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Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

briarproject.org

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Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#81

Post by redundantly »

cva wrote: post #72
redundantly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nyet. An SD card in a card slot can only be accessed as a mass storage device. A USB drive can act as a mass storage device as well as a keyboard and mouse and even contain an entire OS on it that could be remotely accessible via WiFi.

fwiw, it is most definitely possible to build an sd card that can exfiltrate its own data over wifi. in fact, that was the entire point of the Eye-Fi[0] product (though not with any nefarious intent). though granted that's still a way smaller attack surface than what would be typically granted to a usb device. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye-Fi

I had forgotten entirely about Eye-Fi. Excellent point!

When it comes to physical access, especially with shared physical devices, there's always going to be some type of attack vector, however small it may be.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#82

Post by sliken »

throw8932894 wrote: post #5
rchaud wrote: post #4

Peer to Peer data transfer via computing devices is something I wish was be more mainstream. It's not, because the commercial cloud storage mafia has invested heavily in telling people that your data has to traverse their toll roads first. I recently discovered Syncthing Fork which was customizable in a way Google Drive or alternatives were not. And it's entirely P2P, transmitting files between my laptop and my phone…

With termux it is pretty simple to run sshd and rsync on android phone.

Or just adb push/pull, which is a nice way to transfer files (like music) over a USB cable. Even charges the phone at the same time ;-).

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#83

Post by outworlder »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #29
rchaud wrote: post #4

Peer to Peer data transfer via computing devices is something I wish was be more mainstream. It's not, because the commercial cloud storage mafia has invested heavily in telling people that your data has to traverse their toll roads first. I recently discovered Syncthing Fork which was customizable in a way Google Drive or alternatives were not. And it's entirely P2P, transmitting files between my laptop and my phone…

> Peer to Peer data transfer via computing devices is something I wish was be more mainstream. It's not, because the commercial cloud storage mafia has invested heavily in telling people that your data has to traverse their toll roads first. Been in software half my life never heard anyone saying anything like this. It's most of the time easier and more efficient to use cloud storage than to spin up and bootstrap a p…

> It's most of the time easier and more efficient to use cloud storage than to spin up and bootstrap a p2p system

Is it though? I've found that non technical family members will happily use Apple's airdrop to share things.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#84

Post by xori »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #77

I'm a bit doubting about this feature: "Share the app with people nearby without internet access" Hey fellow protester, here is a binary for you to install on your device. That doesn't sound dangerous, right?

It's actually built into vanilla android https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/9283534?hl=en

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#87

Post by rchaud »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #30
rchaud wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use cases described are niche enough that iOS users can buy a second Android phone to use it with.

Or they could just use a different solution that supports both Android and iOS. Most people won't carry a second device for just one app.

I think activists and journalists will make the sacrifice considering the nature of what they do.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#88

Post by rchaud »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #27
rchaud wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, I couldn't change my 2006 phone's wallpaper without paying Verizon to enable the USB connection with a PC. I ended up taking a picture of the wallpaper using the phone, and then setting that image as the wallpaper. It was a 2-inch screen so it didn't look too bad.

Yeah I heard US telecoms were insanely draconic (why were they allowed to act like that though? lobbying?) In Europe they weren't saints either but they weren't as bad when locking down your phone and mostly just resorted to SIM-lock, instead of locking other features as well.

From what I remember, Verizon did this with dumbphones, which I think ran similar OSes. So if you wanted to change the ringtone, you had to buy it from the crappy e-storefront on the phone. Same for wallpapers, and moving phone pictures to a computer via USB.

In 2008 I picked up a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone (Samsung Blackjack) that didn't have any such restriction. USB worked and it had a microSD slot for me to add in movies and music. I could crop an MP3 and simply transfer it to the Ringtones folder via USB mass storage.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#89

Post by rchaud »

ziml77 wrote: post #73
rchaud wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, I couldn't change my 2006 phone's wallpaper without paying Verizon to enable the USB connection with a PC. I ended up taking a picture of the wallpaper using the phone, and then setting that image as the wallpaper. It was a 2-inch screen so it didn't look too bad.

Was there no way to flash it with a less restricted firmware? I remember running Alltel firmware on my Verizon Razr. And I was able to do similar things to the Rizr I got as my next phone.

Back then I had no idea about the homebrew firmware community. It was years later that I got Windows Mobile and discovered XDA Developers.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#90

Post by rchaud »

dashundchen wrote: post #24
rchaud wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's how the "share song" feature of Zune MP3 players worked.

The Zune actually shared songs via WiFi. Microsoft unfortunately dubbed this feature "squirting" and initially had some silly DRM limits of three plays before the shared song expired. Nonetheless the Zune was an excellent music player.

I didn't realize it was using Wifi. I do remember that unfortunate name though.
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