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Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

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Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#181

Post by eitland »

ekianjo wrote: post #170
heydabop wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to get that radical with "nothing to hide". Next time someone says that ask if they use blinds in their house/apt, if you could setup a webcam in their living room, or if you could just read some texts between them and a significant other. Or ask for their passwords, date of birth, SSN, credit card numbers, pets' names, and parents' names. Simple things like this are why I talk to people via Signa…

Signal is centralized and is an obvious target for surveillance so I would not even remotely rely on it.

The point of Signal is supposed to be that to the best of our knowledge, even if all its packets are run through FSB and NSA, and even if they captured all Signal employees at once and somehow forced them all to cooperate, your messages should still be safe until they manage to push an app update that compromises the app.

Of course this only helps as long as your device isn't backdoored but that is true for any app.

(I say this as someone who regularly defend Telegram here, because in my opinion I don't have to pick one or another.)

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#182

Post by harry8 »

jollybean wrote: post #140
harry8 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without disagreeing with anything you've said there, even if you /think/ you have nothing to hide now and happen to be correct in practice, it's a terrible assumption to think that you can count on that being true forever. Imagine you witness a murder in a restaurant, cold blooded and it's dirty cops working for a three letter institution that did it. You want to give evidence like a law abiding, upstanding citizen w…

The 'Dirty Cop is Gonna Get You' is the 'gradeschool silliness' here. It's 1000x more likely that the criminals who did the murder want you killed because you're a witness. Witness intimidation is widespread and 'default' in some communities ('snitches get stitches'), and while the 'Dirty Cop' thing does happen in reality, it happens mostly on Netflix, and there's a difference between overzealous prosecutors/cops and…

I wish I could live in a world where I can sustain the fantasy that power will not be abused whenever the abuser can get away with it.

The power is asymmetric. The NSA, CIA, FBI, Apple, Google, Police have a lot of power so they need to be very, very transparent in its use and oversight. You do not have that power, privacy is the only thing you can have to protect yourself from abuse.

The other point about about not having to worry about it as an individual is equally wrong. The equivalent argument is that you aren't a doctor so you don't need to worry about a purge of all doctors if one were proposed. Whereas obviously you do need to worry if anyone you care about ever gets sick. So it goes with standing up to corruption. Even if _you_ never stand up to it, your life is greatly adversely affected the harder that is for genuine heroes who make the sacrifice to do it because its the right thing.

"If you have nothing to hide you have been conned."

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#183

Post by heydabop »

ekianjo wrote: post #170
heydabop wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to get that radical with "nothing to hide". Next time someone says that ask if they use blinds in their house/apt, if you could setup a webcam in their living room, or if you could just read some texts between them and a significant other. Or ask for their passwords, date of birth, SSN, credit card numbers, pets' names, and parents' names. Simple things like this are why I talk to people via Signa…

Signal is centralized and is an obvious target for surveillance so I would not even remotely rely on it.

Gee, thanks for contributing to the conversation and providing a useful alternative.

The only semi-popular better option I can think of is Matrix, but getting people on Signal is already hard enough and using Matrix on a mobile device is (last I checked) far from ideal.

Security is a gradient, not an all-or-nothing. Signal is vastly better than almost every other electronic communication method.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#184

Post by 14 »

azinman2 wrote: post #89
xg15 wrote: post #82

In some way this feature reminded me of Android's song detection functionality which is also on by default and is constantly listening in the background [1]. So now tech companies normalized that: - the mic is always on. - the phone is always on, even when it's off. (thanks to AOP) - devices are always online even when they are offline.(thanks to company-operated p2p networks like Find My or Sidewalk) What could poss…

Yes which supports all kinds of functionality that people like. Just because you have a processor on or mic listening for wake words doesn’t mean everything is always being transmitted or evil is being done. State actors could do this selectively regardless even before these features. There have been attacks on Motorola razrs, etc for spying. Long before the smartphone, they just implanted microphones, shine lasers o…

I used a company called mobile spy over a decade ago back on the old iPhone 4s. I was able to see a lot of information and believe the premium features allowed you to silently make a call to the phone which it would automatically answer and leave no trace so you could call and listen in. You of course could see sent images and messages. Websites visited and all sorts of spying. It was very fun to play with at the time it made me realize that anyone could spy on me if they get my device for a bit. I also realized that if all my messages are being sent to this company and I can read it in plain text then so can they. I deleted it and never did try the premium mode.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#185

Post by SwaraLink »

nojs wrote: post #11

Maybe I missed it in the article but how does it work with Bluetooth exactly — how does that help my find my phone over a long distance? What’s the Bluetooth connecting to and how does the phone get the request?

