Apple Spyware

Steve Jobs Is Watching You:

Apple Seeking to Patent Spyware Deeplink

It looks like Apple, Inc., is exploring a new business opportunity:
spyware and what we're calling "traitorware."  While users were
celebrating the new jailbreaking and unlocking exemptions, Apple was
quietly preparing to apply for a patent on technology that, among
other things, would allow Apple to identify and punish users who take
advantage of those exemptions or otherwise tinker with their devices.
This patent application does nothing short of providing a roadmap for
how Apple can, and presumably will, spy on its customers and control
the way its customers use Apple products. As Sony-BMG learned, spying
on your customers is bad for business. And the kind of spying enabled
here is especially creepy, it's not just spyware, it's "traitorware,"
since it is designed to allow Apple to retaliate against you if you do
something Apple doesn't like.

Essentially, Apple's patent provides for a device to investigate a
user's identity, ostensibly to determine if and when that user is
"unauthorized," or, in other words, stolen.  More specifically, the
technology would allow Apple to record the voice of the device's user,
take a photo of the device's user's current location or even detect
and record the heartbeat of the device's user.  Once an unauthorized
user is identified, Apple could wipe the device and remotely store the
user's "sensitive data."  Apple's patent application suggests it may
use the technology not just to limit "unauthorized" uses of its phones
but also shut down the phone if and when it has been stolen.

However, Apple's new technology would do much more. This patented
device enables Apple to secretly collect, store and potentially use
sensitive biometric information about you. This is dangerous in two
ways: First, it is far more than what is needed just to protect you
against a lost or stolen phone.  It's extremely privacy-invasive and
it puts you at great risk if Apple's data on you are compromised. But
it's not only the biometric data that are a concern. Second, Apple's
technology includes various types of usage monitoring, also very
privacy-invasive. This patented process could be used to retaliate
against you if you jailbreak or tinker with your device in ways that
Apple views as "unauthorized" even if it is perfectly legal under
copyright law.

Here's a sample of the kinds of information Apple plans to collect:
The system can take a picture of the user's face, "without a flash,
any noise, or any indication that a picture is being taken to prevent
the current user from knowing he is being photographed"; The system
can record the user's voice, whether or not a phone call is even being
made; The system can determine the user's unique individual heartbeat
"signature"; To determine if the device has been hacked, the device
can watch for "a sudden increase in memory usage of the electronic
device"; The user's "Internet activity can be monitored or any
communication packets that are served to the electronic device can be
recorded"; and The device can take a photograph of the surrounding
location to determine where it is being used.

In other words, Apple will know who you are, where you are, and what
you are doing and saying and even how fast your heart is beating. In
some embodiments of Apple's "invention," this information "can be
gathered every time the electronic device is turned on, unlocked, or
used." When an "unauthorized use" is detected, Apple can contact a
"responsible party." A "responsible party" may be the device's owner,
it may also be "proper authorities or the police."

Apple does not explain what it will do with all of this collected
information on its users, how long it will maintain this information,
how it will use this information, or if it will share this information
with other third parties.  We know based on long experience that if
Apple collects this information, law enforcement will come for it, and
may even order Apple to turn it on for reasons other than simply
returning a lost phone to its owner.

This patent is downright creepy and invasive, certainly far more than
would be needed to respond to the possible loss of a phone. Spyware,
and its new cousin traitorware, will hurt customers and companies
alike, Apple should shelve this idea before it backfires on both it
and its customers.


Author Unknown (please send if you know)