Edward Snowden has developed an app which he hopes will help everyday citizens use the technology inside of smartphones to help catch snoops. The app is called “Haven.”
As reported by The Verge:
“Installed on a cheap burner Android device, Haven sends notifications to your personal, main phone in the event that your laptop has been tampered with. If you leave your laptop at home or at an office or in a hotel room, you can place your Haven phone on top of the laptop, and when Haven detects motion, light, or movement — essentially, anything that might be someone messing with your stuff — it logs what happened. It takes photos, records sound, even takes down changes in light or acceleration, and then sends notifications to your main phone.”
While you may not need this level of security for your hotel room or laptop, there are lots of other applications. Some have suggested it could be useful for collecting evidence in domestic violence situations, or even handy for sending photo alerts or reminders. (We can even see the use for this in real estate listings for a record of when someone shows or enters a vacant house.)
Regardless of how you choose to use it, the app itself is a helpful reminder of how powerful and how open to surveillance these ubiquitous smartphones make us.
