Voices coming out of my iPad in the middle of the night
July 19, 2021 4:53 PM Subscribe
I heard this coming our of my iPad in the middle of the night: Male voice (Indian accent): “Hello?” Female voice (American accent): “Can you believe we have control over the microphone”
A month ago (6/17) at ~3am in the morning I awoke out of a dream to hear voices coming out of my iPad that was charging on the side table next to my bed. Admittedly, I was still half asleep and thought I was just dreaming when I heard them again. This is what I heard, as best as I can recollect:
Male voice (Indian accent): “Hello”
Femal voice (American accent): “Can you believe we have control over the microphone”
My heart froze. The voices were super clear, like in a FaceTime audio call and not a phone call. The lid was closed. The iPad was on WiFi. The woman might have said, “ Can you believe we are listening through the microphone.”
I’ve never had hallucinations before but this felt like what I imagine one would be like.
I took the device out to the kitchen table and powered it down. When my wife woke up later in the morning I asked if she heard anything. She said she did, but thought it was a podcast or Siri misfiring and didn’t really wake up. But she did hear the voices too.
A couple days later I took it out of the house and reset the whole thing.
I though iOS devices were pretty secure, as far as these things go. Recent news has me doubting that more and more. I’m not in any industry that warrants espionage.
Has anyone else had something like this happen to them.
I have not had any other incidents since I wiped the iPad.
A month ago (6/17) at ~3am in the morning I awoke out of a dream to hear voices coming out of my iPad that was charging on the side table next to my bed. Admittedly, I was still half asleep and thought I was just dreaming when I heard them again. This is what I heard, as best as I can recollect:
Male voice (Indian accent): “Hello”
Femal voice (American accent): “Can you believe we have control over the microphone”
My heart froze. The voices were super clear, like in a FaceTime audio call and not a phone call. The lid was closed. The iPad was on WiFi. The woman might have said, “ Can you believe we are listening through the microphone.”
I’ve never had hallucinations before but this felt like what I imagine one would be like.
I took the device out to the kitchen table and powered it down. When my wife woke up later in the morning I asked if she heard anything. She said she did, but thought it was a podcast or Siri misfiring and didn’t really wake up. But she did hear the voices too.
A couple days later I took it out of the house and reset the whole thing.
I though iOS devices were pretty secure, as far as these things go. Recent news has me doubting that more and more. I’m not in any industry that warrants espionage.
Has anyone else had something like this happen to them.
I have not had any other incidents since I wiped the iPad.
Response by poster: No gambling apps. Nothing shady. Nothing that isn't in the App Store. No side loading. Mostly use Safari for browsing. Brave if I have to touch Google accounts.
posted by squink at 4:59 PM on July 19, 2021
posted by squink at 4:59 PM on July 19, 2021
Response by poster: It was also on iOS 14.x, I kept it up to date with whatever the latest, not beta release would be.
posted by squink at 5:03 PM on July 19, 2021
posted by squink at 5:03 PM on July 19, 2021
Did you have Bluetooth enabled? My roommate has Bluetooth speakers that sometimes pick up random audio from other people’s devices. It freaked me the fuck out the first time it happened.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:06 PM on July 19, 2021 [20 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:06 PM on July 19, 2021 [20 favorites]
I absolutely don't want to downplay the possibility that something sketchy happened. However, it is not entirely impossible that you had a hypnogogic experience (a sort of half awake but still dreaming state) and spoke, while thinking you were hearing an outside voice, which your wife would have heard.
This is surprisingly not uncommon, and I recommend wiping the iPad in any case, but my gut feeling is that this was a sort of anxiety dream. I've gone through periods of them and what you describe would be fairly typical...actually on the mild side :/
posted by ananci at 5:56 PM on July 19, 2021 [35 favorites]
This is surprisingly not uncommon, and I recommend wiping the iPad in any case, but my gut feeling is that this was a sort of anxiety dream. I've gone through periods of them and what you describe would be fairly typical...actually on the mild side :/
posted by ananci at 5:56 PM on July 19, 2021 [35 favorites]
I really want to know what apps you had installed -- not because it's at all your fault, but because a) it would be nice to have that logged somewhere, just in case someone else encounters something similar and also has, say, NewCalculator or MyBookRankApp installed -- it makes it easier to see what *might* be a problem.
Also, maybe someone would recognize that GrandmasPhotoApp was a known trojan horse or something.
Or maybe one them has a weird feature that might cause something similar... I don't know.
posted by amtho at 6:35 PM on July 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Also, maybe someone would recognize that GrandmasPhotoApp was a known trojan horse or something.
Or maybe one them has a weird feature that might cause something similar... I don't know.
posted by amtho at 6:35 PM on July 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
When I bought my first big LG android phone and I still kept it at bedside, I was awakened in the night because a light came on. It was the phone, when I picked it up, it snapped a picture of my naked quizzical self looking at it and it said that google needed a new photo for my phone ID. That is when the phone came to live on a table under something, unless I am using it. Typically I use it only in the formal area of my place. It is most always covered. When I bought a desktop computer the monitor had no camera, the machine has no passive microphone. 2014. I taped over the camera and microphone of my old laptop. 2007.
posted by Oyéah at 6:55 PM on July 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 6:55 PM on July 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Check your Siri history (I believe this would have survived the reset in your Apple account) just in case one of you mumbled something in your sleep that it interpreted as an instruction to play something?
