The Snowden leaks have already made the American public paranoid. Last month, foreign media discussed the possibility of Microsoft's Kinect motion-sensing peripheral being used by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as a tool for eavesdropping. Today, The Wall Street Journal reported that microphones on laptops and Android phones have also become tools for FBI surveillance.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the FBI can already record people's conversations by remotely activating microphones. This information comes from an anonymous former U.S. government official. Although neither the FBI nor Google will comment on this, the idea of remotely activating microphones for eavesdropping is not new.
As early as 2004, the FBI used so-called "roving bugs" against criminals. In 2002, the FBI remotely activated the emergency call system microphone in vehicles to monitor criminals. However, according to several anonymous government officials, there is now a specially formed FBI team that regularly hacks into user computers, using monitoring software developed by themselves or purchased from third-party companies to conduct eavesdropping.
One official also revealed that the FBI installs remote operation tools on user devices, some directly installed via USB drives, others installed through network trojans.