this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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If it has a microphone, it is always listening
If it has a camera, it is always watching
If it has a radio, it is always talking
Every traffic light has a camera that feeds to a real time crime center where all your movements are tracked and logged.
There are at least 2 balloons and a dozen KNOWN domestic surveillance satellites all with sub 10cm resolution.
The US government knows everything everyone is doing, they just have to decide when revealing how they're spying on everyone is worth catching someone. For now they just pass the info to local LEOs to preform pretext stops and take them for whatever it is. Just watch dashcam of any drug bust from the last 10 years. "You were swerving in your lane, oh look, 500000 fent pills." Police are being fed illegally obtained intel from the feds.
Yes to most of what you're saying, but
No. That's what they want you to think. It does know a lot more than we think, but nowhere near everything. It likely does know where your phones (aka you if you're with it) are at all times, despite having GPS on or off. It also likely collects everything or most things you do online unless you're really careful with Tor and what not, even then it's not clear.
Many new phones have a bluetooth beacon that keeps working when the phone is "powered off".
https://www.sammobile.com/news/can-i-track-a-phone-that-is-switched-off/
"Some newer Samsung Galaxy models also feature enhanced tracking capabilities that work even when the main operating system is shut down. These phones can still be detected by nearby devices using Bluetooth Low Energy signals, similar to how Samsung Galaxy Tags work. This means your phone might still appear on the network even when it seems completely off to you."
https://techpp.com/2025/03/25/what-is-powered-off-finding/
"Powered Off Finding is a Find My Device feature available on Android 15 that allows you to track your lost or stolen Android phone even when it’s powered off.
...
Powered Off Finding requires specialized hardware on the phone itself to be trackable in a powered-off state. The way this works is that the phones that support the feature come with what’s called precomputed Bluetooth beacons in their Bluetooth controller."
Yep absolutely. All of these major phone companies work in tandem with the USG to create lots of backdoors. It's not a secret.
What if I wrote the firmware for it? I don’t think it’s always listening then.
Hardware backdoor speculation:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/10150-not-your-average-why-pixel-thread/7
I don't know if you're spreading needed awareness of the lengths and conviction required, or if you're fear mongering.
Your own link goes over why that approach is full of failings that prevent it from being an effective blanket control tool. A hardware backdoor is not the end all, be all. There's mitigation and even effective action possible to ensure usability even on a device known to be compromised.
Then there's the powered off Bluetooth beacons thing. Yes, trying to start the revolution with comms infrastructure reliant on off the shelf capitalist bounty is moronic, and it's doubly so to attempt to operate it in an improper manner.
That does not make the enemy any more overwhelmingly strong than it makes the hypothetical freedom fighter overwhelmingly weak.
Here's an easy protip for both concerns by the way: Get in on the old tech renaissance and get good at Tony Starking up your specific scraps up to a minimum level of interface capability with a modern stack that ain't up yet but will. That will be the surface that the nerd brigades will need those who can connect to it on, to push back.
They can't supply chain attack backwards through time, there's too many garage sales to infiltrate and an early 00s flip-phone Frankensteined onto a cyber deck made of solder, glue, and spite doesn't BT Beacon Snitch.