Mumbai, Nov 26(AZINS) How helpless and insecure do you feel when you hear about bomb blasts, terrorist attacks or even cyber crimes? It's scary, isn't it? But did you know that you carry around an effective tool to tackle such issues right in your pocket? We use smartphones extensively for chatting, emailing, gaming and several other daily activities. And we'll show you how you can use the same tiny gadget to make yourself feel a little safer.

Here are a few apps that you can equip your smartphone with to track potential threats or suspects:

1. TerrorView 

This app, developed by ConteGoView, Inc., uses proprietary technology and on-the-ground intelligence experts to accumulate and analyse data from over 100,000 sources, alerting users about any terrorist, cyber and biological threats across the world or in their vicinity. So, if you're a parent or traveller who wants to know about major epidemics or terrorist threats near your own or your child's vicinity, this app can provide life-saving information in case you run short of time to contact the relevant authorities.

TerrorView scans information and "chatter" found in thousands of public places, giving its users quick access to information, analysis and recommendations on their smartphones. This helps you to be better informed or prepared to tackle any potential threats or mishaps in your day-to-day life.

2. FlexiSPY 

This is a cell phone monitoring software that offers cross-platform solutions for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Nokia-Symbian to consumers, corporates and government markets. It can help you intercept a live call for Android, Blackberry, iPhone while providing complete invisibility on Symbian platforms. It comes equipped with full featured remote controls and allows GPS location tracking as well. It can help you track the location and movements of a person on a map as well as compiles all the details in a report for comprehensive analysis.

3. mSpy 

This a popular app that helps you track all the text messages on someone's mobile phone. It is compatible with almost all the mobile devices, can be installed within than a few minutes and enables text-tracking on a phone that you have no physical access to. Of course, this app can have darker applications; any stranger can lay his hands on your private conversations with just your phone number.

4. PowerSpy

Did you know the power your phone consumes over time can now reveal your location?  Researchers at Stanford University and Israel’s defense research group Rafael came up with a technique called PowerSpy, which can gather information about an Android phone’sgeolocation merely by tracking its power usage over time.  This data is not coordinated with GPS or Wi-Fi location tracking, and can be accessed freely by any app installed with the user’s prior permission.

The technique works on the fact that a smartphone's cellular transmissions use more power when further away from a cell tower, and when blocked by obstacles like  mountains or large buildings. Slip the added software into an app and convince the user to download it, and PowerSpy can locate them with 90 percent accuracy in real time.  Even an app like Angry birds that doesn’t ask for GPS access can give you the location or route a suspect takes while driving his car by simply reading power consumption.

5. Highster Mobile 

Remotely spying on a mobile phone is untrod ground for most smartphone users. This particular software can let you secretly monitor any cell phone. It keeps track of incoming and outgoing text messages on the monitored phone and sends this information to your Online User Control Panel for immediate assessment. Enabled with GPS-supported location tracking, it detects and updates the location of the target phone every 10 seconds.

6. LOCINT or Location intelligence

Although this software does not qualify as an app, it's made its entry to this list because of its unique “geo-fencing" capability. It ensures that anytime a mobile device enters a demarcated territory, your system will be alerted and will automatically send you a message as an alert. The technology lets you locate a cell phone within a range of 50 meters. So, if your suspect is around you and is carrying a cell phone and you know his number, you can track his “digital footprint” wherever he goes.

There’s more! The system can also potentially help law enforcement clamp down during a terror bombing incident. If the device is one that's activated by a phone call or text message, the authorities can block all connectivity in the area around the bomb, effectively cutting off  the bomb's trigger mechanism, while retaining network access for designated numbers.

This could have been a vital boon during the terror attacks in Mumbai, as it could have helped authorities identify every cell phone operating in the vicinity of the attacks, potentially cutting off the terrorists' main line of communication.