Blog
Notes on Android privacy, sensor access, and how Spytrap works.
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Look at where your phone actually is
Your phone warns you when the camera turns on — from a screen that's in a pocket, in a bag, or face down on the table. Five places phones actually spend the day, and why the same access means something different in each one.
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I put my phone under surveillance for 24 hours. Here's the case file.
368 sensor events in one ordinary day — 340 camera, 28 microphone, zero notifications. What the log caught at 11:43, the one column it couldn't fill in, and why not a single access was a break-in.
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5 things people believe about phone spying. Only one is true.
Listening for ads, the green dot, tape over the lens, airplane mode — four beliefs that don't hold up, one that does, and the thing nobody tells you about the one that does: permission says who can, never who did.
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340 camera accesses in one day. I hadn't taken a photo.
The number that made me build this app — why a count of 340 proves nothing on its own, why that was exactly the problem, and two things I got wrong along the way: a setting whose name overclaimed, and what happens when your phone kills the service.
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Is someone watching you through your phone camera?
You can't tell by looking — but your phone keeps a record, and almost nobody knows how to read it. What's realistic and what isn't, where to find your camera history, and the two things worth doing today.
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Is my phone listening to me? How to actually check
You talk about something, then you see the ad. Here's what's really behind it, why it's almost never your microphone, why "almost never" isn't the same as never — and the three checks that answer the question on your own phone.
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8 signs your phone is being monitored — and how to check each one
Battery drain and clicking noises tell you nothing. Device admin rights, accessibility services and notification access tell you a great deal. Eight symptoms that carry real signal, with the exact Settings path for each.
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How to check and revoke camera & microphone permissions on Android
Ten minutes in the permission manager is the highest-value privacy change most people can make. A step-by-step audit, what revoking actually breaks (almost nothing), and the two system kill switches most people never find.
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Free SpyTrap promo codes
SpyTrap is $0.99 on Google Play. Here are ten single-use codes that make it free, first come first served, plus a step-by-step guide to redeeming a promo code on Android.
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What Android's green dot doesn't tell you
Android 12 shows an indicator when an app uses your camera or microphone. It lasts about a second, keeps no history, and won't say how long the access lasted or whether your screen was locked. Here's what it covers, what it misses, and how to check your own phone.
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Android tells you an app used your camera. It won't tell you which one.
Four detection paths, one attribution problem, and the manufacturers that quietly break all of it. A technical account of how Spytrap detects sensor access on Android — including the parts that don't work.