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Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

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Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#91

Post by brightsize »

mads wrote: post #16

Isn't the EngineerMode APK an MTK app? I have been involved in developing an Marshmallow MTK based phone in the past and in my experience their BSP's were pretty messy. I.e. a lot of cleaning up is necessary if you want a relatively quiet logcat and debugging APK's removed - even for user builds. Edit: I must have remembered wrong or I saw the EngineerMode on the QComm device we developed before our MTK based device.…

Here we go (Blu Studio Max): adb shell am start -n com.mediatek.engineermode/.EngineerMode

This is going to be a fun morning.

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#92

Post by octalmage »

ksk wrote: post #78
mads wrote: post #29

User builds on some Chinese phones are pretty sloppy. I needed to access an old Oppo phone the other day, where I couldn't remember the PIN. Luckily ADB was enabled, which suggests that their production software might have been a userdebug build. I couldn't enable root via ADB, since it was at least a production/user build, but the su binary was already on the phone, so I just su'ed and got a root prompt. From there…

My Chinese phone (iPhone 6s) had a similar flaw. Okay, that was tongue in cheek, but I don't see how adding the China qualifier adds anything new or interesting other than inject bias.

Does the iPhone 6s have a similar flaw? I'm still using one.

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#93

Post by zeppelin101 »

ethagnawl wrote: post #63
hanklazard wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve made the same decision re: android and apple. I really wish there was a decent Linux phone I could buy ... anyone know if there are any good contenders or future prospects?

It hasn't been released yet, but Purism recently smashed their fundraising goal for the Librem 5. From the description linked to below: > Librem 5, the phone that focuses on security by design and privacy protection by default. Running Free/Libre and Open Source software and a GNU+Linux Operating System designed to create an open development utopia, rather than the walled gardens from all other phone providers. https…

This is truly impressive. I'll be following this project.

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#94

Post by nyargh »

lurker12390879 wrote: post #81
danjoc wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_baseband If it has GSM/LTE/CDMA/etc baseband processor with closed implementation, assume it has remote root backdoor. Samsung has already been caught. osmocombb tried to solve this. That project is essentially dead.

Librem 5 is a partial solution because the baseband has no access to the system.

Still has DMA, no?

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#95

Post by dopamean »

nucleardog wrote: post #80
dopamean wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have TWRP installed. Thanks for the links. It looks like this will be simpler than I thought. I'm a little paranoid about bricking my phone as I only bought it a year ago and I'd have to have to get another.

It's generally really hard to truly brick a phone these days. People throw around the term like it's lost all meaning - usually when someone says they "bricked" their device, they're meaning that "it was moderately inconvenient to recover and I lost my data". Not that it's a literal brick that they now put in the garbage bin. If you've got recovery, you've got an easy path to getting it up and running again. Just ref…

Fantastic. Thanks for the info. Like I said, the last time I had done this was a few years ago when the risk of "bricking" a device seemed a bit more real. I'm glad to know that getting TWRP installed was a good move.

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#96

Post by matt_wulfeck »

octalmage wrote: post #92
ksk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Chinese phone (iPhone 6s) had a similar flaw. Okay, that was tongue in cheek, but I don't see how adding the China qualifier adds anything new or interesting other than inject bias.

Does the iPhone 6s have a similar flaw? I'm still using one.

He was joking. The 6s and pretty much every new phone using a Secure Enclave to make brute forcing anything technically impossible.

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#97

Post by matwood »

Tarq0n wrote: post #88
matwood wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she's stuck using Safari and seeing ads. So, so many ads. Ads everywhere. I never see ads on my phone, but on hers the Internet is nothing but ads as far as the eye can see. Purify is an ad blocker that works great on the iPhone. Content blockers have been a supported part of iOS for the last couple versions. Apple actually caught a lot of flack from websites for allowing them. > But at least with Android I have fr…

iTunes is user hostile. I might try an iPhone if not for the terrible experience of managing one on Windows. I was also unimpressed by how difficult it was to get my family member's pictures out of their cloud offering, when asked to do so for relatives.

You know the iPhone has not needed iTunes for quite awhile? I'm not even sure about the last time I started iTunes on my computer. Even moving from an iPhone to a new iPhone is as simple as holding the 2 phones close together and signing in on the new phone.

iCloud also works fine with Apple devices, but can be mostly skipped. Google Photos will happily upload all the pics on the iPhone to Google pictures. The 5GB iCloud is then plenty for iPhone data backups.

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#98

Post by eximius »

hanklazard wrote: post #41
logingone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an HTC bootlooped by an OTA, hence my now having a OnePlus3. Getting fed up with all this nonsense. Seems to me the android ecosystem is just too wild west, especially for such an important device, and may now have to head to apple. I see I also have this EngineerMode, data usage 1.4MB since Aug 7, modify system settings enabled. When I tweeted them about the recent data collection issue they replied with "it'…

I’ve made the same decision re: android and apple. I really wish there was a decent Linux phone I could buy ... anyone know if there are any good contenders or future prospects?

Hopefully: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/.

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#99

Post by mads »

ksk wrote: post #78
mads wrote: post #29

User builds on some Chinese phones are pretty sloppy. I needed to access an old Oppo phone the other day, where I couldn't remember the PIN. Luckily ADB was enabled, which suggests that their production software might have been a userdebug build. I couldn't enable root via ADB, since it was at least a production/user build, but the su binary was already on the phone, so I just su'ed and got a root prompt. From there…

My Chinese phone (iPhone 6s) had a similar flaw. Okay, that was tongue in cheek, but I don't see how adding the China qualifier adds anything new or interesting other than inject bias.

Sorry, I didn't mean it in a bad way or to bash anything Chinese, which usually also grinds my gears and I fully understand what you say as I used to live and work in China for some years and I am fully aware of the capabilities of many Chinese factories.

I should probably have said "cheap phones" - I am not sure. Every ODM/OEM is different.

But it is an interesting discussion for sure and made me think about my experiences. What kind of software engineering department would make a mistake like this? I bet 1 USD that I could spend one hour with their engineers and I would be able to predict if this would be a mistake they would make. :)

Re: Backdoor with root access found from OnePlus phones

#100

Post by kogepathic »

nyargh wrote: post #94
lurker12390879 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Librem 5 is a partial solution because the baseband has no access to the system.

Still has DMA, no?

No, the baseband radio will not be connected to the SoC via DMA.

They are proposing to use an external baseband with a USB or UART interface to the main SoC and a kill switch.

https://forums.puri.sm/t/level-of-freedom-of-librem-phone-es...

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