It seems that storing one's data and personal information in a 'cloud computing' environment can be hazardous to one's privacy in more ways than one! The Daily Mail reports:
Police - or anyone with a piece of spying software - can track everything you do on your iPhone without needing physical access to your phone.
The software, called Phone Password Breaker, can download all of the data from Apple's iCloud service - which backs up all of your pictures, text messages, emails, calendar appointments, call logs, website you have visited, and contacts.
As iPhones sync nearly instantaneously with iCloud, anyone who is listening will have near-instantaneous access to your phone - without the owner noticing a thing.
. . .
As long as investigators or anyone with the software has the correct email address and password for the machine they want to crack, they can download all the information from iCloud with the user knowing.
And as iPhones sync with iCloud in near-real-time, they can keep up with you wherever you are.
There's more at the link.
If such software is available to hack the iPhone, it can only be a matter of time before something similar is available for Android-based smart phones. I wouldn't be surprised to find it's already on the market.
I know it can seem like the labors of Sisyphus to try to retain even a vestige of privacy in this online world of ours . . . but I think it's important. For those of us who value our privacy, this is yet another reason to carefully vet every app we use, store as little information as possible on devices outside our direct and immediate control, and encrypt everything that we can't store securely.
Peter
I've never felt comfortable about "the cloud," and this is one of those reasons why. Especially if you do work that involves copyrights and intellectual property. I can imagine someone fishing around a cloud server, finding my work and deciding "hey, let's see if we can sell this." Ditto my personal information. No, I do not trust much that is outside my physical control, at least not when matters of privacy are involved.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
I'm with you on the need to encrypt every-damned-thing we can. However, in this case it's only an issue if you use cloud-based services. So a base Android should still be safe (for now).
ReplyDelete