WHY IS IT WATCHING YOU?
The motivation for software hacking can be anything from pure malicious joy to criminal financial gain. Hacked phones and computers can be used for elaborate pranks, anarchic assaults, or destructive vendettas. They can also be used to capture sensitive financial information, passwords, or to steal your identity.
Millions of identity records are stolen every year. Your identity could have been compromised months or years ago, and you might never know—or you might find out five years from now when some Russian mobster finally gets around to starting an Xbox Live account with it. Even if your ID or financial information never gets used, they are still valuable. Identities are traded on the black market just like guns and drugs. Your identity is a commodity, and criminals will gain access to it however they can.
The government probably isn’t watching you, unless your cell phone was used as part of a crime. The police have to have probable cause and a warrant before they can tap and track a cell phone or a GPS unit. Federal agencies don’t always pay attention to the law, but they are supposed to operate under the same constraints as the police. In any case, tracking every gadget in the world simply isn’t possible. If the government is watching you through your mobile phone, it’s doing so because you have valuable intelligence or information that can be used in a criminal prosecution.