The iPhone 4S's Sneaky Side (The Atlantic Wire)

The iPhone's a big creeper. It has a bunch of fancy phone features that have wooed users, like Siri and its 8 megapixel camera. But the phone has a darker side. It does some pretty sneaky things, like detect passwords, reports New Scientist's Jacob Aaron. "Security researchers have discovered they [iPhones] can detect the vibrations caused by using a computer keyboard and read off what is being typed simply by placing a smartphone with a keylogging app on the desk nearby," writes Aaron. And that's just the beginning of your phone's sneaky behavior.

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The iPhone doesn't just detect passwords, memorizing those typed directly into the phone, it eavesdrops. The phone's accelerometer--the thing that does that cool photo flippy thing from horizontal to vertical--detects keystrokes and can guess the letters based on the the different types of vibrations, found researchers at Georgia Tech.

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Eerie.

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Not only can the phone detect passwords, but it snoops on your friends with the Find My Friends feature. The app doesn't exist for mere stalking purposes. ?"One example that Apple has used is of someone hosting a party and requesting all the attendees locations temporarily so that he could make sure that they found his house ok," points out ZDNet's Jason D. O Grady. But contrary to that lovely suggestion, it works for stalking, too. Like, for finding a cheating spouse.

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And then there's Siri. The talking bot has a saucy side, but she's also a bit sneaky: She'll tell all of your contacts your embarrassing pet name, explains Gizmodo's Andrew Tarantola. "Siri has the ability to address you any way you wish?Master, Tater Salad, whatever," writes Tarantola. "Siri also has the ability, according to Fury.com, to save that nickname to your personal contact info and distribute it with every vCard you send." Come on, Siri, we thought we were friends!?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20111018/tc_atlantic/iphone4sssneakyfeatures43834

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