@dw817 - I didn’t say that they weren’t. In fact, there is this:”Over 100 million smart phones are tracking their owners’ every step, Android developer Trevor Eckhart claimed, thanks to software that comes preinstalled on phones from most major carriers.During a security demonstration revealed on Monday, Eckhart showed how software developed by Carrier IQ tracks virtually everything a user does — going as far as logging individual keystrokes and button presses. The company claims it helps its customers improve quality and performance “by counting and measuring operational information in mobile devices.” Security experts call it spyware.”I assume that when I SMS my wife on the phone, no one is intercepting that message,” Chet Wisniewski of security firm Sophos told FoxNews.com. He called the whole ordeal is a “serious invasion of privacy.”"Why do they need to know when I’m logging into Bank of America, when I’m accessing my password? It’s a different level of snooping,” he said.BRIEF: Stalking in the Digital Age Developed as a mobile analytics platform, Carrier IQ’s software can be found on most Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones — over 140 million phones in total, the company’s website boasts. Some reports suggest Apple iPhones may carry the software as well.The company has flat out denied that its software records keystrokes, a claim Eckhart’s latest video seems to refute.”Every button you press in the dialer before you call,” Eckhart says in his latest video, “it already gets sent off to the IQ application.”—-But, more specifically, to IPhones:Your iPhone could be spying on you, according to the latest trove of documents from Wikileaks, which looks like it could be the biggest scandal yet.Called the Spyfiles, it’s a trove of documents about the “mass interception industry” — the massive post-9/11 surveillance community that electronically snoops on entire populations.The industry is selling software to government agencies — some of it delivered by Trojans — that can take over your iPhone. It can track its every use, follow your movements (even in standby), recognize your voice, record conversations, and even capture video and audio from the room it is in.It’s not just limited to iPhones, of course. There are various spyware packages that run on PCs, Android and Blackberry. The uses are mind-boggling. The CIA, for example, is using phone-tracking software to target drone strikes in the Middle East and Central Asia. It recognizes the subject by their voice print, but the actual targeting isn’t terribly accurate.One of the most sophisticated spying packages —The FinFisher program, produced by the British company, Gamma International — is delivered via a phony iTunes update. The Wall Street Journal has more details on the FinFisher spyware, which is sold to police and government agencies. (Der Speigel has a fascinating article about how it is marketed).Apple just patched the vulnerability in iTunes update 10.5.1. (The vulnerability appears to be Windows only, but it’s not clear. It’s claimed Apple knew about the problem for three years).——The key issue, however, is that these devices–unlike our desktop computers and laptops–come locked-down against us being the true owners and controllers of these devices. This was a “feature” pioneered by Apple, at the insistence of the control-freak Steve Jobs–against (horrors!) the actual owners of his products actually being able to probe around and *change* things about his “perfect, intuitive” devices that they wanted to change. (How dare they!!). It’s all part of a war waged by Big Everything–government, corporations, etc.–against the general-purpose computer and people having the right to root access, as Cory Doctorow and others have noted.Two links for you:http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html“We haven’t lost yet, but we have to win the copyright war first if we want to keep the Internet and the PC free and open. Freedom in the future will require us to have the capacity to monitor our devices and set meaningful policies for them; to examine and terminate the software processes that runs on them; and to maintain them as honest servants to our will, not as traitors and spies working for criminals, thugs, and control freaks.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMyDGesEd9s-netnguy

@dw817 - The first step is to insist on having root access to all the computing devices you use. If you have root, if you really are in control of the device, then you can control what processes run on it.The second step is, whenever possible, to use computers running open source software (operating systems and applications). You don’t have to worry about what a man behind the curtain is doing if there’s no curtain.As for online privacy, there are ways to enhance that–from GnuPG/PGP/Hushmail for email, to Tor for web browsing, or StartPage for searching. Also important are the sites you don’t do–like Facebook (why anyone would use a service that claims your stuff is theirs and insist on you using your real name is beyond me).Maybe not all these things are foolproof by themselves, but like car anti-theft devices (which a truly expert car thief can circumvent) they make you a much less appealing target.-netnguy

@dw817 - Umm … There is no protection in the world.Differ with you on that. There’s no *absolute* protection–there’s no absolute certainty about anything–but just like there is relative certainty, there is relative security. To me the analogy is like saying that if air bags and seat/shoulder belts don’t prevent ALL deaths and injuries from car wrecks, then there’s no point to wearing them. But they do help, and in fact they help a lot.Using strong encryption, using open source software and operating systems, having root access, not using anti-privacy sites like Facebook, all make you safer. My list is more extensive than Bruce Schneier’s. And if you incorporated some or all of  Doctor Who’s advice, which for most people is way over the top, you’d be safer still.-netnguy