So the mic in your phone can be used as a bug when you arent using it?
Also there's the pretty fucking obvious fact that the battery suddenly lasts for months instead of hours.
Also -- that's the whole point -- otherwise Snowden would just say "Please turn your phones off".
They are wrong. Which is not unusual, news outlets get technical information wrong all the bloody time. Hell, they get things wrong more often than they get them right.
> I don't pretend to understand it, but there is some technique that makes your phone into a remote listening device even when off.
Nope.
> Also -- that's the whole point -- otherwise Snowden would just say "Please turn your phones off".
Snowden is a dramatic source, not an accurate one. I'm glad he blew the whistle because it brings the NSA into the media's focus, but technical accuracy is clearly not his strong suit.
In this case, the ideal source would explain why this is so frequently misreported, not simply assert that it is always misreported. Also, it would explain why it was an impossibility.
Combine this kind of thing with a database of phone remote expoits and it's easy for the NSA to "upgrade" your phone's software and turn it into a bug. This is what Snowden means when he talks about "poor endpoint security." It doesn't matter how secure your fancy encryption applications are when the phone itself can easily be hacked.
Sometimes they don't even have to remotely push software. There was a recent scandal about Carrier IQ, a system on smartphones (Android players and iPhone) that by default was recording every tap, every virtual key pressed, every incoming/outgoing SMS, and more. Anyone with the device connected to a PC could take the forensic log off the phone and see basically everything, even in the past. With per IP logging and billing on mobile plans, as Snowden's Verizon leaks showed, the NSA can just have your phone upload that log anytime they like, without a trace on your bill or data usage.
It's a scary world of surveillance in 2013.
Smartphones do the same thing. But that's triggered by a hardware interrupt (you physically connecting power to an input). You CAN NOT do that remotely, as there must be power on the receiver to receive the signal in the first place.
Or here, let's simplify it. Power off your cell phone, then have someone call it. Does it ring? No, of course it doesn't. Your argument is that by changing the caller from your friend to the NSA that somehow the phone would now be able to react to that signal. Which is utterly idiotic.