D-Vasive alerts you when Android features such as the microphone get enabled
Whenever you install an application on an Android device a list of permissions that it requests is displayed to you first. It is necessary to agree to those permissions to install the app.
While that is true for apps that users install directly, information about system apps and pre-installed applications by device manufacturers are not as they are already on the device when it ships.
Google grouped permissions together recently which makes it difficult to determine which of the grouped permissions an Android app requires and which it does not use.
The camera and microphone permission group for instance is required when an app wants to use the phone's camera or microphone. You'd expect a camera app to request that permission, but not necessarily that it will use the microphone as well, for instance to record what is being said in your vicinity.
Apps are available in store that let you mute the microphone for example, but that still requires you to do so manually.
D-Vasive is a new application by John McAfee that is available as a free and paid version. The core difference between both versions is that the free version notifies you about apps that start making use of camera features such as the microphone or wireless Internet while the Pro version allows you to stop and lock these features.
The application can detect the following feature activations:
- When an app starts the phone's camera.
- When the microphone is activated.
- When Bluetooth or WiFi are activated.
- Detect which apps track your location.
Whenever an application activates one of those features you will receive a notification about it. While you cannot block the activation using the free version, you at least know that it has been activated.
One shortcoming here is that you are not informed about the app that activated it directly. You need to tap on the notification or open the log manually, and tap on the specific time and data again to see which apps were running during the time the access was noticed.
Apps are categorized by threat level. Another tap on an application displays that apps' full list of permission so that you know exactly what it is allowed to do. Explanations for each are available, and apps can be stopped or uninstalled right from that page as well.
Another feature of the application is the ability to run an application security scan. A list of installed and system apps are displayed on the screen sorted by threat level. A tap on an app displays the permissions again with options to uninstall or stop an app.
Here is a video walkthrough of the main features:
Closing Words
D-Vasive Free alerts you whenever apps try to access core Android features. That's a good thing and users may want to run the app for a while just to see which apps activate which feature on their phone or tablet.
With that said, the free app is limited to notifications which means that you may need additional applications to lock down the device after all.
The app runs in the background at all times and will use battery because of that. You can modify the scan interval to reduce that though.
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?