When smart phone was booming 5 or 6 years ago, there were two big names became more and more popular. The choices were iOS or Android. Even till now, those are still major players in this industry. Both are controlled by Apple and Goolge respectively where you might not know that they (secretly) have ‘power’ to monitor your activities.
At that time, I still chose Nokia phone which was still running using 2G. I just needed to call and send SMS only. Now, I have been using Android phone for about 7 months. It is due to my job requirements. However, I still miss my old Nokia phone where not much secrets stored.
Recently, I read news that making me feel that my old phone was the best choice. First, Google introduce My Activity (https://myactivity.google.com/). This product reveals that Google knows everything about you. Your activities on internet is tracked, it shows a searchable history of pretty much everything you do online, including previously visited websites, voice searches, searched things and places, watched Netflix programs, places you search using Google Map and all activities you did on each of its product. Those activities are tracked not only when you surf using desktop. It also includes what you do using your Android phone. The purpose of stored all activities is to target relevant ads to Google users and to improve its service. You would be surprised that you can see what you did two or (even) three years ago. My Activity covers almost Goolge products, such as Ads, Search, Android, Play, Chrome, YouTube, Video Search, Image Search, Maps, News, Now, Books, Developers, Finance, Help, and Shopping. The good thing is Google allow you to remove your history records. You can even suspend web and application activity tracking for My Activity, but that could impact the features like auto complete suggestions.
Second one is a news about a patent to allow Apple disabling iPhone cameras (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/30/apple-iphone-camera-disable-remote-sensors-patent). The patent shows that Apple may allow iPhone cameras to be disabled through special infrared sensors, giving the example of a concert venue. One side, it is very good because smart phone (sometimes) make a nuisance at concert or worship places (for example). The other side is about Apple (and third parties) has power to access your ‘secret’ in your smart phone.
Now, the thing that we have to think is how safe our personal data is. Let’s say Google and Apple make their systems always send something to central or accept any command… are you ok with this? If not… is there any other OS available in market that you can use?
For me… my personal view.. i still need them. However, i ‘manage’ what i do (search, watch and listen) and not open/store confidential files. I am also not interested to do mobile banking and payment using smart phone. At least, this is what i can do now.
What about you? The choice is yours…
h4ck3r-protocol 