I wholeheartedly believe the ClA/NSA can hack into a smartphone and give its user cancer by emitting high radiation. This is based purely off vibes. Can any actual engineers chime in on this?

You need ionizing radiation like UV rays or shorter wavelengths to cause cancer. Phone radios can't generate UV rays, and that's not an engineering/software thing, that's Actual Physics. Furthermore, harmful ionizing radiation caused by photons would cause distinctive sunburn injuries. Also wouldn't penetrate clothing unless it was up into x-ray radiation and you need specialized machines to do that, phones simply don't have the power needed.

Also, cancer from radiation isn't an instant thing, it requires years and years of compounding cell replication errors to eventually stumble into the right combination of mutations. We're talking years to decades from initial exposure to cancer, and it's not even 100% likely to kill you.

If the CIA wanted you dead they'd just shoot you or cut your brake lines or something similarly quick and easy.

I actually designed this feature. They paid me in the form of a lifetime supply of those little plastic frogs that jump when you press down on them. It's convenient because I'm always losing them.

Cell phones can't produce ionizing radiation, which is the kind that damages cells and causes cancer.

As long as you aren't made of magnets you're probably fine

Cell phones use really low power non-ionizing radiation to communicate. Cancer is caused by particularly unlucky mutations to genes. To get those mutations you need ionizing radiation. Cell phone antenna and transmitters are physically incapable of producing the type of energy required to alter genes. Generally, improvements in power draw to make batteries last longer keep making the signals transmit less energy- we have been getting better at using things like the spatial diversity of multiple antenna to get sufficient signal with more bandwidth and less power.

But, hey, every time you are exposed to sunlight, that is ionizing radiation (hence things like melanoma). Taking a plane flight increases your risks because gaining altitude removes some of the protective atmosphere between you and our local star.

The CIA revealed that they used to have a heart attack gun. If they are willing to admit that, then they almost certainly have something much better. Rest assured it isn't your cellphone antenna.

You can get a Geiger counter and then it next to your phone. Ionizing radiation is pretty darn easy to detect and if it were the case someone else would have noticed it.

They have a heart attack gun, a stroke gun, and they definitely have a cancer gun. Why make a random smartphone into cancer radiating device when you can just give the target a zap of the cancer gun? Seems easier, just saying.

The radios and antennas in a smartphone are no where near powerful enough for that.

The cia could just break into your house or car and place a few chemicals into your food or something. So they can do it without this. The physics don't. Check out. Your battery would explode long before it could put out enough power to irradiate you harmfully.

No. Your phone radio is incapable of producing ionizing radiation and you will melt your radio before you can pump out enough non ionizing radiation to hurt you.

It is true

I drive a train, so I know

Not how phones work.

yeah they did it to me and now I have havana syndrome

It is true. You know how your phone begins to drain it's battery when it gets older? That's because the CIA turned on the cancer rays. Getting a new phone helps because it takes some time for the CIA to discover that you've got a new phone.

This is why you should use burner phones btw.

You need to be worried about the Frey effect but across different spectra, not cancer.

why would they have to do that when everything about capitalism is already giving you cancer including the mass production of plastics, all of the food you eat, the train derailments, the underground garbage fires that are slowly heading towards piles of nuclear waste, the pollution, and the stress of needing a meaningless job to survive.

Many people are saying this.

Yes, it is common knowledge🤷

Sony has shown that it can (accidentally/negligently) short circuit its hardware via firmware updates. I’m sure cyberwarfare agencies have the capabilities to remotely detonate your phone’s battery. The CIA have already allegedly hijacked a vehicle and killed an American journalist.

But just from a pragmatic perspective, it doesn’t make sense to give someone cancer especially through phones. You want to kill or permanently incapacitate your target as quickly as possible. Or in the case of Russia, you want to slowly poison your target with radiation because they’re traitors who need to be made examples of - but those cases are odd because the Brits don’t allow any evidence or witnesses to be disclosed even in court. But cancer relies too much on the person’s genetics. If they’re strong, then they have a chance of beating it, not to mention cancer is universally disliked and garner a lot of sympathy which you want to avoid.