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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

#151

Post by david_allison »

trogdor wrote: post #139
kasabali wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So drug lords throwing mobile phones out of the car window after each call is just a movie trope?

I am a reporter, and I cover crime. Occasionally, I cover a story whose publication might endanger people. Think cases involving gang violence and/or individuals cooperating with law enforcement. Before I publish those stories, I contact the lead detective on the case to ask whether that concern has merit, and whether certain people’s names, for example, should be anonymized. In one of those conversations, I was aske…

I suspect this is survivorship bias: you're more likely to catch criminals who have bad opsec.

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

#152

Post by nix23 »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #137
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.…

Are you saying that a phone manufactured in 2022 can have its firmware remotely changed to record microphones? Specifically can your whatsapp/signal audio calls be recorded by FBI remotely in this manner?

>whatsapp/signal

Hint, it's not the application you use but the microphone/speaker itself.

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

#153

Post by david_allison »

sph wrote: post #106
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…

Do we have Amber Alerts in UK? I never got one, and I'd like to be told if I'm about to get nuked or an asteroid is imminent.

Emergency alerts (not Amber) are planned in 2023. Apparently there was a test today on some networks.

https://www.gov.uk/alerts

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

#154

Post by MiddleEndian »

Doesn't surprise me, Android lets carriers and manufacturers install all sorts of garbage you can't remove. It's a pretty terrible operating system. I just disable amber alerts when I get a new phone, never gotten any other type of alert in the US, haven't ever gotten an alert in another country. I also hear that Canada sends out amber alerts with an unblockable "presidential" priority, so if I were ever to move to Canada, I would figure out how to disable that type of alert as well.

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

#155

Post by dividuum »

javajosh wrote: post #116
Blue111 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

Time to put on that tin foil hat and read: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3309074.3309076 :-)

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

#156

Post by brainchild-adam »

lizardactivist wrote: post #63

Not sure if it's related or just Apple's data-greed and malice, but on a previous iPhone, iMessage and FaceTime would turn on by itself every time the phone was restarted, again 24 hrs later, and one final time 48 hrs after that.

That sounds horrible.

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

#157

Post by lgdskhglsa »

cutler wrote: post #150
MengerSponge wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What on earth does this have to do with the parent post? Please enlighten me.

it's a reference to The Office, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlIzKaGBeHk

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

#158

Post by doubled112 »

MiddleEndian wrote: post #154

Doesn't surprise me, Android lets carriers and manufacturers install all sorts of garbage you can't remove. It's a pretty terrible operating system. I just disable amber alerts when I get a new phone, never gotten any other type of alert in the US, haven't ever gotten an alert in another country. I also hear that Canada sends out amber alerts with an unblockable "presidential" priority, so if I were ever to move to C…

Tornado? Nuclear strike? Missing child? It's all the same level of danger, right?

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

#159

Post by iforgotpassword »

josephcsible wrote: post #135
iforgotpassword wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just root the device, then you can disable it. And don't give me any of this "it should be possible to do this without rooting the phone" Smartphones are already locked down in a million other ways compared to eg a desktop Linux install. Why is this different?

> Smartphones are already locked down in a million other ways compared to eg a desktop Linux install. Why is this different? It's not, but it's bad that smartphones are locked down like that, so we should be pushing back on it at every opportunity.

I'm with you there and in general, it just feels like a rather minor point even just compared to the excessive tracking Apple and Google do. I'm just thinking of the recent news where it was discovered iphones still send tracking data home even if disabled in the settings. That's way more concerning to me at least.

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

#160

Post by mmastrac »

trogdor wrote: post #139
kasabali wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So drug lords throwing mobile phones out of the car window after each call is just a movie trope?

I am a reporter, and I cover crime. Occasionally, I cover a story whose publication might endanger people. Think cases involving gang violence and/or individuals cooperating with law enforcement. Before I publish those stories, I contact the lead detective on the case to ask whether that concern has merit, and whether certain people’s names, for example, should be anonymized. In one of those conversations, I was aske…

You'd think the criminals would at least watch The Wire for some basic OpSec.
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