Software engineers, many years ago, figured out how to power off a phone using software commands. It was cool and neat and thrilled the software community. Before long, every Smartphone manufacturer had incorporated this coolness into their phones. The hacker community was both salivating at the open invitation and rolling in the floor in laughter.
Why? Because if a software command is used to power down the phone, then that command can be intercepted by malware or spyware and the hacker then has control over when and if the phone is powered down. That means that spyware can intercept the software switch to turn the phone off. The Spyware then simulates a power down, ending with a blank screen. But the phone is still on and is spying. If you doubt this then read this article.
Eventually, every hackable function of smartphones was controlled by software switches, giving full access to hackers to control the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, geolocation, camera, microphone, the factory reset function, automatic system updates, erc. We have given the keys to the kingdom, blindly and willingly, to the world’s hackers.
Pleas from the cybersecurity community to smartphone manufacturers to fix this this horrific problem by returning to the less “cool” air gapped physical switches have fallen on deaf ears. In desperation, I decided to do it myself.
The John McAfee privacy phone contains a bank of switches on the back cover that allow the user to physically disconnect the battery, the antennas for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and geolocation, the camera and microphone, etc. It also will not allow the phone to connect to a Stingray or any other IMSI catcher device. In addition, it contains a web search anonymizer to prevent web searches from triggering an avalanche of ads to buy T-shirts whenever a user does does a web search for T-shirts.
It is version 1. It is not hack proof. But it does give the user enormous power over his or her privacy and it is light years ahead of the Blackphone or any other phone claiming to be secure. It will be available in August of this year. Version 2 will be available early 2018. It will as hack proof as humanly possible.
mgtci.com