There are exploits for iOS but in general unless you were running a really out of date version, they're worth way too much for espionage proposes to attack a random person and it would be highly unusual for anyone with malware like that to sloppily send audio to the victim system like what you described.
posted by Candleman at 8:09 PM on July 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
There are exploits for iOS but in general unless you were running a really out of date version, they're worth way too much for espionage proposes to attack a random person and it would be highly unusual for anyone with malware like that to sloppily send audio to the victim system like what you described.
posted by Candleman at 8:09 PM on July 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
This is a way outside chance but get a carbon monoxide detector (or confirm the one you already have is working correctly).
posted by pullayup at 8:25 PM on July 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by pullayup at 8:25 PM on July 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
I have no explanation, but this exact same thing happened to my friend, with her Huawei phone. The male and female voices and everything. You didn't dream it.
posted by Youremyworld at 8:31 PM on July 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by Youremyworld at 8:31 PM on July 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
I’d suggest that it’s less likely that someone got through iOS security and more likely that some app you installed was either backdoored or compromised. It could also be as simple as a credential replay attack - do you reuse you login/password across multiple apps? If someone got your credentials from a different hacker credential dump they may have used it to log into a different messaging app you had installed by using the same credentials.
posted by GuyZero at 9:35 PM on July 19, 2021
posted by GuyZero at 9:35 PM on July 19, 2021
If this is happening to multiple people with the same voice lines, this feels like a scam. Some app staying in the background, possibly displaying ads without checking their audio content or maybe just on its own, playing a voice clip made to make you feel like someone is listening in. Maybe it's a prank, maybe it's trying to sell protection you don't need, maybe it's something worse. You and Amtho's friend could compare notes and see what apps you have in common, or if there's a common ad provider or something.
posted by wanderingmind at 9:57 PM on July 19, 2021 [25 favorites]
posted by wanderingmind at 9:57 PM on July 19, 2021 [25 favorites]
If you get a phone call or email in the next few days trying to sell you antivirus software, definitely ignore it.
(I haven't hear of this particular thing happening, that's just what I'd expect to happen next from reading about a lot of similar scams)
posted by wesleyac at 1:49 AM on July 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
(I haven't hear of this particular thing happening, that's just what I'd expect to happen next from reading about a lot of similar scams)
posted by wesleyac at 1:49 AM on July 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
Had you been reading about the NSO spyware that's much in the news? That could definitely trigger a dream.
Also, change your Wifi password. It could be a very local hack.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:33 AM on July 20, 2021
Also, change your Wifi password. It could be a very local hack.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:33 AM on July 20, 2021
I am surprised no one here has yet mentioned the Pegasus (NSO Spyware) leak that broke the other day. Link to NY Times (paywall) here. The leak showed that several governments have used Pegasus outside of its "intended" means for spying on terrorists, instead also using it to spy on journalists and activists. Pegasus is also what Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS) used to spy on Jeff Bezos via Bezos' mobile phone microphone/speaker (Wired article).
Note that these Pegasus leaks were shown to reveal insecurities in the iOS software.
I'm not saying this to alarm you - unless you are a journalist or activist of some kind - but more to give you some insight into the current state of hacking and surveiling. This Pegasus leak probably has zero to do with your situation. But it could provide you with some context as well as some reading/rabbit holes to go down if you're curious.
There is already some really great advice here from folks with far more technical knowledge than me, so take most of what I say with a grain of salt. That being said, if I was in this situation, I would listen again to this Reply All episode about SIM swapping and phone security and follow all of the advice; there are links in the episode description that provide more info on how to secure your phone.
posted by nightrecordings at 6:32 AM on July 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
Note that these Pegasus leaks were shown to reveal insecurities in the iOS software.
I'm not saying this to alarm you - unless you are a journalist or activist of some kind - but more to give you some insight into the current state of hacking and surveiling. This Pegasus leak probably has zero to do with your situation. But it could provide you with some context as well as some reading/rabbit holes to go down if you're curious.
There is already some really great advice here from folks with far more technical knowledge than me, so take most of what I say with a grain of salt. That being said, if I was in this situation, I would listen again to this Reply All episode about SIM swapping and phone security and follow all of the advice; there are links in the episode description that provide more info on how to secure your phone.
posted by nightrecordings at 6:32 AM on July 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have zero trust in Brave. As you have already wiped the device we will never know, but that's where my suspicion would be.
posted by Lanark at 9:12 AM on July 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Lanark at 9:12 AM on July 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
So if it happened to someone else too, with the same lines spoken, I am 99,9% sure it's some app showing a scammy ad. I got hooked on this stupid free game and have been playing it a lot on my tablet, so I've seen a ton of ads. The ads were incredibly deceptive, using all kinds of tactics to get you to click on them and install something.
Still, if it happened to me, I would've done the same as you: freak out and wipe everything. I would also change my important passwords just in case (especially anything you used on the iPad).
posted by gakiko at 12:48 PM on July 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
Still, if it happened to me, I would've done the same as you: freak out and wipe everything. I would also change my important passwords just in case (especially anything you used on the iPad).
posted by gakiko at 12:48 PM on July 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
This spooky thing happened to us: A friend came over to talk to us about a confidential personal problem. I left my ipad sitting up but the screen was dark; I had not installed Siri on this ipad. In the middle of our conversation a Siri voice said, “I’m sorry but I did not catch that.”. We were all a bit freaked out so I powered down the ipad.
posted by serendipityrules at 5:58 AM on July 21, 2021
posted by serendipityrules at 5:58 AM on July 21, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by GuyZero at 4:57 PM on July 19, 2021