Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • November 12, 2026 3:10 PM

@ ALL,

There are various ways a phone can be tracked. So many in fact that you,

“Can not catch and stop them all.”

Once you accept that, then you can take a different path of action entirely to preserve your privacy and peace and quiet.

First and importantly realise,

“You are not surgically joined at the hip.”

That is when your phone is on charge it is not where you are. When you get up to go to the loo at night there is no reason for you to take in your phone as well (unless you are POTUS sharing a stray thought from your throne).

That is take advantage of,

“You are not your phone and your phone is not you”

And act accordingly.

I’ve talked about cultivating

“Phone separation as a habit”

And people should do it.

Remember in some places doing some things with a phone is illegal and can carry some significant penalties…

So at some point in the not to distant future your phone OS will have built in monitoring activity to catch you committing the offenses. As it will be a quick and easy way to “raise revenue”.

Consider Car Manufacturers have thought it through already and how to profit from it, and sell on “you were distracted whilst driving” to your insurance company.

There are now “Flock Replacements” that are hidden in street lights that “track mobile phones”.

Payment and ticketing systems via Bluetooth that not just take money out of your bank account, they “track your path around stores”.

And the list goes on, with the phone being able to transmit audio at the press of a button for those that know how to activate a “Health and Safety” feature.

It is said –but I’ve not seen it– that your phone can be activated remotely via an “Over The Air”(OTA) message to the “Base Band Processor” in the “Subscriber Identity Module”(SIM) in your phone.

Thus it is not sufficient to just turn off your phone but “remove the SIM” when entering a “hostile area”.

In the UK a soldier has been prosecuted at the highest level for disobeying a direct order to remove the SIM from his phone.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/11/british-soldier-ignored-order-to-pull-his-sim-card-then-got-blackmailed/

So it would appear that anything on your phone can be accessed by those who can just see the OTA SIM interface…

(I did link to the actual judgment of the court martial appeal a few days back, but now it’s been removed and the transcript put behind a “paywall”).

Clive Robinson • November 12, 2026 9:52 PM

@ Magnus,

With regards,

“Is any more comment necessary?”

Yup…

As people might know the center of AI “jerk circle” Chip Design and supply as well as much AI “circular financing” is Nvidia.

Likewise they might also know that “unnamed Intel persons” told a US newspaper about Nvidia’s lead and public face having an extra marital affair with “an alleged Chinese Spy”

He has resigned allegedly under pressure from US agencies.

Now there are two questions…

1, Who is going to take over the role and essentially Nvidia it’s self?

2, Who were those who gave the story to a US newspaper.

Well the answer to the first is somebody who is Israeli or significantly Israeli associated.

The answer to the second is a little harder to pin down[1]… but the story is the leak of Jenson’s affairs was apparently via Israeli sources (the implication is via phone surveillance).

If it’s true[1] then in less than a week Israeli entities have done a power grab on the largest AI company of it’s type in the world at a time when Israel is increasingly seen as a significant National Security Threat to the USA. Especially as Nvidia is a company that is in essence controling the fate of not just the US stockmarket / Economy, but the economy of the Western World and many other nations…

I’ll let others keep their eyes open as things continue to unfold and mull it over and the potential consequences…

[1] I would treat this with caution as it is all a bit “Chinese Whispers” at the moment. Obviously some people know and some suspect but there is nothing of substance in the public domain currently.