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How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged

Posted by kdawson on from the your-shoe-is-ringing dept.

Lauren Weinstein writes to point us to his essay on the realities of using an idle cell phone as a bug, as a recent story indicated the FBI may have done in a Mafia case. From the essay: "There is no magic in cell phones. From a transmitting standpoint, they are either on or off... It is also true that some phones can be remotely programmed by the carrier to mask or otherwise change their display and other behaviors in ways that could be used to fool the unwary user. However, this level of remote programmability is another feature that is not universal... But remember — no magic! When cell phones are transmitting — even as bugs — certain things are going to happen every time that the alert phone user can often notice."

2 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Easy way to detect a bugged phone by siliconeyes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Like a poster on the earlier story commented, why not simply connect one of those flashy LED thingies to your phone? My mom has them, and every time she's on a call, or even on an incoming SMS, the LEDs go berserk!! They don't even need batteries and power themselves off the cellphone radiation. Pretty foolproof method, IMHO.

  2. That doesn't work, here's why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have a pay-as-go phone they are not anonymous. In many places (e.g. Germany), you have to register your details to get it, in other places your purchase details are used from the credit card to register it.

    When I bought one with cash, just after I bought it, I received wrong number calls, but the people involved didn't seem to want to hang up like normal wrong number calls.

    Them: "Is Mark there?"
    Me: "I'm sorry, there's no Mark here, you must have a wrong number."
    Them: "I'm sorry, are you sure you're not mark"
    Me: "you have a wrong number"
    Them: "Oh my mistake, thanks again erm Mr erm...." pauses to see if you'll complete the sentence.

    This happened again and again and again, different scripts, but always a wrong number guy who just wouldn't go away. Until one day my wife answered and said my name.
    Her: "No this is ???????'s phone"
    After that I never received another wrong number call.

    Now I put that down to random chance, since I'm not worth spying on. But then my wife got a new pre-pay mobile, again she paid cash, and sure enough she got the same pattern of calls. We were talking about it yesterday, when the phone rang, and it was woman this time, who again was a wrong number, but didn't seem to want to hang up.

    Many different phone numbers used each time, we're building a list.