There’s no actual Bluetooth connection that happens here. The AirTag or other FindMy-enabled device is purely transmitting. The packets being transmitted are Bluetooth Low Energy advertisements (sometimes referred to as “beacons”). Any Apple device can perform Bluetooth Low Energy scanning and can listen for these advertisements, and report what they’ve found to Apple’s servers.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#186

Post by CharlesW »

bsder wrote: post #130
pininja wrote: post #15

Very interesting read. This seems to be implemented as a Bluetooth LE app running on the ultra-low power “always on processor” used for a variety of features, like “wake-up on motion.” Much like an Tile or AirTag is implemented. No comment on what this is capable in the future.. but for now this shows power usage / signal strength / proximity of other “actually on” devices are a limitations of this feature. What’s im…

> This seems to be implemented as a Bluetooth LE app running on the ultra-low power “always on processor” used for a variety of features, like “wake-up on motion.” Which, presumably, mere mortal developers have no access to? Sigh. Again.

> Which, presumably, mere mortal developers have no access to?

I sure hope not, since "mortal developers" include countless bad actors. Apple has an imperfect record, but at least has a vested interest in avoiding abuse.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#187

Post by phist_mcgee »

harry8 wrote: post #116
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chances of you being directly spied on are low. The chances of someone being spied on who could influence the world around you is much higher. So a journalist could be spied on right before they break a big story, potentially leading to a cover up. That’s the problem with stuff like this. Even if you have “nothing to hide” you might rely on someone who legitimately does.

Without disagreeing with anything you've said there, even if you /think/ you have nothing to hide now and happen to be correct in practice, it's a terrible assumption to think that you can count on that being true forever. Imagine you witness a murder in a restaurant, cold blooded and it's dirty cops working for a three letter institution that did it. You want to give evidence like a law abiding, upstanding citizen w…

Tangentially related to events you may not consider to be relevant now, but become so in the future is Roko's Basilisk.

Reader beware.

https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#188

Post by CharlesW »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

So this is why the government will never force Apple to have easy to remove batteries.

> So this is why the government will never force Apple to have easy to remove batteries.

The government did not force Apple to use non-user-replacable* batteries. Which is good, unless you're a fan of government-designed hardware and software.

(*Well, not easily user replaceable: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+12+Battery+Replacement/1...)

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#189

Post by SwaraLink »

nojito wrote: post #114
solarkraft wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because the bluetooth tracking is a lot more accurate. But since not even Apple can access the data (or so they claim), this shouldn’t be useful for surveillance.

Bluetooth tracking is noisy and a waste of time for external actors because you can't match it other data points.

Not sure I agree here. Most Bluetooth Low Energy devices (aside from Apple Devices and Android phones) don't make use the privacy feature and therefore their device address can be linked to a specific product. Many Bluetooth products have user accounts attached to them (think fitness trackers and AirTag-like products) meaning that the device address can be tied to a specific user.

Now consider the vast number of “smart nodes” out there (eg street lights) that have multi-protocol connectivity built into them. Whoever controls these nodes can simply scan and log every BLE advertisement that is nearby.

I’m not saying that this is the only way that a person can tracked or that this kind of tracking is definitely happening right now, but it’s a very real possibility.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#190

Post by SwaraLink »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #151

With this feature enabled, can adversaries (with a bluetooth antenna) detect your phone's presence, even if it's off? What do they see? Do they see your device name eg. "Craig's iPhone", or do they just see random alphanumeric characters?

Apple devices all use a private resolvable Bluetooth address that changes every 15 minutes. That, along with a cryptographic payload, protect against this.

Aside from Apple products and Android phones, most other Bluetooth Products do not use private resolvable addresses, and many have the issue that you describe. The name isn’t always so obvious, but sometimes there is identifiable data that can be read.

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