Three years after he revealed NSA’s unsolicited internet snooping secrets to the world, Edward Snowden is still fighting against the blatant breach of privacy laws by the intelligence agencies. Snowden and Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, the renowned hacker, have come up with the design of an add-on device for the iPhone that will keep a tab on the transmission of the electrical signals to the internal antennae of the smartphone.
Snowden presented his design of an external battery case-like device at the MIT Media Lab. The device comes with a small mono-color screen and is named “introspection engine.” The introspection-engine will act as a miniature oscilloscope.
The SIM card will be inserted in the case while tiny probes from the device will be directed through the SIM card slot to attach to the test point of the circuit board of the iPhone.
The wires will monitor the electrical signals being transmitted to the two antennae which are used by the GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular modem. The iPhone will send alert messages or will sound an alarm to notify you if the radio transmits any data while it is meant to be off.
Huang expects the modified design may even come with a kill switch to turn off the phone automatically.
The device will allow the investigative journalists to use the audio and video recording functions of their iPhone without having to worry about snoopers spying on them.
For now, Snowden’s design is just that: design. The duo hopes to come up with their first prototype next year and start selling the iPhones equipped with the introspection engine to the journalists.