This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Jamweba
From bird cameras to solar panels, surveillance is now a feature — not a bug. The platforms that claim to protect us have built ecosystems that enable exploitation, not prevent it.
When the Lights and the Birds Started Watching Back
It began, strangely enough, with Christmas lights.
I had purchased a set of programmable light ropes online — the kind that lets you set elaborate color sequences and effects via a mobile app. Nothing unusual for a smart home gadget. But as I began setting them up, the app
accompanying the lights demanded precise GPS coordinates. Even more disturbingly, the user guide instructed me to upload a photograph of where the lights were installed.
That was a red flag.
Think about this for a moment: decorative lights asking for location data precise enough to pinpoint my home and requesting photographic evidence of my property layout. There was no legitimate functional reason for this data collection. The lights weren’t GPS-enabled themselves, nor did they require geolocation to operate. This wasn’t about enhancing the user experience — it was pure surveillance disguised as a setup requirement.
Months later, my wife asked for something seemingly wholesome: a bird camera to watch the feeder outside . We found one on Amazon — the SOLIOM BF08, which advertised AI-based bird species identification, live video, and instant notifications. Once again, the purchase came with a required companion app: the Soliom Pro app. And once again, its behavior was deeply concerning.
The Play Store listing offered only vague reassurances about video streaming and notifications — standard fare for a device companion app. But I followed the extra link to view the app’s full list of requested permissions before installing it. What I found was anything but standard:
- Access to read phone status and identity
- Permission to read phone numbers
- And most concerning, permission to route calls through the system
These permissions weren’t hidden in the technical sense — but like software EULAs, they were legible only to those who seek them out, and understand what they mean. Most users never tap that extra link. And of those who do, few are equipped to interpret it. According to a study by Felt et al. (2012), only 17% of Android users paid attention to permissions during installation, and even fewer understood their implications — especially for telephony, network, or background service capabilities.
This isn’t “informed consent.” It’s informed consent theater, as demonstrated by a 2012 study by Felt et al. showing that only 17% of Android users even looked at app permissions — and far fewer understood their meaning.
A bird feeder app — distributed through the Play Store — was requesting telephony-level control of the device, with no justification and no feature that would require it.
Let’s be crystal clear about what this means: a camera intended to identify chickadees and cardinals was asking for permissions that would allow it to monitor who I call, identify my contacts, and potentially intercept or redirect my communications. The disconnect between stated function and requested access is staggering.
This wasn’t hypothetical. It was real. And it wasn’t isolated.
These examples represent a broader pattern of everyday consumer products quietly moonlighting as sophisticated surveillance tools. The bird camera wasn’t anomalous — it was emblematic of an entire category of seemingly innocuous products that harbor capabilities far beyond their advertised purpose.
The Security Illusion: Platform Lockdown as Liability Shield
Apple and Google claim their tightly controlled ecosystems are essential for security. Sideloading, reverse engineering, and independent scrutiny are discouraged — even prohibited — in the name of protecting users from malicious actors.
But here’s the truth: malicious or predatory behavior doesn’t require sketchy APKs or shady developer forums. It’s happening right now, through apps that are approved, distributed, and signed through official app stores.
And worse: the platforms are engineered to look secure while functioning as blind trust pipelines.
What I discovered with the Soliom Pro app wasn’t a failure of the system — it was the system working as designed.
When Apple’s Tim Cook argues that sideloading would “destroy the security of the iPhone,” or when Google claims Play Protect keeps users safe, they’re promoting a carefully constructed narrative that serves their business models first and user security second. The walled garden approach isn’t primarily about protection — it’s about control, liability limitation, and ecosystem lock-in.
App store review is shallow. Permissions are granted based on vague claims. Once an app passes review and is installed, the user’s acceptance — however uninformed — waives liability. Even if an app escalates its behavior through updates, or activates hidden capabilities like call redirection, the platforms are shielded. Their job is done.
This approach creates a perfect liability shield: Apple and Google can claim they’ve done their due diligence with initial review, while developers can point to user acceptance of permissions as explicit consent. The real threat behaviors get sandwiched between these two defenses, leaving users exposed while both parties avoid responsibility.
And because tools like Frida, network proxying, and static analysis are actively discouraged — or rendered ineffective through obfuscation — users are locked out of verifying what their devices are doing. When Apple designs iPhones to prevent users from inspecting network traffic, or when Google employs SafetyNet to detect and block security research tools, they’re not enhancing security — they’re preventing accountability.
The systems that claim to protect us are explicitly designed to prevent us from protecting ourselves. This isn’t security; it’s security theater with iron bars.
The Anatomy of Abuse: How Dangerous Apps Pass the Review Process
The Soliom Pro app illustrates how dangerous permissions are normalized. But this is just one example in a larger pattern of systematic exploitation.
App store review processes focus primarily on surface-level functionality, UI guidelines, and business model compliance rather than deep security analysis. This creates a gap between the appearance of safety and actual security.
