In the same slideshow, CMG counted Facebook, Google, and Amazon as clients of its "Active Listening" service. After 404 reached out to Google about its partnership, the tech giant removed the media group from the site for its "Partners Program," which prompted Meta, the owner of Facebook, to admit that it is reviewing CMG to see if it violates any of its terms of service.
So the scammy company listed some known names for their fake tech ad, knowing they are full of shit and they don't have any partners in this, then deleted the ad when called out. Meanwhile it never existed because they were probably hoping to get someone's money to develop it. Except everyone knew this is massively stupid so they didn't.
It has to. The only way that it wouldn’t trip the indicator is if it was built into the operating system itself or somehow had an exploit to get around OS security protections.
The information is fascinating but by and large should no longer be applicable because the OS has been designed to prevent using the microphone without the users knowledge. An app doesn’t have access to the microphone hardware without going through the OS first. Google could modify the OS to do such a thing, but of course, they have to hide this in the proprietary parts of Android, and the generally open nature of the platform give security researchers quite good access to observe such activity. I’d be surprised such activity would go unnoticed. It seems unlikely.
I think this type of approach might have worked on older OS versions but I don’t see how it could work today in general.
What about Google Play Services? A pre-installed Swiss army knife of a system app with proprietary code and apps relying on it as a dependency seems to check the box.
Do we have any info about this being used by any app, or any details about the tech at all? We have an archived version of a deleted ad from a suspicious company. Do we know it even exists and wasn't a prospective ad to judge interest that went nowhere?
I'm not crazy about ads, it can be nice when they're effective for the right reasons. That said, a break in happened at my estate once and the only evidence I needed or could secure was because I left my phone at home that day