Edward Snowden Designs Spy Attachment For iPhones

Edward Snowden is most known for his whistleblower act involving the release of confidential government information to the media. However, the man is also an engineering whiz, and he just developed a gadget with the help of a known hacker that could be attached to iPhones. The device is meant to will alert users if the government is listening in on them, which is no longer such a far-fetched idea after Snowden released files indicating that the government was doing exactly this.

As The Verge points out, Snowden has more cause to be vigilant against digital spying than anyone else. Even in his exile in Russia, the whistleblower is still advocating against governments infringing on the privacy rights of citizens.

Few things make his intent clearer than creating the iPhone attachment that will ward off government spying, with the help of Andrew "Bunnie" Huang. Huang was able to reverse engineer the original Xbox and detect security issues with microSD cards.

As to who the device is aimed at, Snowden argues that journalists, activists, and even human rights workers would benefit most from what the pair is calling an "introspection engine," according to Ars Technica. After the breach that the government suffered during the whistleblowing incident, it only makes sense that the CIA, NSA, and other alphabet agencies would be extra vigilant when it comes to protecting confidential information. Spying on anyone who might be in possession of state secrets wouldn’t exactly be a surprising move.

In a blog post that the partners published recently, they explain how devices could be breached so that hackers could do things like fool users into thinking that their devices have been turned off when in actuality, outside parties are already listening in on their conversations.

"Malware packages, peddled by hackers at a price accessible by private individuals, can activate radios without any indication from the user interface," the post read. "Trusting a phone that has been hacked to go into airplane mode is like trusting a drunk person to judge if they are sober enough to drive."