On Android, apps can easily request:
- CALL_PHONE — initiate calls without user interaction
- PROCESS_OUTGOING_CALLS — intercept and redirect dialed numbers
- READ_PHONE_STATE — access SIM and network metadata
- SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW — overlay fake UIs
- BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE — simulate input, monitor screen contents
Consider what these permissions actually enable: an app could redirect your banking call to an attacker’s number, overlay a fake interface to capture login credentials, or monitor everything you type. And these capabilities are available to any app that can convince a user to grant them — not just malware from unofficial sources.
iOS presents a different architecture, but similar vulnerabilities:
- CallKit or CXCallObserver to track call activity
- PushKit VOIP to maintain background presence
- CoreLocation and Bluetooth to map physical surroundings
- AVFoundation for media capture without UI
Apple’s “privacy-focused” design still allows for extensive surveillance capabilities. An innocuous fitness app with these permissions could track your location continuously, map your home or office via Bluetooth beacons, and potentially access microphone or camera feeds — all while appearing legitimate.
In both cases, apps often delay activation of these capabilities, trigger them based on remote config or geofencing, or simply wait for a real-world install to go active. Store review processes do not catch this — and aren’t designed to. Reviewers typically test apps for minutes, not days or weeks, creating an easy opportunity for time-delayed exploitation.
These aren’t security systems. They’re legal mechanisms designed to simulate consent and shift responsibility.
The most sophisticated threats don’t come from obvious malware but from legitimate apps with hidden capabilities. A flashlight app with 50 million installs presents a far more valuable attack surface than an obviously malicious tool with limited distribution. And when that flashlight app is signed, reviewed, and distributed through official channels, users have no reason to suspect a threat.
Not Just “Joe or Jane Average”
These apps aren’t just used by average consumers. The most dangerous aspect of this ecosystem is its reach into sensitive environments and critical personnel.
Bird camera apps, smart light controllers, fitness trackers — all of them are commonly installed on the phones of:
- Military personnel tracking their fitness on secure bases
- Government employees with access to classified information
- Politicians and their families making policy decisions
- Corporate executives handling market-moving information
- Critical infrastructure operators managing power grids and water systems
And once installed, these apps can:
- Track location continuously, mapping patterns of movement
- Collect call logs and network identifiers, revealing contact networks
- Record audio or activate cameras in sensitive locations
- Scan local Wi-Fi and Bluetooth environments, identifying nearby devices
Consider the implications: A bird-watching app on a Pentagon employee’s phone could track their movements through secure facilities. A smart home controller on a senator’s device could potentially record conversations about upcoming legislation. A fitness tracker used by utility workers could map critical infrastructure access points.
Former NSA Director Keith Alexander once warned about the “catastrophic failures” possible through trusted access. These apps represent exactly that kind of trusted access — gained not through sophisticated hacking but through ordinary downloads from official stores.
Their ubiquity is what makes them so powerful — they don’t need to be targeted. They just need to be everywhere. When millions of devices are running potentially compromised software, adversaries don’t need to know in advance which users matter — they can collect everything and filter for value later.
This creates a national security threat of unprecedented scale: not from dramatic cyberattacks but from quiet, persistent collection happening through apps we’ve invited onto our most personal devices. The danger isn’t theoretical — foreign intelligence services have already demonstrated their willingness to exploit these vectors. The 2020 SolarWinds breach showed that supply chain compromises can reach into our most sensitive systems. Now imagine that same approach, but through millions of consumer devices rather than enterprise software.
From App Overreach to Infrastructure Risk
This problem doesn’t end with apps. The same philosophy of “trust but don’t verify” extends to hardware and firmware — with potentially catastrophic consequences.
In [tl;dr sec] #279, it was revealed that Chinese-manufactured solar inverters were being shipped with rogue, undocumented communication devices:
“Rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters… Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers.”
“Using the rogue communication devices to skirt firewalls and switch off inverters remotely, or change their settings, could destabilize power grids, damage energy infrastructure, and trigger widespread blackouts, experts said.”
“In November, solar power inverters in the U.S. and elsewhere were disabled from China.”
This isn’t speculative. These aren’t potential vulnerabilities — they’re actual backdoors that have been used to compromise American infrastructure. The same Chinese solar inverters that were remotely disabled were previously certified, installed, and connected to our power grid.
Consider the implications: critical infrastructure components containing hidden communication channels that bypass security controls. The solar inverters could be just the tip of the iceberg. How many other devices — from industrial control systems to home routers — contain similar undocumented capabilities?
These devices aren’t theoretical threats. They’ve been used — in the field — to shut down U.S.-based infrastructure. This is the same problem, just in firmware form: undocumented capability, platform-level opacity, and foreign control paths invisible to the user.
The parallel with mobile apps is unmistakable. In both cases, we’re invited to trust systems we cannot inspect, created by entities with interests potentially opposed to our own. The certification processes — whether Apple’s App Store review or UL certification for electrical equipment — create an illusion of security while fundamentally operating as liability shields.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned Congress in 2016 about “the increasing vulnerability of the ‘Internet of Things.’” Years later, we’ve only accelerated our dependency while doing little to address the underlying vulnerabilities. The scale of this risk is difficult to overstate: millions of devices with hidden capabilities, connected to our most sensitive networks, all benefiting from a system designed to prevent meaningful scrutiny.
