Computer Science and on: The App Stalking Thing And The Disguised Threats

Cell phones (smartphones) are objects of our daily lives.

If before we could not leave the house without a wallet (money and documents), today we are moving to replace it through the cell phone.

At first, I saw this as a good thing.

Wallet and cell phone are uncomfortable to carry because of their volume and weight.

Women wear purses, maybe they don't mind too much, but men like to use their pockets to avoid having their hands full.

With the possibility of paying bills via cell phone, I almost thought of retiring the old wallet, but I thought again.

There are several points of consideration, however, I will stick to the main ones:

- If someone steals your cell phone, or you lose it?
The cellphone concentrates everything and this increases the chances of deceit.
Despair is greater.

- If the cellphone is "contaminated" by apparently harmless applications that we installed ourselves because they offered something that interested us, and for free (something irresistible for most of us).

These "pseudo-harmless" applications mostly collect information as a form of payment for the so-called free service.

Nothing is free.
Everything needs a livelihood.

When the information collected is not that harmful, we still don't care.

The question is how to measure this?
How can we know the content of the information passed on that was presumable safe to be made public today but will no longer be so tomorrow?

Sometimes the useless information today, under a future context may become something very sensitive.

In the face of all this, I have long been reduced my personal exposure, because accepting this exposure is contributing to the loss of the little freedom that will be left tomorrow, as we get used to via gradual acceptance to, as it was like in the past when the boyfriend went out with a girlfriend accompanied by her younger brother by her parents' imposition. 😊

I didn't catch that time, but I became the younger brother. Terrible for me and for them. 😁

My attention to the subject of security has worsened, resulting in a very serious occurrence with access to my bank account at Itaú (Brazil's bank). Despite accessing the account, bill payments were blocked, which required me to wait from a few hours to a few days to unlock them.

I sometimes resorted to the bank's IT support, but without a solution.

They always returned the same small list of apps that are not compatible with the itaú's bank app and must be uninstalled, otherwise they block any transaction.

There were two solutions: either give up on the bank or solve the problem by digging yourself into the issue.

Since I like Itaú (many years of account), and being an IT professional, I accepted as a challenge to solve the problem because I had time to do so, as I was on vacation.

If in the day-to-day rush, I wouldn't have had time, and I would certainly have transferred all the operations to another bank's account that hasn't this obstacle.

I had already uninstalled all remote cell phone applications that Itaú's IT support had condemned as incompatible with the bank's security terms, but the problem remained.

I had to create a new criterion, different from the support direction so that I wouldn't end up having to uninstall all mobile apps using that mobile option that deletes everything and returns to the original state when you bought it. . 👿

It would be my last option.

The criterion I've chosen was to survey by the name of the manufacturer.

As the TeamViewer application causes this blocking for the Itaú Bank app, I searched my cell phone for all the applications and started research through the notebook via browser, collecting information about each one of them, until... I discovered that the LifeAR application was manufactured by TeamViewer, the same manufacturer as the remote connection application that goes by that name (TeamViewer).

The problem is that this application has nothing to do with a remote connection, at least by its description.

It is an application of "augmented reality", and for this reason, I would never discover it if I had not adopted a different approach of solution, different from the one that the bank's support had given me.

I uninstalled the LifeAR app and tested it after 2 days of waiting for support to unlock my transactions. This delay in blocking made the testings quite difficult.

Each unsuccessful attempt represented 1 to 2 days waiting for unlock until I could make a new test.

I needed to get it right fast, with as few tries as possible, or wipe everything off my cell if I didn't have the time.

Bingo!

Once I uninstalled the LifeAR augmented reality app, the locks were gone and I was able to start scheduling my accounts.

Lucky I don't leave accounts until the last minute to pay them.

I always act in advance because I don't trust connectivity: Murphey's Law.

What if you weren't an IT professional, or weren't lucky enough to have the time to "play" with this issue for days?

It would certainly end up in line at the bank, or in line at an ATM (those self-service machines).

A few days later, through Estadão Newspaper, I accessed this article from the Link channel, which deals with IT issues, talking about the most recent threats of hacking via stalking through apps that we install ourselves on cell phones.

After re-evaluating the news that threatens our security, as the antivirus is often not prepared for such new issues, and therefore lets them pass and does not detect them until you become the guinea pig (or lab mouse) that will trigger the alert to the manufacturers who will then take action.

But becoming a lab mouse can be very expensive.

Conclusion: the best solution is to have two different cell phones.

One without any apps installed except those of the banking and finance agents we trust.

Another "playground" phone, where you can install the apps you like, those utilities that make a difference in our lives.

Indeed!...

However, it is worth remembering that you will continue to be tracked by Google for all your activities (pictured below).

Turning off the cell phone is no use. Just taking out the battery is effective while they do not embed a not removable extra battery (in this extreme case, just letting it behind would be the solution or buying an alternative without this resource).

Don't conform.

If your freedom isn't important for you, maybe others' freedom is, including your children's future.

Government despotism grows intensely, whether by democracies or by totalitarian regimes.

The cell phone is the perfect surveillance tool.

Mind about this!