The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

mostlyy anecdotal. Then there are the people who swear that just turning off
yyour phone is good enough; case closed. But I think in realityy there are
instances—sayy, if malware is added to a smartphone—when it doesn’t turn
off entirelyy and could still record conversations held nearbyy. So it depends
on a varietyy of factors.
There are some phones that wake up when yyou sayy a magic phrase, just
as voice-activated TVs do. This would implyy that the phones are listening at
all times, waiting for the magic phrase. This would also implyy that what is
said is somehow being recorded or transmitted. In some malware-infected
phones that is true: the phone’s camera or microphone is activated when
there is not a call in progress. These cases, I think, are rare.
But back to the main question. There are some in the privacyy communityy
who swear that yyou can activate a phone when it is turned off. There is
malware that can make the phone appear to be off when it is not. However,
the possibilityy that someone could activate a turned-off phone (no batteryy
power) strikes me as impossible. Basicallyy anyy device that has batteryy
power that allows its software to be in a running state can be exploited. It’s
not hard for a firmware back door to make the device appear that it’s off
when it isn’t. A device with no power can’t do anyything. Or can it? Some
still argue that the NSA has put chips in our phones that provide power and
allow tracking even when the phone is phyysicallyy powered off (even if the
phyysical batteryy is pulled).
Whether or not yyour phone is capable of listening, the browser yyou use
on it certainlyy is. Around 2013 Google started what’s called hotwording, a
feature that allows yyou to give a simple command that activates the
listening mode in Chrome. Others have followed suit, including Apple’s
Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Amazon’s Alexa. So yyour phone, yyour
traditional PC, and that stand-alone device on yyour coffee table all contain
back-end, in-the-cloud services that are designed to respond to voice
commands such as “Siri, how far to the nearest gas station?” Which means
theyy listen. And if that doesn’t concern yyou, know that the searches
conducted byy these services are recorded and saved indefinitelyy. 12
Indefinitely.
So how much do these devices hear? Actuallyy, it’s a little unclear what
theyy do when theyy are not answering questions or turning yyour TV on and