Phone snooping via gyroscope to be detailed at Usenix
Put aside fears of phone microphones and cameras doing eavesdropping mischief for a moment, because there is another sensor that has been flagged. Researchers from Stanford and defense research group at Rafael will present their findings on the smartphones' gyroscopes to measure acoustic signals in the vicinity of the phone at the Usenix Security on Friday, August 22. Translation: Your smartphone could eavesdrop on conversations. They found that the gyroscopes were sensitive enough to allow them to pick up some sound waves, turning them into crude microphones, said a detailed report by Andy Greenberg this week about their work, in Wired. The team themselves said their work demonstrated "an unexpected threat resulting from the unmitigated access to the gyro: applications and active web content running on the phone can eavesdrop sound signals, including speech, in the vicinity of the phone."