Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

mikrophone.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#71

Post by joemazerino »

lizknope wrote: post #54
wepple wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or _who_ is leading this project. There’s a gigantic difference between someone who has experience designing and building complex systems to be secure and private… and someone who thinks “how hard can this be? There’s gotta be a market for it!” I can’t tell which one this is

How the FBI's fake cell phone company put criminals into real jail cells https://www.npr.org/2024/05/31/1197959218/fbi-phone-company-... https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163389/joseph-cox-dark-... I remember this story. The FBI created cell phone business targeting criminals. They got criminals to believe it was a secure network all while listening in.

There is a distinct difference between a publicly offered MikroPhone and a phone swapped between criminals. Not every phone is some honeypot.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#72

Post by Neywiny »

mshockwave wrote: post #64
Neywiny wrote: post #16

This is like, barely risc-v. As far as I can tell, there's a risc-v management micro, an esp32 that I'm not easily finding a part number for so may as well be Tenscilica, and an app processor that's ARM based. I don't understand the GPU chip if you have the app processor, and I don't understand the management micro if you have custom ESP32 firmware. And a lot of SoMs have WiFi + Bluetooth on board. So I also don't un…

I was just wrapping my head around on how do they even run linux on the RISC-V microcontroller they use. Turns out there is a separate ARM for application processor.

Yeah. As I'm sure you're aware, you can get Linux capable RV. I mean you can build mmu-less as well but there's plenty of I think it's M extension cores out there. This isn't that. This is a design that happens to use at least one RV core and happens to be capable of hosting a modem card. It's not a RISC-V mobile phone.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#73

Post by saagarjha »

gruez wrote: post #39
Syonyk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...but never once mention what sort of threat model they are private/secure against. You know, they're Secure(TM)! Against Threats(TM)! Buy me if you're scared of Threats(TM)! Threat modeling ("Secure from who? Under what conditions?") sort of stuff just doesn't seem to be a thing that's taught these days outside certain weird circles. And certainly something this project hasn't touched on in the slightest. But, ye…

>As far as I understand the boot process, Apple has largely fixed a lot of the "before first unlock" type attacks with their secure enclave. They fixed that rather well after the battle with the FBI, and seem to have continued hardening and improving that process (hence my recommendation for the latest generation or two of device - there are changes in the boot security flows every now and then, and I assume they mat…

It is very difficult to protect against AFU attacks, because any remote 0-click can work for AFU unlocks.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#74

Post by Neywiny »

tredre3 wrote: post #19
Neywiny wrote: post #16

This is like, barely risc-v. As far as I can tell, there's a risc-v management micro, an esp32 that I'm not easily finding a part number for so may as well be Tenscilica, and an app processor that's ARM based. I don't understand the GPU chip if you have the app processor, and I don't understand the management micro if you have custom ESP32 firmware. And a lot of SoMs have WiFi + Bluetooth on board. So I also don't un…

> an esp32 that I'm not easily finding a part number for so may as well be Tenscilica On their dev board it's the usual esp32-wroom. They also say their esp32 firmware needs esp-idf 4.2, which doesn't support any of the risc-v esp32. So it is xtensa. I agree that everything could be done with the esp32 alone (well, an wrover with extra RAM) but this project seems to be just a guy experimenting and having fun! Althoug…

Great for experimentation, but that's where it should end. If this is a cash grab or anyone is seriously considering buying it I think better products do or could exist. They'd be easier -> cheaper to design, maintain, source and assemble. 3 chips to do what's already built into the SoM connector is unideal.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#75

Post by lazyeye »

lizknope wrote: post #54
wepple wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or _who_ is leading this project. There’s a gigantic difference between someone who has experience designing and building complex systems to be secure and private… and someone who thinks “how hard can this be? There’s gotta be a market for it!” I can’t tell which one this is

How the FBI's fake cell phone company put criminals into real jail cells https://www.npr.org/2024/05/31/1197959218/fbi-phone-company-... https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163389/joseph-cox-dark-... I remember this story. The FBI created cell phone business targeting criminals. They got criminals to believe it was a secure network all while listening in.

