Tuesday, October 09, 2007 Limpag: Spying on cell phones By Max Limpag Celltalk
SNEAKY SOFTWARE. A story from the Textually.org blog lead me to the publisher of a particularly sneaky piece of mobile software. Neo-Call is a software company that focuses on spying on and using cell phones. The company’s Mobile-Secuware product is a comprehensive phone spying suite that would make James Bond drool.
The software, when installed in a target phone unit, will allow you to get a copy of all text messages and listing of calls.
NOT JUST FOR JAMES BOND. The company is marketing its software as solution to monitoring children, philandering spouses, and company employees.
What’s creepy about Mobile-Secuware is that the software, according to its publishers anyway, is very hard to detect. It can be installed remotely, even via Bluetooth. When it is installed, the software then keeps a copy of all text messages and logs of phone calls and sends these via SMS or GPRS or Bluetooth connection to the phone of the person spying.
HARD TO DETECT. The company said their software is “impossible” to detect.
From what I’ve read in the company site, users will not be able to know that a spying application is running in their phones. The only way to remove the application is either if the person monitoring uninstalls it or the owner of the target phone performs a hard reset to factory defaults and loses all data—contacts, messages, etc. The software works on S60 phones, mostly Nokia units. Sony Ericsson users rejoice, we’re immune from this software.
The company offers fully functional two-hour trials of their software, which you can keep on installing after it expires. Partner the software with the tracker services of telcos and you can have an air-tight case against a philandering spouse or an errant kid. The company also offers a spy phone feature that will allow you to discreetly call the target phone--and it will automatically answer without the owner knowing it—so that you can listen to the immediate surroundings of the unit. If you try Mobile-Secuware, send me a note and tell me how it went. Did you finally catch him or her?
