Israeli experts have found a way to turn a listening device almost any smartphone. Removing the sound vibrations they offered to carry out with the help of gyroscope, the access to which operating systems iOS and Android is open to any application.
Scientists from Stanford University and the National Centre for Research and simulation Raphael published a paper that can cause panic among the most impressionable audience.According to the report, almost any phone can be turned into a device that is constantly "listen" to its owner.
This can be achieved by converting the built-in gyro into a microphone that is always active.Gyroscopes are made by MEMS technology and the changes the orientation in space. The scope of their tasks is wide: control games by tilting the device, the optical stabilization system in the cells, rotate the image on the screen when you change the position of the device.
It turns out, gyroscopes in smartphones with equal success can record sound waves at frequencies from 80 to 250 Hz. This roughly corresponds to the notes of the second half and all of the great octave low octave. It is in these keys sound conversational voice of almost all people. Researchers have created an application that can carry out such a "modification" and called it Gyrophone.
The program is able to recognize the right to 65% of digits spoken by the same person in the same room and up to 84% to determine its sex, as well as to recognize the cadence of five separate interlocutors in the room. Members of the research group said that the recognition accuracy can be improved by further work on the software.
It is noted that not all gyros are configured identically. The source claims that, for example, a gyroscope iPhone is able to perceive the frequency of no more than 100 Hz, therefore less suited to surveillance in this way.