I was told it is becoming customary in eastern europe for men to place their cellphones with removed batteries on the table before meetings.

Good. I like Eastern Europe a whole lot in the next few years, actually. As an aside, I have begun noticing lots of small mentions of CCCP out and about (t-shirts, stickers, etc). Anyone else spotted this trend?

How would they do that scientifically, if it is powered off?

This was discussed alot on hacking sites back when there was a high-profile case involving it. In fact, it is not powered completely off and can be turned on remotely, particularly if you install some software on the victim’s phone (not as hard as you might think.)

You could write a cell program that causes the screen and all indicators to be off, but still receives and transmits with the mic on.

I was told it is becoming customary in eastern europe for men to place their cellphones with removed batteries on the table before meetings.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/03/google_eavesdropping_software/

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/techn...06/googles-tv-eavesdropping-plan.html