Sony Ericsson files patent for cellphone eavesdropping feature
posted Nov 2nd 2005 7:00AM
To some jittery parents, that voicemail rollover might as well be a death rattle when
trying to check-in on their untethered teenagers. In an age of unfettered
options for tracking your human of choice,
it's no surprise to find a US patent filed by Sony Ericsson that will turn an unanswered cellphone into an
eavesdropping device. The "call override feature" would automatically answer the phone from any flagged phone number
(like that of a parent) allowing the caller to listen-in and then communicate over the phone's loudspeaker with whoever
might be within ear-shot. The filing also calls for the ability to disable this auto-answer mode by entering a PIN
which would allow parents to always monitor their kids while grandma could still whoop it up at Bingo without her
handbag shouting "Ma, you ok! MAA!?" Seems something like this is just going to create more problems on that
slippery-slope of control than it will assuage given spotty coverage, tech-savvy teens, forgetful elders, and any
number of valid reasons to be disconnected.
[Via SmartMobs]
I can forsee this hindering Sony Ericsson sales a lot due to the whole privacy issue. I, personally, would never buy a phone containing these features for myself or anyone I know, including my children. We have to ask ourselves..."How far is too far?"
so if i understand this correctly the number has to be flagged which means it has to be stored SOMEWHERE on the phone. so as long as the "target"... child doesn't store his or her parents numbers how will this work?
@1: You're assuming this technology isn't in every phone you've ever purchased, and that the patent isn't only now being filed because a company believes they can turn spying into a marketable feature. :)
@2: The magic numbers wouldn't have to be stored on the phone. The network knows who's calling, and is therefore free to initiate whatever protocol throws the handset into snoopy mode.
Whatever the ethics, this is an expensive high-tech exploit with any number of inexpensive low-tech countermeasures. The kids not wily enough to defeat this hack probably need to be supervised.
"so if i understand this correctly the number has to be flagged which means it has to be stored SOMEWHERE on the phone. so as long as the "target"... child doesn't store his or her parents numbers how will this work?"
Jason, it will work like this:
A) Your parents will buy the phone.
B) Your parents will program (flag) their phone number(s) into the phone as having override access.
C) The list will be protected by a PIN. So in the case of your parents, it will probably be your birthdate.
D) You will spend 18 seconds typing in variations of your birthdate and unlock it.
E) You will remove their number(s) from the flagged number list.
F) You will go about your 'bidness', continuing to do whatever it is you don't want your parents to know you are doing.
G) Your parents will eventually return the phone because it "doesn't work" and get you a Firefly.
This is going to be very popular with the hackers and a nice feature for getting the next scoop on Paris Hilton or other celebs.
I would like this for all of those times I lose my phone!
One of the first things I thought of is industrial espionage.
It's not uncommon for opposing parties in certain issues - such as litigation, corporate restructuring, etc. - to meet each other. Typically these cannot be recorded, broadcasted, etc. for confidentiality reasons. Well, what if you carry one of these phones and have your partner - back at the office - dial it up and listen in?
What a great way to make it so teenagers will no longer WANT a cellphone.
Sony is on a roll with the privacy hijacking...
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000420066115/
Great! Another excuse for good parenting.
I thought Nextel already held the patent on annoying cell phone broadcast messages.
The main purpose of this seems to be to combat kids seeing 'home', 'mom' or 'dad' on the caller ID and not picking up. Any parent who wants to be able to consistently reach his or her child's cell phone just needs to learn how to send text messages. Nobody can resist checking new text messages.
Couldn't the kids with these phones just shut the phone off, or take out the battery if they didn't want their parents to be able to listen in?
No matter what they do to let parents be ubsurdly over-protective or just downright horrible parents, there's always a way around it.
I would never buy this technology.
This feature is available on many office PBX systems. While 'spying on the kiddos' is great marketing buzz, what about 'Turning your cell into a PBX station replacement'?
I can see plenty of corporations purchasing these as both a remote worker 'tether' and a way to extend PBX features to the cell net.
A critical feature the radios that public safety types use is the emergency identifier / Signal 13 / whatever button. (Look at the top of a cop's walkie-talkie next time you're behind one in line at Hardee's - it's the recessed aqua or orange button.)
It's the equivalent of a silent alarm; you get in a shady situation, you press the button, it sends an alarm to your radio operator with your ID, and then - here's the point here - Opens your mic and leaves it open, so that your dispatcher can hear whatever's going on.
Your average baseline public safety radio has 5 buttons / switches: change channel, change volume, push to talk, talkaround vs. broadcast, and this button. Hard to break into that market without that last simple feature...similarly, though, it might be a prior art threat, as things like iDEN cells and radios blur further and further into each other.
As far as I can tell this ignores how people actually USE phones. The majority of the time when I reject a call is because I'm somewhere where it would be rude/disruptive to answer it (e.g. library, class). I wouldn't want someone shouting on the loudspeaker when I purposefully rejected the call beacause I'm somewhere quiet.
so has anyone ever thought about the POWER BUTTON!!!! you can't be eavesdropped on when the phone is off, lets see them get around that one....
HEY GUESS WHAT!!
These phones are already on the market people.
Just go over to Spytech agency two blocks down sunset blvd from miagi's. They have phones similar if not exactly like this. I almost purchased the following just from shear curiosity.
The phone I saw can be programmed with your number and a pin, you just leave the phone somewhere, or have someone leave it in their pocket and when you call in to it, it activates silently and you can listen in on whatever is going on in the room.
Scary...
also it looks just like an ordinary nokia prepay phone.
They also have a gps tracking unit for it as well....
The listen-in feature sounds pretty cool to me. Parents (who normally have the best interests of their children at heart) would be a viable audience to their children's behaviors as far as I'm concerned. Also it makes for a pretty cool home-security device.
I have my doubts about the feature that you can talk over the speaker any time you want to, Anon makes a valid point. But naturally SonyEricsson will make this customizable, so that you can choose to only enable the listening feature and not the speaking feature. All in all I think this will become another success story for SE.
this is silly.
if you get a call you don't want you can just pop the battery out.
and yes, obviously the loudspeaker thing used in class or a movie theater would be terrible.
this does not make sense.