What Must Change: Reclaiming Control Through Reform
The current system isn’t just flawed — it’s fundamentally misconceived. True security cannot exist without transparency and user agency. Here’s what needs to change:
- Reconnect Permissions to Purpose
- Require apps to justify dangerous permissions in relation to stated functionality. A bird camera should provide a clear, technical explanation for why it needs call routing capability — and that explanation should be subject to expert review, not just user acceptance.
- Use static and dynamic analysis to validate declared features vs. actual code. App store reviews should include automated testing that monitors network connections, API calls, and data access patterns over extended periods — not just during initial setup.
- Trigger mandatory re-review on every new permission added via update. Developers shouldn’t be able to ship a benign app and then add invasive capabilities later through updates.
2. Ban Latent and Conditional Behaviors
- Block apps that activate functionality after a delay or based on geolocation. Behavior that only appears when an app detects it’s no longer being reviewed is inherently deceptive and should be explicitly prohibited.
- Require full disclosure of remote-controlled or feature-flagged behavior. If an app can enable capabilities based on server-side configuration, those potential behaviors should be disclosed and reviewed as if they were already active.
- Institute regular re-testing of popular apps to detect post-approval changes in behavior. Apps with millions of installs should face ongoing scrutiny proportional to their potential impact.
3. Enable Independent Analysis
- Protect the right to reverse engineer and inspect apps. Users and researchers must have legal protection to analyze the software running on their own devices without fear of DMCA or CFAA prosecution.
- Legalize and support sideloading, runtime inspection, and network proxying. These aren’t just power-user features — they’re essential security tools that allow verification of app behavior.
- Empower independent researchers to audit platform behavior without retaliation. Platform providers should not be able to revoke developer credentials or block researchers who expose security issues.
- Create legal safe harbors for security research conducted in good faith. Researchers who discover vulnerabilities should be protected from legal consequences when they follow responsible disclosure practices.
4. Mandate Transparency in Embedded Systems
- Require firmware and hardware BoM disclosures for any network-connected device. Manufacturers must clearly document all components, especially communication modules and remote management capabilities.
- Enforce independent third-party review of embedded control interfaces. Critical infrastructure components should undergo rigorous security testing by entities without financial ties to manufacturers.
- Prohibit undocumented communication channels, command channels, or OTA control modules in critical infrastructure. Any remote management capability must be explicitly documented, disabled by default, and subject to user control.
- Implement regular physical inspection and verification of critical systems. Software-based security controls are insufficient when hardware itself may contain backdoors.
5. Treat Platform Lockdown as a Threat Surface
- Platform lockdown must be recognized as a systemic risk, not a defense. Systems that prevent users from inspecting their own devices create an attractive target for sophisticated attackers.
- Users must have access to security-transparent operating modes with inspection tools and runtime permission tracing. Every device should offer a path to understanding what software is actually doing, not just what it claims to do.
- No app should ever have more control over a device than its owner. Root access, network inspection, and process monitoring are not security threats — they’re security essentials.
- Regulatory bodies must recognize that ecosystem lock-in is not equivalent to security. Apple and Google’s control over their platforms should be evaluated for its actual security benefits, not accepted based on marketing claims.
Conclusion: Security That Can’t Be Verified Is No Security at All
Apps that let you watch birds shouldn’t be able to reroute your phone calls.
Christmas lights shouldn’t demand GPS and a photo of your house.
Solar panels shouldn’t contain undocumented radios that can disable them from the other side of the world.
But all of this is happening — right now — because the platforms we trust were designed to look secure, not to be secure. They were built to protect business models, limit liability, and lock users into ecosystems — not to provide meaningful protection against sophisticated threats.
This isn’t just about consumer inconvenience or privacy preferences. It’s about national security in its most literal sense. When critical personnel carry devices running opaque software with excessive permissions, when our infrastructure contains hidden communication channels, we’ve created attack surfaces of unprecedented scale and accessibility.
Security that depends on blind trust is not security at all. It’s a faith-based facade.
The current model — trusting platform providers and app developers without verification — is fundamentally broken. Real security requires transparency, user agency, and the ability to verify claims independently. When systems are designed to prevent these things, they’re not security systems at all — they’re control systems.
It’s time we stopped pretending that locked-down ecosystems protect us. They protect vendors, revenue streams, and plausible deniability — while rendering users powerless to audit what their own devices are doing. This isn’t just a technical failing; it’s a strategic vulnerability being exploited by adversaries who understand these systems better than most of us do.
The Security Illusion: How Apple, Google, and Global Vendors Built a System That’s Easy to Abuse was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding - Medium and was authored by Jamweba
Jamweba | Sciencx (2025-05-20T12:04:39+00:00) The Security Illusion: How Apple, Google, and Global Vendors Built a System That’s Easy to Abuse. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/05/20/the-security-illusion-how-apple-google-and-global-vendors-built-a-system-thats-easy-to-abuse/
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