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The articles of Cassandra Crossing I'm under license CC BY-SA 4.0 | Cassandra Crossing is a column created by Marco Calamari with the "nom de plume" of Cassandra, born in 2005.

Because it's not just televisions smart…

This article was written on October 18, 2017 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 417/ Spy sensors galore

Pedometers, heart rate monitors, microphones, GPS... but how many are there in the objects we use and wear every day? Where it is not possible to do without it, however, it is better to limit the damage.

Already years ago, to be precise in 2006, Cassandra warned her 24 innocent readers about the possibility of being abused and suffering malicious "withdrawals" of personal data.
It was the question of "return channels” via telephone, which pay TV tuners and set-top boxes in general began to have 11 years ago.

Several years later, to be precise in 2012, Cassandra again stressed the 24 imperturbable readers, highlighting how their smart-TV in the living room was spying on them.

Despite the alarms given well in advance (we are not prophets at all!), it is not that the 24 stainless readers were too agitated.

Well, as regards the sensors and the data, often biometric, that they capture and provide, there have been plenty of alarms, so much so that there is no need to insert further links to articles, both Cassandresque and otherwise.

However, it is worth dedicating a very serious note, even if brief, to growing amount of sensors that is surrounding us, hidden in the new commonly used and less common objects that we purchase.

In fact, it is not conceivable that in the face of an aggravation of privacy problems created by objects that capture data generated by us, entering our homes or attaching themselves to our bodies, there will be a decrease, or rather a cancellation of attention to the problem.

Each sensor around us or on us extracts a specific type of data and sends it to a destination.

It is trivial to understand that the resulting damage is roughly proportional to the number of sensors that intercept us. "Number of sensors"? Yes, there are now plenty of sensors.

While a non-smart phone contains only two, a position detection sensor (GSM cell data) and a microphone, a modern smartphone probably contains some from 9 to 12 including: microphone, front camera, rear camera, GSM position, GPS position, compass accelerometer, lighting sensor, proximity sensor, gyroscope, contactless reading sensor, fingerprint reader.

And if you think that cameras and microphones are not sensors because they only work when you want... you don't know how much Galileo, FinFisher and their similar ones are in common use... but that's another story.

Let's get back to our sensor count; a “black box” associated with your car insurance policy contains 6 of them: microphone, GPS position, GSM position, accelerometer, speed sensor, car parameters (throttle position, brake, clutch, gearbox); a 3 or 4 fitness bracelet: pedometer (step counter), LED heart rate monitor, barometer, GPS location (some models); a laptop at least 2: microphone and camera. In general, 3 out of 4 objects have a microphone.

Does this really leave you at peace because you have nothing to hide anyway?

The return channels, which the previous article of 2006, are no longer the exception but the rule; they are typically the WiFi network and/or the 3G/4G GSM network, now so common that they have practically supplanted the old telephone lines not only as a return channel, but also in common use.

The importance, or rather the danger of the data collected by a sensor varies greatly depending on the type and quantity of data collected.

In general, biometric data is the most critical; the heart rate monitor alone detects not only the type of activity you are carrying out (yes, even "that") but also other important information on your state of health. Added to the sensors themselves are the apps and programs that "call home" (i.e. practically everyone); they are "sensors" which, although not directly intercepting data, multiply its diffusion.

Very common examples of data collected in abundance by the apps are geolocation data and access to the address book.

Since we live in a society where privacy has become an exercise for a paranoid few, why not at least apply simple damage limitation strategies.

Geolocation for example: just activate it only when needed and deactivate it immediately afterwards. App permissions: after installing a new app and before launching it, visit the settings page that allows you to deactivate them. And while you're at it, check the permissions of the applications already installed, removing all those that don't seem essential; anyway, if the app stops working you can always decide to put them back (but it's much better to delete the malicious app). And then, how many apps can you delete because you never use them anyway? Damage limitation is the new frontier for paranoids.

Marco Calamari