Report: The NSA Can Access Most Data on Your Smartphone


Now might be a good time to consider a downgrade or burner phone, considering that the NSA is able to crack into major smartphone devices to access most of your data, at will. iPhone, Blackberry, Android—doesn’t matter, they can monitor that.

Leaked NSA documents published in Der Spiegel confirm that officials have, in the past, obtained everything from SMS messages to notes and location info from potential threats. The organization even set up different teams of people for cracking into different brands of phones. Because, you know, you want to be prepared.

Unfortunately, it gets creepier:

“The magazine printed several slides alleged to have come from an NSA presentation referencing the film “1984,” based on George Orwell’s book set in a totalitarian surveillance state. The slides—which show stills from the film, former Apple Inc. chairman Steve Jobs holding an iPhone, and iPhone buyers celebrating their purchase—are captioned: ‘Who knew in 1984… that this would be big brother… and the zombies would be paying customers?'”

Now, before we get too far into tinfoil hat land (is that still possible?), the documents do not indicate a mass surveillance of all smartphone users.

But, then, who knows what might leak tomorrow? [ABC]