> I did read the article, no it's not a genuine piece of hardware, they changed the microcontroller.
They took the genuine piece and swapped some stuff out and modified firmware, not just made a straight up fake. That's why it was hard to detect, it was a completely genuine device on the face of it.
> And by the way, it's also possible to do the same exact thing in an iPhone right now, somebody could totally hook up a microcontroller with a microphone straight to the battery.
Yes. But that is tricky (not much free space in the body to add something new) and can probably be detected visually. However if somebody swapped an existing part like a camera for a fake camera that acts like a camera but also spies on you then it would be tricky to visually see, but the phone would warn you.
