phone, but most of the same issues.
I use signal instead of text most of the time, and switched a lot of things to proton mail, but if someone is potentially recording your screen, does it really matter if what you're doing is encrypted?
Which VPN provider are you using? How do you know they are not the one monitoring your phone?
Did you obtained your phone from a trusted source, such as an official seller. Some phones purchased from overseas might have "International ROM" installed by the seller, which compromises the integrity of the device.
Consider having a trusted tech friend look over your phone to see if the device has malware installed.
I use proton VPN, but no I always just get my phones from Amazon bc it's cheap. Never was a real problem in the past, but now that the U.S. is (officially) a giant Oligopoly, probably not a wise idea.
I don't really know any tech friends that are super in the know about that kind of thing. I have a paid Norton 360 subscription that does frequent scans for malware and says it never finds anything, but honestly wouldn't even be surprised to learn I'm paying for a useless subscription.
The only reason I even bring that up is bc our current Governor who has always been a power hungry authoritarian boot licker renewed the Executive Order for a state of emergency for a cyber incident that our previous governor first created when the data breach happened several years ago.
When he "renewed" the order, he also slipped in a new section that granted authority to the director of one of his cabinet's agencies, Governor's office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), to handle the emergency as he sees fit.
What's even more concerning is that on the same day he renewed this order, he restructured GOHSEP so that it is now under the control of the state's National Guard, gave the former director of GOHSEP a new title, and then named a member of the Guard "acting director."
He's been very vague about what the renewal was about, but it allegedly had something to do with updating the OMV/DMV data base for the state. Since then he has also created a hiring freeze for the state, which would seem to indicate that whoever was acting director is now indefinitely the director named in the executive order until the governor decides to lift the hiring freeze.
Even for someone not already paranoid, and without everything happening at a national level, that would all be a bit concerning right? I'm not a journalist, but I've been trying to get people to pay attention to it.
For some reason, no actual local journalists seem to be willing to point this out, but it's all publicly available information.
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i used to think this as well (i have never used any facebook apps), but last night something happened that made me question it.
My wife and i were going through a chipotlane that was right next to a Popeye’s. As we were waiting i looked over to popeyes and saw some posters for their new pickle chicken stuff and asked my wife “the fuck is a pickle ‘glaze’?”
she said “i have no idea but i kinda want some fried pickles now.”
literally a few seconds later she opens instagram on her phone and is shown a video of a person making pickle brined chicken.
yes yes it could be a coincidence, but i am a lot less certain of that now.
The way I've heard it is that it's not just coincidence nor microphone scanning, but just the effectiveness of targeted ads in general. You could be within wifi range of other users who are searching for pickle stuff or you yourselves have a history of pickle purchases, etc. This stuff is scary specific already.
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And people wonder why I keep rooting my Android phones.
Without advanced permission denial and file access restrictions, phones will spy on anything and anyone.
Rooting is no longer required and is a security risk
Or do you mean flashing custom privacy respecting rom
Granting blanket root to all programs on an android phone sure that's a risk; but who the fuck does that on any system...
From memory individual apps would be able to request root which could be denied, approved once, approved always or ignored.
Why would you provide any app with root access tbo?
What do they need it for?
Not OP but rooting is still necessary for advanced backups like those made using Swift Backup
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No, I exactly mean rooting, and it is a hard requirement for me when choosing phones.
If you know what you're doing, there is no security risk involved, since every app requesting for root access needs to be granted individually, and you can opt to do so for a limited time or permanently. Or not grant it at all, obviously.
Tools like AppOps (advanced permission management), Storage Isolation (prevent access to certain folders even if "file access" permission is granted to some app), Ice Box (keep certain apps in a permanent state of hibernation unless you explicitly launch them) are absolute core essentials.
Other apps that enable you to fully remove system apps, system level adblockers, VPN sharing etc. might be optional, and there are no-root workarounds, but they all come with serious limitations.
Doesnt GrapheneOS provide some of these features?
Appops is great. Just mentioned in another comment ,though I use shizuku.
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me to my phone right now
Use NextDNS with strong filters and the DDG app with App Tracking Protection turned on. While no filter is 100% perfect, this combo stops the vast majority of privacy-invading shit from getting to 3rd parties.
I use shizuku for hidden api/shell access..the devs of that have an app called appops which, you guessed it, allow you to change any appops permission for any app. Allows denying/ignoring clipboard access, device identifiers, location, microphone, etc.
appops screenshots
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How can they tell I'm popping?.... Oh....what if I stopped flushing? So is that why some people don't flush? They're trying to be stealthy!
I used to work for a mobile advertiser, and we installed hella bloatware on phones.
This idea was floated a couple times but was deemed not very effective cause you'd have to store and process hours and hours of audio data that didn't tell us much more than just having a week or so of GPS data, your Facebook profile, and your phone IMEI.
It's pretty easy to see if you're near a Popeyes and what other IMEIs are connecting to the same tower, extrapolate that to you being near your wife and you and your wife thinking about shit on the Popeyes menu.
Boom targeted ad/video for fried chicken.
The rest is general tech paranoia leading to Apophenia.
There's no microphones or cameras, it's just the already gigantic mountain of data anyone who uses a smartphone is constantly broadcasting getting ground through the big data machine that has been the pillar of all tech since the last recession.
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