Unless you block, modify or disable certain daemons, any Android device can be told to update the radio firmware by the carrier. This is called FOTA, firmware o

Unless you block, modify or disable certain daemons, any Android device can be told to update the radio firmware by the carrier. This is called FOTA, firmware over the air. As an aside, when I was porting Linux to the Motorola Q I realized I could easily turn off the display and key backlight and turn on the microphone and camera though the sysfs,this would appear to anyone as if the phone was off but I could remotely control it (SSH tunnel) and capture audio and video. The only problem would be the heat, but someone would likely assume it was used for a while before powering it off. This without any low-level firmware change, just booting GNU/linux ;) from HaRET.