Tehran, Iran, Oct.17.
Trend:
An Iranian commander advised Iranian officials not to use smartphones, Fars news agency reported.
"The warning is to firstly recognize the threats of the phones, because a smartphone has many features. The second point is that they have to use it carefully," Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization said.
He went on to add that one of the threats of smartphones is that is location can be detected.
"For example, it is meaningless for a minister with a smartphone to have bodyguards and escort cars before and after he conceals his commute. If it doesn't matter where the minister is at the moment, then bodyguards are meaningless, and if it's important that no one knows, then such phone shouldn't be used," he explained.
“Detecting the location is just one of these threats,” he said. “We detected about 18 cases of vulnerability in smartphones, including fingerprints, photo sensors, images and videos, message boxes, calendars and etc.”
Jalali said that also the type of phone and the model's serial number can be traced, among other things.
"For example, you turn off the camera and it's silent, but they secretly turn it on. This is the simplest method of threat.”
“Therefore, the first goal was to recognize threats. The second goal was to not carry these phones to sensitive areas,” he said.
Referring to production of domestic cellphones, he said that Iran has defined three plans for this, two of which have already been finalized, and the third plan is underway.
The first two plans have to do with the ability to control operating systems on these phones.
Jalali further said that Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif asked him to build a tool to establish secure connections.
“In the next step, we need to build a domestic smartphone. Of course, we create this as an example, and then the industry must mass produce it,” Iranian commander said.