Edward Snowden's iPhone case detects government spying

The "introspection engine" can tell if radio signals are passing in or out of the device and block government snoops

22 Jul 2016
Edward Snowden and Andrew Huang

Edward Snowden has unveiled an iPhone 6 case that tells you when you're being spied on.

Since moving to Russia, Snowden, who is being pursued by the US government, has started working for the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

The organisation, as the name suggests, works to help media organisations around the world report freely and hold governments to account. Of course, not all governments are open to democratic scrutiny.

So, the former NSA contractor, along with electrical engineer and hacker Andrew Huang, created a device that taps into an iPhone and monitors electrical signals being sent to its antenna.

Dubbed an "introspection engine" a technical paper says the device aims to stop journalists being "betrayed by their own tools".

The document says that due to the "third-party doctrine" in the US – which, is claimed, to offer no legal protection for metadata gathered by devices – more protection is needed.

The device, which hasn't been manufactured yet, will comprise of a case with a mono-colour screen on its back. The screen shows when the phone is "dark" or whether it is transmitting data – it also provides a boost to battery power and covers the rear camera for privacy.

"It can inform the user on time elapsed since the last traffic was detected on any radio bus," Snowden and Huang wrote. An alarm would go off when any activity is seen.

A connection in the case connects to the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular and other radio transmitters to display when it is sending or receiving data. A flexible printed circuit (FPC), with a person's contacts pre-loaded, replaces the SIM card and connects to internal systems in the phone to reroute the radio signal data to the case. The device will also be open source, meaning anyone would be able to make it. There's even a "kill switch" that will stop all radio signals from leaving the phone.

Edward Snowden and Andrew Huang

"Turning off radios by entering airplane mode is no defence," the two authors wrote in a paper describing the device. They added that the GPS is still active in iOS 8.2 when the phone is put into the flight mode. This allows tracking by anyone who wants to snoop on what a journalist is doing.


During the next 12 months the pair will "prototype and verify" the device and if the work is successful the Freedom of the Press Foundation "may" look to produce it.