Unlike the audio eavesdropping feature that was removed, the "Stealth Camera" feature is definitely still enabled and still works.
Bennett Haselton, bennetthaselton@gmail.com
Highster Mobile is a "stalkerware" app, which one person can use to spy on another person's cell phone. The software is made by ILF Mobile Apps corporation in New York state, founded by Patrick Hinchy. Bizarrely, despite listing their CEO's real name and operating out of a publicly accessible office park, the company engages in multiple practices that are pretty clearly illegal:
The company openly encourages the use of their software to spy on spouses and relationship partners, with marketing copy like: "The perfect tool to catch a cheating spouse, Highster Mobile remains undetectable on the target phone. The user will never know the app is installed and collecting data." While many stalkerware companies such as TheTruthSpy and mSpy.com promote their product for spousal spying as well, they tend to be located beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. In the U.S., makers of stalkerware have been arrested and indicted for promoting their products for this purpose.
The software has a "Stealth Camera" feature to remotely take pictures using the camera of the phone being spied on, thus implicitly also violating the privacy of other users being photographed in private spaces without their consent.
A previous version of Highster Mobile had a "listen to surroundings" feature to remotely activate the microphone on someone's phone and eavesdrop on the room. Patrick Hinchy said this feature was removed after another stalkerware maker was arrested for selling similar software (even though spying on a spouse's text messages is already illegal, remote audio eavesdropping also violates federal wiretap laws which are even stricter). But removing the feature presumably does not absolve the company of liability for selling copies of the software that did have the feature enabled.
The company creates third-party sites to post fake "independent reviews" giving positive ratings to their own products. While this is not as controversial as encouraging husbands to spy on their wives, the FTC has taken actions against companies for using fake online reviews to promote themselves (see here and here) and the New York Attorney General has as well.
A collection of quotes from the company's different websites, encouraging users to use the software to spy on their spouses or domestic partners, is listed on this page. There are 25 examples from the company's main sites selling the software, and over 100 examples from the domain BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com (which is also made by ILF Mobile Apps but masquerades as a third-party "independent review" site).
The site BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com also has its own YouTube channel, which includes an awkwardly racist video of an actor playing a stereotypical thug and addressing the viewer:
"You gonna let your girlfriend cheat on you, homes? Yeah, you! You don't let that happen, brolio!"and going on to promote the stalkerware app "PhoneSpector" also made by ILF Mobile. You can download a saved copy of the video here (ignore the prompt to download the app, and click "download video in browser"). The same actor appears in another video in the same channel wearing a suit and promoting Highster Mobile for business use.
While I was testing Highster Mobile on an Android phone, this was the selfie that I took by propping up the phone on
my desk and then using my PC to log in to the Highster Mobile web interface and activate the "Stealth Camera" feature:
Unlike the audio eavesdropping
feature that was removed, the "Stealth Camera" feature is definitely still enabled and still works.
In this video from 2015, Patrick Hinchy (pretending to be a third-party "independent reviewer" -- but we'll get to that later) describes the feature: "With the click of a button, you can now record the surroundings of the phone you are monitoring, and have that recording uploaded to your Highster account."
It's unclear when the feature was removed, but in this New York Times article from 2018, Hinchy said they removed the feature after the maker of a similar product called StealthGenie was charged with violating wiretap laws.
Most mentions of the "Listen to Surroundings" feature have been scrubbed from the Highster Mobile marketing website, but a few still remain, such as this page which advertises "MICROPHONE ACTIVATION - Activate the phone microphone and listen to everything that is happening."
The site https://bestcellphonespyapps.com/, which promotes most of ILF Mobile's products, carries a disclaimer which says: "We are independently owned, and the views and opinions expressed on this website are purely the writer's own." The entire "Affiliate Disclaimer" repeats this claim multiple times:
"This disclosure is provided so you as a consumer understands the relationship between a person reviewing, endorsing, or writing about a product or service and the product owner or service provider. This website participates in various affiliate programs in which the owner(s) receive a commission whenever you purchase through a link on this site. These links can be in the form of text links located throughout the site, in blog posts, on pages, linked from images within a post or on a page, buttons, within the sidebar, and graphic ads such as banners. Even though the owner(s) of this website may have been provided compensation, we always post honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences based on our research and/or experience with the product or service. We are independently owned, and the views and opinions expressed on this website are purely the writer's own. Any product claim, feature, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified."And the first words on the BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com front page are: "I'm Pat Stanley -- Welcome to Best Cell Phone Spy App Reviews!"
However, BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com also has its own YouTube channel, and in this video, which begins:
"Hi everyone, Pat here from BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com"the narrator is clearly Patrick Hinchy, the founder of ILF Mobile Apps, which makes the spyware programs that BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com promotes.
 "Pat" from BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com |
 Patrick Hinchy on the ILF Mobile Apps "Team" page |
(He is so committed to the ruse, though, he refers to "Highster Mobile and the brand-new feature that they just rolled out" -- "they", of course, being his own company.) You can download a saved copy of the video using a "YouTube saver" service by clicking here (ignore the prompt to download the app, and click "download video in browser").
While this is a laughably lazy effort to hide the identity of a fake "third-party reviewer", it does still appear to violate the letter of the law.
(Also, in the "author byline" on an
article on BestCellPhoneSpyApps.com,
the name "Pat Stanley" is accompanied by a photograph, but the photograph is loaded from an address suggesting
that the subject is really a person named Louis Reed:
https://bestcellphonespyapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/louis-reed.jpg
A reverse Google Image search failed to turn up any other copies of this picture, and
a Google Image search for "Louis Reed" doesn't turn up anyone who looks like the person in the photo.)
