355
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
This may not be the answer you will be happy with but how about abstaining from having any undesirable data inside your phone in the first place and instead using the right tool for the job?
...
- 2,325
194
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
Get a phone which doesn't support Android apps.
Why are so many of the answers complex? And not just complex, fragile and suspicious and downright dangerous to the questioner?
You want to use your ...
- 2,185
115
votes
Is it really safe to use Signal or Telegram on untrusted phone hardware?
The short answer is that if the hardware is compromised, then anything you can read, it can read.
- 132k
82
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
This is a tricky one. It goes without saying, but it's also a dangerous one. Attempting to circumvent these restrictions and getting caught doing so will potentially cause a lot of legal trouble. ...
- 31.5k
57
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
They can execute code on your device while they have physical access to it. And you can't refuse it. I'm sorry to say that but you are basically doomed. There's no way to trust this device anymore. ...
- 2,573
53
votes
Accepted
Is it really safe to use Signal or Telegram on untrusted phone hardware?
No, the device can see anything you can see, so if it's compromised, using encryption wouldn't protect you against that specifically.
When you use encryption, it goes something like this:
You type or ...
- 698
53
votes
How is it possible for boss to know I am finding a job?
Your boss is likely making assumptions. They can't read your messages on LinkedIn (unless you have your inmails forwarded to your work email and your company is monitoring your inbox....unlikely)
The ...
- 491
31
votes
Accepted
How is Facebook not considered spyware?
Very Simple, Facebook IS spyware.
It is also "Consensual" spyware...yeah, it's spying on you, but you agreed to it (even if you didn't read the agreement before checking the "I Agree" box), and it ...
- 396
29
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
Use a custom ROM (two, to be correct).
Android phones can have more than one ROM installed, and you choose one or the other. So install two copies.
On the clean ROM you install the spyware, anything ...
- 55.1k
20
votes
Accepted
How is it possible for boss to know I am finding a job?
Your employer is possibly using a service like "Keeper" from HiQ Labs, which can provide forward-looking attrition risk analysis based on LinkedIn data.
Keeper analyses LinkedIn user data ...
- 316
19
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
I'd recommend you just go with it. The Chinese police doesn't just stop any random person in the street and asks for their phone. They stop Uyghur.
This happens for reasons which are somewhere in ...
- 5,221
17
votes
Is it really safe to use Signal or Telegram on untrusted phone hardware?
You have to put some level of trust somewhere in the chain. There's no direct way to find out where the backdoor could be. In android device, you may trust OS because of its kernel source but drivers ...
- 6,941
14
votes
Is it really safe to use Signal or Telegram on untrusted phone hardware?
If the phone is compromised it is possible for the attacker to hijack even encrypted communication, i.e. Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, ... . This by itself has nothing to do with where the phone was ...
- 206k
14
votes
Spying on a smartphone remotely by the authorities: feasibility and operation
There is no backdoor by design in the smartphones which would provide government agencies this kind of access. With a properly signed update process (i.e. only able to install signed updates, phone ...
- 206k
12
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
First of all, I think you should search for solutions that are already implemented by other people. For instance, what do other people in your case do to prevent the spying activities?
One possible ...
- 314
9
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
Due to the nature of the spyware, they will be able to detect any mitigation techniques which will make you a person of interest to them.
I know you said you can't afford two phones but it really is ...
- 746
8
votes
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact?
One idea is to think of your phone as a networking device and nothing more. If you carry a secondary "tablet", that is NOT a phone, you can tether through your phone, and use a VPN on the tablet to ...
- 628
8
votes
Accepted
Is Linux really not spying on us?
Yes, for large open-source projects that hundreds of millions of people depend on, including governments, there are entire organisations that inspect the code. Over the years, there are have also been ...
- 132k
7
votes
Freaked out by "impossible click" in logs
It might be some security software on your system or in your network which inspects if the URL's you visit are harmful. They often do their visits from systems which are not obviously associated with ...
- 206k
7
votes
Accepted
Freaked out by "impossible click" in logs
We've seen behaviour like this on our servers (some years ago): some automated process attempted to replay each request made by a logged in user.
In our case the service required TLS for the login-...
- 7,712
7
votes
Is my router spying on my network traffic?
It most likely checks for updates.
I've noticed such behavior in many recent routers: they periodically check their home site for new firmware. If there is a new version available, it will notify you ...
- 8,909
7
votes
Accepted
Is VirtualBox safe and is it possible its spying on the user?
Both VirtualBox and VMWare are safe, reputable hypervisors. A website that looks "old" is not an indicator of malice, and sometimes the most reputable websites look very old indeed. VMWare ...
- 67.1k
7
votes
Spying on a smartphone remotely by the authorities: feasibility and operation
Such a thing is not possible natively. Police would either need to:
install something on the device
get device makers to include this functionality
So, this could simply be an allowance to try to &...
- 132k
7
votes
Spying on a smartphone remotely by the authorities: feasibility and operation
Yes, it's possible.
Every single competent intelligence service on Earth has access to dozens of zero-day vulnerabilities on most popular phone brands/models. In France, this includes foreign ...
6
votes
How is Facebook not considered spyware?
Android has a detailed model for app permissions (and so does iOS as far as I know). The FB messenger on my phone has access to my camera, location, microphone and storage (Note the absence of texts, ...
- 161
6
votes
How is it possible for boss to know I am finding a job?
There is not only technology that can bring information about your job searching to your boss.
There is a couple of possible premises that can explain your case.
Without prior knowledge or by ...
- 1,862
6
votes
IoCs of Pegasus spyware penetration
Short answer, how to practically detect Pegasus on your phone: the Mobile Verification Toolkit can (but not always) detect indicators of compromise by Pegasus or other malware. The tool works for both ...
- 2,736
6
votes
Accepted
How is Paypal spying on my incognito browsing?
PayPal details in its privacy policy all of the ways it collects data, as well as the kinds of data it collects. If sites have PayPal integration, then they send an HTTP request to PayPal each time ...
- 176
6
votes
Spying on a smartphone remotely by the authorities: feasibility and operation
The government could simply demand (or ask nicely, please) that the cellular network carrier push an update to remotely activate the microphone, gps, etc. This is absolutely technically possible ...
- 218
5
votes
Is it possible for a virus to be embedded in a image and can this image execute on Android Oreo by just opening the image?
I am aware that on Windows this is very much possible. But is it possible on Android [...] Can you install a virus/malware/spyware by just clicking on an image?
Yes, it is possible, although ...
- 67.1k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible