Smartphone Users Are Paying for Their Own Surveillance

[Igel]

1. Just one more thing is needed.

Showing that somebody has actually altered the design of the computer chips in our phones in this way.

Because those U Michigan researchers said nothing about my phone. They just said that it would be possible for somebody, a designer or a manufacturer (acting as a designer) to incorporate a bit of hardware during the manufacturing process that would enable backdoor access.

It's not like there's a bit of hardware they can attach to the phone to grant this supersecret superpower to would-be surveillors.

The OP knows this. Perhaps he assumes that the cutting-edge researchers are reinventing the rock and manufacturers at government behest have been doing this straight along. Perhaps he's more concerned about being surveilled himself than he should be.

My concern is that in all the metadata analysis I'll be put surreptitiously on one of those secret "no-X" lists that so many DUers have taken a fancy to now that it suits their goals, and that'll just take more time than I have to rectify (if I ever hear about it once the furtive due process necessary to protect their rights is done).