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Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

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Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#111

Post by i_am_jl »

willyt wrote: post #77

I can totally understand why Americans would want to silence these. I'm from the UK and I was in Central Park with my wife and kids when we got an 'Amber Alert' which said something like 'Black Ford SUV reg XYZ123' or something equally cryptic. It was not long after the terrorist attack in Nice where a guy drove a truck thorough a crowd of people walking beside the beach. Everyone's phones started going at the same t…

>I can totally understand why Americans would want to silence these.

Oh, it gets better. We also, by default, get alerts for severe/extreme weather. Nothing like getting an emergency alert because a tornado touched down on the other side of the state, or a flash-flood warning while you're at home, 300' above the nearest body of water.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#113

Post by sgjohnson »

jethro_tell wrote: post #81
1337biz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me paranoid but I would assume that intelligence services keep a special eye on newly activated non-smartphones.

Sure, but can they get a warrant and tap it in <24 hours? IDK, but that sure raises the barrier to entry.

When have intelligence services used warrants? They gather evidence illegally and pass it to law enforcement who then do parallel construction.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#114

Post by archi42 »

kornhole wrote: post #95
qbasic_forever wrote: post #51

Wait until your learn what a country or local government/police can do remotely to the baseband firmware of your phone with a court order... 10-20 years ago the FBI was regularly remotely programming firmware to listen in and record cell phone microphones to capture conversations of suspects. IIRC a mafia case hinged on data gathered in this way so it is not some abstract theoretical or crackpot theory ( https://www.…

I rotate burner SIM's. I never make calls with the SIM. Instead I use jmp.chat if I need to use OTA calls or SMS. I am in airplane mode 99% of the time and use WIFI instead of cellular. I never activate cellular near my home. I am always connected to VPN so that the traffic cannot be analyzed. My phone is anonymous without any identifiers. I think all this mitigates the baseband attacks, but tell me if I am missing s…

In theory: 1. Wait until you enable the cellular again 2. push an update to the baseband firmware 3. when you disconnect, the new firmware will tell the OS that the baseband is disconnect, in reality, it's doing nasty stuff. You'd only notice it due to the battery draw.

You need burner phones to cycle after each usage.

TBH, seems you cranked up the paranoia to 11. The VPN has to terminate somewhere, so if I was a state actor attacking you, I'd figure out where that is. WiFi+BT firmware isn't bullet proof, either, and hypothetically an exploit chain could be found to enter via WiFi and stealthy enable cellular. In practice XKCD #538 applies: https://xkcd.com/538/

For most of us the attacker is someone trying to make some money by scamming, stealing CC or installing a malicious app.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#115

Post by cvbrty »

kornhole wrote: post #95
qbasic_forever wrote: post #51

Wait until your learn what a country or local government/police can do remotely to the baseband firmware of your phone with a court order... 10-20 years ago the FBI was regularly remotely programming firmware to listen in and record cell phone microphones to capture conversations of suspects. IIRC a mafia case hinged on data gathered in this way so it is not some abstract theoretical or crackpot theory ( https://www.…

I rotate burner SIM's. I never make calls with the SIM. Instead I use jmp.chat if I need to use OTA calls or SMS. I am in airplane mode 99% of the time and use WIFI instead of cellular. I never activate cellular near my home. I am always connected to VPN so that the traffic cannot be analyzed. My phone is anonymous without any identifiers. I think all this mitigates the baseband attacks, but tell me if I am missing s…

Airplane mode doesn't shut off your baseband. It just sends it a message saying "go into airplane mode". The firmware is still running. It could still be receiving and sending data for all you know.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#116

Post by javajosh »

Blue111 wrote: post #108
qbasic_forever wrote: post #51

Wait until your learn what a country or local government/police can do remotely to the baseband firmware of your phone with a court order... 10-20 years ago the FBI was regularly remotely programming firmware to listen in and record cell phone microphones to capture conversations of suspects. IIRC a mafia case hinged on data gathered in this way so it is not some abstract theoretical or crackpot theory ( https://www.…

> It's only gotten worse as phones have gotten more capable I wish my cellphone would not have all those sensors for this reason...

The camera and mic are pretty easy to destroy if you want to get rid of them!

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#117

Post by brainchild-adam »

msingh_5 wrote: post #97
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because another country has a law does not mean my phone should disregard what I told it to do. This absolutely is a user setting. How far we've fallen from sharing the DeCSS flag, to arguing that users shouldn't have control over their devices, and governments and carriers should.

