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Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

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Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#191

Post by ncmncm »

areyouseriousxx wrote: post #129
HALtheWise wrote: post #101

Am I the only one who has far more sensitive content visible on the screen and filesystem of my computer than through its camera? I feel like, at least for the threat models that I consider likely, if someone manages to hack my laptop and get (for example) microphone access, the thing I am most worried about is that they will use acoustic analysis of keystrokes to recover my banking password, not that they will hear…

Obtaining compromising video and/or audio of you or someone you care deeply about will often be more than enough to obtain things like banking information and file access.

Yes. Ultimately the main purpose of any surveillance system is extortion. Nudies are not relevant to the topic. Evidence of crime or other compromising behavior is.

It doesn't even need to be about you. It could be about your parent, child, or sibling. What judge wants to risk exposing a relative to prosecution, even if the relative would be acquitted?

If you wonder about inexplicable judgments, consider the possibilities.

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#192

Post by j1elo »

drivebycomment wrote: post #157
kiallmacinnes wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most phones use Assisted GPS. It's a combination of cell tower triangulation and GPS. You'll get a potentially inaccurate "GPS" location based on the cell towers and signals you can see, and this will eventually turn into a real GPS lock. As I understand it, this cell tower location actually helps achieve a real GPS location faster that would be normal - but I'm unsure how that would work .. I'd be guessing at best ;…

For non-assisted GPS, the GPS device needs to download orbital information from the satellite directly when first powered on - with only ~50 bits/s of bandwidth, it can take a while - minutes to tens of minutes. With Assisted GPS, the GPS device can download the satellite orbital information and almanac directly from AGPS server (e.g. cell phone tower), usually at much higher bandwidth - as those local, always-runnin…

Then how do the classic driving GPS devices work? I'm thinking here good old TomTom models, mine must have like what, 10 years?

It typically claimed (not using it much lately) to have GPS reception after maybe 20 or 30 seconds since power up.

I believe it cached the position of the GPS satellites, or something similar... could that be it?

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#193

Post by sagarptl04 »

monocasa wrote: post #66
narrator wrote: post #60

TVs and other gadgets that have no microphones or video cameras embedded in them should have a certification like "organic". "NoSpy Certified" or a similar trademark would be appropriate right next to the UL and CE marks.

Well, 'organic' as a certification doesn't really mean anything. And UL was kind of a joke from having dealt with them personally.

it is wrong view

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#194

Post by rtkwe »

lrem wrote: post #176
devoply wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupid sexy Chromecast. It's good there is no microphone in it like the Nest... or is there?

How were they finding the cast in the same room again?

IIRC it was creating it's own wifi access point your phone scanned for and connected to to configure it. I haven't set one up in a while though so maybe it changed.

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#195

Post by sagarptl04 »

monocasa wrote: post #90
yayadarsh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely untrue. "Organic" is a regulated term by the USDA, requiring verification from an accredited certifying agency.

USDA organic allows non organic pesticides and herbicides. It's a joke of a standard.

there are some organic & inorganic ingredient allowed in organic farming. Depending upon below criteria 1) allowed (2) Banned (3) Restricted. Before questioning on organic everyone must understand concepts & standards of organic. You could email me @ vivekon.export@gmail.com or +91 8550994623 Regards, Sagar

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#196

Post by VvR-Ox »

narrator wrote: post #60

TVs and other gadgets that have no microphones or video cameras embedded in them should have a certification like "organic". "NoSpy Certified" or a similar trademark would be appropriate right next to the UL and CE marks.

To get an equivalent to all those meaningless "BIO" certificates?

You know that every loudspeaker can be used as a microphone, do you?

You know that even stuff without radio can be converted to send files wireless (e.g. CPU as radio, already published a while ago by someone)?

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#197

Post by rolph »

squarefoot wrote: post #189
rolph wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and check out the Project-Byzantium. https://github.com/Byzantium/Byzantium https://project-byzantium.org/ https://hackaday.com/2015/04/28/meshing-pis-with-project-byz...

Uses kernel 3.x and latest commit is dated 2014 though. I believe there are more actively maintained mesh networking options in OpenWrt.

The important part is the configs, other than that is just another distro. a very small niche group serviced this distro, and it seems to be derelict. The useful part of BZ mesh is USB bootup. so any machine can become and unbecome a node. sometimes something is finished and nothing further is done then a new way pops up. the advantage to porteus is its pared down for rapid boot up, to reestablish a node while walking about on the fly.

" Major changes include: Kernel 4.16.3 Core is based on Slackware current 7 desktop options to choose from! http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/dl.porteus.org/"

i believe its OLSR you may like.https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Mesh_Networking_with_...

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#200

Post by cmrx64 »

btashton wrote: post #140
cmrx64 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the case of Purism’s Librem 5 (unreleased), it’s not a disable pin, it’s removing power entirely from the wifi peripheral. Which is a step up for sure.

If it is the same as the laptop they are using the W_DISABLE pin not power.

Yeah, according to the devkit schematics the switch controls W_DISABLE- their blog post talks about the virtues of "removing power"...
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