Great read over at Spiegel discussing something most of us take for granted, the security of our smartphones. In a world of 'Post on Facebook at your own Peril' and 'Sexting', understand that the NSA can easily remote control your device while its in your pocket and perform a number of native functions as if it were in an agents hand.

I guess I always assumed they could, I suppose I'm worried about Zer0-Day when the script kiddies get ahold of these methods. Hopefully China and Russia will have worked out the bugs by then. I can't afford to drop more calls than I already do :)

Here's a blurb from the Spiegel article:

In the internal documents, experts boast about successful access to iPhone data in instances where the NSA is able to infiltrate the computer a person uses to sync their iPhone. Mini-programs, so-called "scripts," then enable additional access to at least 38 iPhone features.

The documents suggest the intelligence specialists have also had similar success in hacking into BlackBerrys. A 2009 NSA document states that it can "see and read SMS traffic." It also notes there was a period in 2009 when the NSA was temporarily unable to access BlackBerry devices. After the Canadian company acquired another firm the same year, it changed the way in compresses its data. But in March 2010, the department responsible at Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency declared in a top secret document it had regained access to BlackBerry data and celebrated with the word, "champagne!"

I'll drink to that.