Qualification:

I’ve heard various rumors, some of which seem to be true, such as that the phone works even when it’s turned off and maybe records all the time you’re talking, and with neural networks you can find out what you said, even if you were ten meters away from the phone and in another room, you can use the neural network to improve the sound quality and still know What did you say.

There is also information that the phone can see through objects, so gluing something to the camera will not help.

I don’t know what to do, I’m scared. Do you have any ideas on how to save myself from this if I live in the city and use my smartphone?

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    131·
    2 days ago

    the phone works even when it’s turned off

    That is completely false, if you power down the phone then the phone is doing nothing as there is no power. If this is a genuine concern of yours mitigate it with a phone that has a removable battery.

    records all the time you’re talking, and with neural networks you can find out what you said
    Storing the audio is inefficient, if this were true it would likely transcribe the voice call to text. Think of the scale of phone networks how much data that would use.

    even if you were ten meters away from the phone and in another room.
    10 m away maybe, but not another room unless you are shouting.

    the phone can see through objects,
    Unless you specifically have a camera with a heat sensor then no. any amount of home insulation will diminish the effectiveness. A phone camera does not see through walls.

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      51·
      2 days ago

      Not necessarily, I believe shutting down an iPhone will still have BLE working for the find my iPhone mesh network. You can double check me on that as I’m not 100% sure on it

      • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        This is 100% true on newer iphones and they explicitly tell you as much every time you power the phone off. It can be disabled, but only temporarily.

        This brings up that as long as the battery is sealed in the phone you’re relying on trust in the software/hardware vendors to ensure the phone is actually “off” in the traditional sense and not “off” in one of these modern “standby mode” senses where it can boot faster or something (and therefore run some process that can do something else nefarious, though tbf probably not much)

        • /home/pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          1·
          21 hours ago

          Well as Rob Braxman put it, say you live in a dense country and Apple wants to find your specific phone, it will be possible down to a few feet because of Apple’s BLE network. Even if you have an entire city of people with iPhones off, only one of them need to have their phone connected to internet for everything to work.