# 2015 and "Big Brother" may be or is watching you ( smartphones)



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Remember George Orwell's futuristic book title "1984" , written in 1948..(yes he reversed the numbers on the date to place the ideas in his book far into the future then)..
cell phones and personal computers were but a twinkle in the eyes of their inventors...



> In the society that Orwell describes,* every citizen is under constant surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens* (with the exception of the Proles). The people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase "Big Brother is watching you", the maxim ubiquitous on display. The term "Big Brother" has entered the lexicon as a synonym for abuse of government power, particularly in respect to civil liberties, often specifically related to mass surveillance.


Well the future has arrived that fiction has become reality in the 21st century.
Sixty seven years later...."Big Brother", and of course, all the cyber criminals in this world of nearly 7.5 BILLION with the widespread popularity of the internet and smartphones, have created a worldwide network where you can make a phone call, and there could be lots of evesdroppers watching you. 


> Ultimately, the spy agencies wanted to implant spyware on certain smartphones to take control of a person's device or extract data from it, the document suggests.
> The spy agencies also sought to match their targets' smartphone devices to their online activities, using databases of emails, chats and browsing histories kept in the Five Eyes' powerful XKeyScore tool to help build profiles on the people they were tracking.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/spy-a...hones-app-stores-to-implant-spyware-1.3076546


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

carverman said:


> ...
> 
> Well the future has arrived that fiction has become reality in the 21st century.
> Sixty seven years later...."Big Brother", and of course, all the cyber criminals in this world of nearly 7.5 BILLION with the widespread popularity of the internet and smartphones, have created a worldwide network where you can make a phone call, and there could be lots of evesdroppers watching you.


 ... and it's funny that many of those smartphone users can't get enough of being watched with selfies. :biggrin: Wacked world we live in.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Smartphone have always been "little spy devices", since day one. You're carrying around a thing with GPS and location tracking abilities, that has a camera and microphone, loaded up with "apps" for you to "express yourself as a creative person" (which basically means blab about yourself, your beliefs and values)

And better yet, people _willingly_ carry them and share their whole life story with them! You can't ask for a better spy device

Both large corporations and governments have been watering at the mouth over these smartphones.

That being said, let's remember that government authorities also perform man-in-the-middle attacks and install malware on other things that are NOT smart phones. Two examples of this are the Windows Update compromise that (unnamed government) used to attack Iran electric utilities, as well as web browser/tor malware that the FBI used to infiltrate criminal networks. So my point is, government is in the business of compromising all types of computer systems -- not just smart phones.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Beaver101 said:


> ... and it's funny that many of those smartphone users can't get enough of being watched with selfies. :biggrin: Wacked world we live in.


Whacko world indeed! The dictionary people can't keep up with the new phrases invented every year..and neither can the scrabble dictionary..
"hacking, fracking, spacking, phishing, selfie, twitter,..and I'm sure there a few more that haven't been invented.
then there are the existing ones..spamming, scamming, slamming (bulllying) defrauding, etc...
Why it's a whole new culture out there of those that need to brag about themselves in many ways...


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

I like the story of the biker gang in Bellingham Washington who had their phones tapped for months and law enforcement couldn't get anything from it. Years later when they asked the leader why in a documentary, he said all bikers assumed their phones are always tapped. This is what I assume for everything that we have today is in someway compromised.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Don't do or say anything you wouldn't want folks to know about you.....welcome to the digital age.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

^ Including this forum. :biggrin:


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Well put!


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