Snowden is yet to make a prototype of the add-on.
AB Wire
If there is one person who can authentically define ‘how snooping happens’, that obviously is Edward Snowden, former CIA employee who is now the enemy No.1 of National Security Agency.
When Snowden met the reporters in his Hotel Room in Hong Kong, three years back to spill the bean that later caused a worldwide cacophony over NSA’s snooping attempts, the first thing he asked them was to put their smartphones and other electronic gadgets inside the refrigerator to black out signals that could be transmitted through their microphones or camera.
Now, after three years, Snowden has a better solution to keep mobile users aware of any unwanted surveillance happening through their smartphone radio signals. MIT Media Lab along with Snowden and famed hacker Andrew “Bunnies” Huang demonstrated the design of a new case-like device that when connected to an iPhone, will monitor the radio electrical signals sent by its antennas.
According to Snowden and Huang, the new device will keep a constant watch on whether the antenna of a smartphone is unnecessarily transmitting radio signals.
They also claim that the new add-on will be safer than switching smartphones on flight mode, which according to them can be hacked and spoofed easily.
Snowden and Huang’s ultimate aim by providing the add-on is to strengthen the privacy to the level that curbs any attempt made by government agencies to track the location and other details of the person carrying the smartphone
Snowden told the MIT Media Lab crowd via video stream “One good journalist in the right place at the right time can change history.”
“This makes them a target, and increasingly tools of their trade are being used against them,” he added.
Huang was quoted by WIRED saying “They’re overseas, in Syria or Iraq, and those [governments] have exploits that cause their phones to do things they don’t expect them to do. You can think your phone’s radios are off, and not tell your location to anyone, but actually, still be at risk.”
Basically, the new add-on for iPhone is a case with wires going to the phones motherboard and if the device detects unwanted radio signals such as GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular modem, transmitted from the smartphone, it notifies users via the mono-color screen in the add-on case.
The new device has been named ‘Introspection Engine’ and is a separate mini-computer that’s made up entirely of open source hardware. It contains its own battery and screen to provide a real-time status of the phone it monitors.
Huang and Snowden’s Introspection Engine’, for now, is just a design and they are yet to test a prototype.