Dark Wire by Joseph Cox covers the whole story

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Wire-Incredible-Largest-Operatio...

It was a real conundrum for law enforcement agencies because at some point they had to stop facilitating crime and start exposing it.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#76

Post by stonogo »

umbra07 wrote: post #30
Syonyk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...but never once mention what sort of threat model they are private/secure against. You know, they're Secure(TM)! Against Threats(TM)! Buy me if you're scared of Threats(TM)! Threat modeling ("Secure from who? Under what conditions?") sort of stuff just doesn't seem to be a thing that's taught these days outside certain weird circles. And certainly something this project hasn't touched on in the slightest. But, ye…

Er, no, that would be locked-down GrapheneOS, on a Pixel. There's a multitude of reasons - but here's the biggest one: Apple's Lockdown mode is all or nothing. You can't selectively enable certain features that you may truly depend upon. On the other hand, GrapheneOS allows you to selectively disable individual security features that may be too overbearing. It would be far easier to daily drive a GrapheneOS Pixel tha…

The reason I use an iPhone instead of a Graphene device is that Graphene does not support sufficient device attestation to run Microsoft MDM, which means I can't get to my work calendar.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#77

Post by debit-freak »

ziddoap wrote: post #11

It's a bit of an annoyance when products talk a lot about "privacy" and "security", but never once mention what sort of threat model they are private/secure against. Then add in something like a bespoke (unvetted?) communication protocol on top and my eyes really start to roll. The people who really want privacy & security enough to be willing to buy something like this will want a lot more detail than what is offere…

[dead]

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#78

Post by entropicdrifter »

Neywiny wrote: post #72
mshockwave wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just wrapping my head around on how do they even run linux on the RISC-V microcontroller they use. Turns out there is a separate ARM for application processor.

Yeah. As I'm sure you're aware, you can get Linux capable RV. I mean you can build mmu-less as well but there's plenty of I think it's M extension cores out there. This isn't that. This is a design that happens to use at least one RV core and happens to be capable of hosting a modem card. It's not a RISC-V mobile phone.

From what I can tell, the RISC-V processor handles all of the phone functionality in a way that's almost entirely decoupled from the app-module/smartphone features. The phone part has its own firmware and drives the screen separately from the app-module. They added a green indicator light to show when the RISC-V "core" is using the screen vs when the app-module is.

The graphics processor is probably just for when the RISC-V core takes over the screen, as well.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#79

Post by aksss »

lazyeye wrote: post #75
lizknope wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the FBI's fake cell phone company put criminals into real jail cells https://www.npr.org/2024/05/31/1197959218/fbi-phone-company-... https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163389/joseph-cox-dark-... I remember this story. The FBI created cell phone business targeting criminals. They got criminals to believe it was a secure network all while listening in.

Dark Wire by Joseph Cox covers the whole story https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Wire-Incredible-Largest-Operatio... It was a real conundrum for law enforcement agencies because at some point they had to stop facilitating crime and start exposing it.

(judgement aside, just facts) There's a lot of that going on with the FBI, including bot nets / marketplaces that they commandeer. How long do you let it continue? It's a fantastic way to gather intelligence, and the risk that a market player may be LE adds more peril for the players engaging in it.

Re: MikroPhone: A privacy enhanced, simple and featured RISC-V mobile phone

#80

Post by Neywiny »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #78
Neywiny wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. As I'm sure you're aware, you can get Linux capable RV. I mean you can build mmu-less as well but there's plenty of I think it's M extension cores out there. This isn't that. This is a design that happens to use at least one RV core and happens to be capable of hosting a modem card. It's not a RISC-V mobile phone.

From what I can tell, the RISC-V processor handles all of the phone functionality in a way that's almost entirely decoupled from the app-module/smartphone features. The phone part has its own firmware and drives the screen separately from the app-module. They added a green indicator light to show when the RISC-V "core" is using the screen vs when the app-module is. The graphics processor is probably just for when the…

What's the purpose though? You can put your own code on the app processor too. I don't know Android kernel dev but presumably with aosp you can do whatever the RV core does either in the A class core or using one of the many SoMs with built-in M class cores.
Post reply on HN