Opinion: The stalker in your pocket

Computerworld - For most of a century, nosey people, both professional and amateur, have used microphones and cameras to listen to and watch unsuspecting targets.

In recent years, the miniaturization of electronics has enabled these devices to be hidden. Extreme drops in price have made spy electronics available to anyone, even creepy stalker types. The only remaining challenge is placement: If anyone wants to capture the juicy tidbits, they've got to have a microphone or camera in the right place at the right time.

Enter the camera phone, a dream come true for not just spies but a new breed of "cell phone stalkers."

Camera phones contain all the necessary ingredients for completely invasive stalking: a microphone, camera, personal data on the user, location information, a chat and call history -- you name it. And victims carry them everywhere they go.

All that's missing is the software that lets stalkers take control. This new software, called snoopware, does just that. Snoopware -- both legal and illegal -- enables stalkers to secretly seize control of a phone's electronics to listen, watch and spy on their victims.

Welcome to the creepy new world of cell phone stalking.

Although cell phone stalking is new, there's already plenty of bad information, urban legends and false beliefs about it in circulation. I'm going to sort all this out for you, tell you about what's possible and how to protect yourself (it's easier than you think). But first, let's look at the first and most celebrated case to date of this new world of cell phone stalking.

Meet the Kuykendalls

I told you in a previous column about a family in Washington state called the Kuykendalls, who say that a hacker was stalking them through three of their cell phones for more than four months.

The stalker seemed to perform unprecedented cell phone superhacks, according to press reports. For example, he watched them through their phones' cameras and listened through the microphones. When they turned off the phones, the hacker turned them back on remotely, seized control of the phones and sent text messages from them. When they got new phones, the hacking continued. Even scarier, they received almost daily threats of violence from an anonymous caller, who seemed to be calling from a family member's own phone, even when that phone was turned off, and provided details about what they were doing and even what they were wearing.

In addition to the Kuykendalls, the family's neighbor and Mrs. Kuykendall's sister were also harassed by the anonymous caller.

Although the mainstream press played up these events as some kind of terrifying superhack, I think something much more ordinary is going on.