You enter a new country, in case Germany, you're automatically opted in to the emergency broadcast notifications, as any other local laws. The EU legislation allows "opt out" from level 2/level 3 notifications, but is based on the notion that messages are received "without the need for the public to have to opt-in". So for compliance sake, you're opted in. Maybe this should only happen the first time you enter EU or…

She actually opted out already being in Germany, and once she noticed the reverted settings, she turned them off again. Only to find they get turned back on by the carrier, enforcing a specific set of settings against her will. Which is when she told me about it. In this case it's more about the principle. At least for now.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#118

Post by siftrics »

kornhole wrote: post #95
qbasic_forever wrote: post #51

Wait until your learn what a country or local government/police can do remotely to the baseband firmware of your phone with a court order... 10-20 years ago the FBI was regularly remotely programming firmware to listen in and record cell phone microphones to capture conversations of suspects. IIRC a mafia case hinged on data gathered in this way so it is not some abstract theoretical or crackpot theory ( https://www.…

I rotate burner SIM's. I never make calls with the SIM. Instead I use jmp.chat if I need to use OTA calls or SMS. I am in airplane mode 99% of the time and use WIFI instead of cellular. I never activate cellular near my home. I am always connected to VPN so that the traffic cannot be analyzed. My phone is anonymous without any identifiers. I think all this mitigates the baseband attacks, but tell me if I am missing s…

If the VPN is compromised, you're compromised.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#119

Post by MengerSponge »

kornhole wrote: post #95
qbasic_forever wrote: post #51

Wait until your learn what a country or local government/police can do remotely to the baseband firmware of your phone with a court order... 10-20 years ago the FBI was regularly remotely programming firmware to listen in and record cell phone microphones to capture conversations of suspects. IIRC a mafia case hinged on data gathered in this way so it is not some abstract theoretical or crackpot theory ( https://www.…

I rotate burner SIM's. I never make calls with the SIM. Instead I use jmp.chat if I need to use OTA calls or SMS. I am in airplane mode 99% of the time and use WIFI instead of cellular. I never activate cellular near my home. I am always connected to VPN so that the traffic cannot be analyzed. My phone is anonymous without any identifiers. I think all this mitigates the baseband attacks, but tell me if I am missing s…

I break into Tiffany's at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No, I go for the chandelier. It's priceless. As I'm taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It's her father's business. She's Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning, the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada. I don't trust her. Besides, I like the cold. Thirty years later, I get a postcard. I have a son and he's the chief of police. This is where the story gets interesting. I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris by the Trocadero. She's been waiting for me all these years. She's never taken another lover. I don't care. I don't show up. I go to Berlin. That's where I stashed the chandelier.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#120

Post by javajosh »

petee wrote: post #103
willyt wrote: post #77

I can totally understand why Americans would want to silence these. I'm from the UK and I was in Central Park with my wife and kids when we got an 'Amber Alert' which said something like 'Black Ford SUV reg XYZ123' or something equally cryptic. It was not long after the terrorist attack in Nice where a guy drove a truck thorough a crowd of people walking beside the beach. Everyone's phones started going at the same t…

Ex boyfriend disappearing with a child is totally worth an Amber Alert, and a couple hundred miles is only a couple hours drive by the time they put the alert out...its easy enough to just keep an eye out for a license plate. Nobody is going to know for sure if its a false alarm, or if we'll wind up with a murdered child until after the fact, so why wait or ignore it?

Clearly you haven't been involved in a child custody case. If you had, you'd know the kinds of tricks people will play, up-to-and-including falsely claiming the child has been kidnapped and is under threat. Family court never, and I mean NEVER, holds anyone accountable for false accusation, and there is a subset of family law attorneys in every town who knows this and uses it, if they get a chance. The collateral damage, "boy who cried wolf" style, is just another unhappy side-effect of this practice.

As for the risk of a murdered child, well, if that argument works for you, then why stop there? Why should police have to wait for a search warrant...what if we end up with a murdered child? Why should police have to avoid using deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect...what if we end up with a murdered child? Of course, we already have a (rather large, vocal) group of people who believe exactly this, which is why CPS is called on parents who, for example, run into a bakery, with their minivan idling with 6 kids in it, and get arrested for child endangerment.

It's easier to take an extreme, confident position when you don't know anything about it.

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