Disruptive ProactivityFurther reading on spooks
A friend of a friend asked:
Can anyone recommend credible, well-sourced books that go into real detail about what the security services are able to do, surveillance-wise? Reading that they have the ability to turn a mobile phone into a remote microphone without it being switched on seemed far-fetched, but I really want to know more – it’s so easy to cross over into “conspiracy theory” type stuff, but the Snowden revelations recently make me think the whole damned lot might be true.
It’s a short question, with few clear answers, and a lot of conjecture. So here’s an effort with what I’ve seen, read and inferred, and has nothing to do with what my day job may say in any formal statement. The very short answer is “no”, we don’t yet know. That will take a year or so to understand what we have now, and all the implications: this will take time. But that’s not helpful for now.