[Devon Miles]

I have just been told by someone that intellegence experts are now in some cases able to activate the camera on someones phone remotely and use it as a tool for spying even if the phone is switched off - as long as the battery is in it. I was pretty sceptical but the chap was adamant he had seen it done somewhere..

Anyone else heard of this or is it a wind-up?

[prking]

Its a wind-up, but based on the truth that there are programs for smartphones which can do this. BUT the phone has to be on and the program has to be running and you would need to know the password and have the PC client software on your PC.

[Devon Miles]

Thats what i thought. Since I posted I did find out that the FBI have done essentially what i described but activating the mike on the phone not the camera..

[prking]

That's another urban myth, which started because there was a craze a few years ago for people leaving their phones on silent and in auto-answer mode. You would then leave it in a pocket in an office or somewhere and then dial the number and listen to what is going on.

[BugPowderDust]

On a side note- the amount of people who leave on their Bluetooth is staggering.

Down the pub the other day, a mate wanted to send me a ring tone. I turned on BT and did a search out of curiosity- 14 phones were picked up!!

Apart from battery life, people don't seem to be bothered about Bluejacking (or don't care)

[BT@home]

Or maybe they realise that Bluejacking exploits were with phones that were much older and very little can be exploited with new devices.