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Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

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Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#111

Post by deegone »

finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #13

I wasnt aware of this wifi blob. This feeds a tiny paranoia I have at the back of my head when dealing with esp32/espressif. I have dozens of esp32s around and I love them, but Espressif is 100% Chinese. Im uncomfortable with what I read that every company of significant size in China automatically requires CCP party members to be involved in the company at a high level. So Im very happy to hear people such as these…

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/events-awards/singapore-bus...

Learn more about Espressif's founder. And I think the CCP party cannot impact Espressif.

------- Singapore’s bilingual education gave the engineer an adequate command of Chinese; he played translator for his Chinese and non-Chinese speaking staff in meetings during Espressif’s early days.

And the time he spent in national service with the Singapore Armed Forces taught him the importance of being in the front line, of knowing the ground well.

The CEO believes that entrepreneurship cannot be taught. One needs to have a head for risk-taking, creativity, a big-picture perspective, and to be prepared to fail.

And passion, of course.

He has a nugget of wisdom for those who have yet to find theirs: “There are two things that drive people... One is passion, the other is fear... If you lose that fear, you might find your passion.”

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#112

Post by throw0101c »

boffinAudio wrote: post #95
finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #13

I wasnt aware of this wifi blob. This feeds a tiny paranoia I have at the back of my head when dealing with esp32/espressif. I have dozens of esp32s around and I love them, but Espressif is 100% Chinese. Im uncomfortable with what I read that every company of significant size in China automatically requires CCP party members to be involved in the company at a high level. So Im very happy to hear people such as these…

Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs. So I'm not sure that framing your paranoia in terms of "the Chinese" is productive - you might just want to update that thought with "any state actor who operates covert…

> Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs.

Yes, except the China also 'infiltrate' Chinese companies themselves, and can perhaps order them to put in backdoors.

The NSA generally does not order US companies around, as evidenced by the fact it's been documented that they intercept shipments and compromise the systems on their own:

* https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa...

If the NSA had an 'in' into Cisco (or Juniper, or Aruba, etc), they wouldn't need to clandestinely have their own 'compromise factories'.

Yes, both the Chinese and NSA do cyber stuff, but so does every country. At the very least the odds of getting a 'clean' product from an American supplier compared to a Chinese one are higher: the links between Chinese companies and government are often murky.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#113

Post by boffinAudio »

throw0101c wrote: post #112
boffinAudio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs. So I'm not sure that framing your paranoia in terms of "the Chinese" is productive - you might just want to update that thought with "any state actor who operates covert…

> Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs. Yes, except the China also 'infiltrate' Chinese companies themselves, and can perhaps order them to put in backdoors. The NSA generally does not order US companies aro…

>Yes, except the China also 'infiltrate' Chinese companies themselves, and can perhaps order them to put in backdoors.

As does the USA's own spy agencies. There is literally no moral authority on this issue that can be claimed by America over China. Did you overlook the multiple NSA backdoors implemented by Microsoft over the years, or just have not caught up to this situation, yet? See also - Intel: TPM.

>The NSA generally does not order US companies around

I believe this to be false on the basis of multiple whistleblower leaks which demonstrate otherwise. Not to mention that American companies have evolved the canary mechanism as a means of bypassing strict secrecy rules around disclosure of this influence by the spooks.

>At the very least the odds of getting a 'clean' product from an American supplier compared to a Chinese one are higher: the links between Chinese companies and government are often murky.

I do not believe this to be true one bit. China and America are equivalent when it comes to trustworthiness, which is to say neither country has the moral authority to claim a more ethical behaviour over the other when it comes to human rights.

China doesn't operate Pine Gap - the worlds biggest, wholesale violator of human rights at massive scale, ever.

And then, there's this:

https://www.androidauthority.com/apple-google-push-notificat...

Not much different to what the CCP can do to its people...

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#114

Post by rkfjrjrkfnrkd »

crote wrote: post #82
throw0101b wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't this invalidate the FCC certification on the prebuilt modules? MAC is at OSI Layer 2. FCC concerns about radio power occur at the PHY layer, OSI Layer 1: > On the ESP32, the PHY layer is implemented in hardware; most of the MAC layer is implemented in the proprietary blob. One notable exception to this separation is sending acknowlegement frame: if a device receives a frame, it should send a packet back to…

It's not that simple. Besides implementing a SoftMAC, the blob is also responsible for setting up the PHY, so it would definitely be able to adjust things like transmitting power. See the part describing `esp_phy_enable()`.

If you know where to look, I'm quite sure you can already do this with vanilla ESP-IDF. I don't have a VNA or whatever is used to measure power at the antenna, but I do have a precision ammeter that confirmed my changes were effective at the supply. I only changed PHY power parameters and a lot more power was going somewhere.

Also, in my limited understanding, even changing the physical antenna can alter transmission power characteristics in such a way that it likely violates some limit, at least for some very specific wavelength or direction.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#115

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

lannisterstark wrote: post #85
mardifoufs wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the two not equivalent? If anything, for anyone living in the west it's probably less of an issue to have China spy on them than a western government. Sure, at a state security level it's not but for regular individuals I sure would rather have China spy on me since they can't do anything to me directly.

You have at least some civil rights in those countries, you don't in China. Be careful of a layover.

civil rights.... haha

i live under a literal tyrant right now in india. does it really matter if i have "Civil rights" and china and usa and india is snooping on me?

https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2023/12/02/kollam-chi...

here. this is literally fresh off the oven.

26000 people's internet history was looked with a fine tooth comb in order to find that one IP which had viewed tom and jerry on youtube. youtube wouldnt give information but ISPs are by law or otherwise willing to "help" the police because its a "my way or highway" rule with the government.

so my point is, did i consent to this snooping? i am "supposed" to have laws but "think of the children". next time it is political opponents or dissidents as has been the case.

this isn't just in india or china or usa but everywhere.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#116

Post by 123pie123 »

DeathArrow wrote: post #86
finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #13

I wasnt aware of this wifi blob. This feeds a tiny paranoia I have at the back of my head when dealing with esp32/espressif. I have dozens of esp32s around and I love them, but Espressif is 100% Chinese. Im uncomfortable with what I read that every company of significant size in China automatically requires CCP party members to be involved in the company at a high level. So Im very happy to hear people such as these…

I use a Chinese phone with a Chinese ROM. I installed Google service as apps, with limited permissions. I'd rather have Uncle Xi listening than Uncle Sam.

you're either very naive or a pro-china supporter

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#117

Post by p_l »

hmottestad wrote: post #98
boffinAudio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs. So I'm not sure that framing your paranoia in terms of "the Chinese" is productive - you might just want to update that thought with "any state actor who operates covert…

I think that US agencies are not as interested in stealing trade secrets or harming US companies as other countries would be.

NSA is infamous for its involvement in stealing trade secrets and generally cooperating clandestinely to for example ensure US company wins the bid. And the competition is often supposed US allies.

It also rather infamously claimed it never partakes in industrial espionage, despite it being somewhat well documented in 1990s that they do.

Generally, if the contract is big enough, and specially if the companies involved have military/intelligence ties otherwise as well (every bigger MIC corp), you can expect ITC, NSA, CIA and occasionally FBI and others to all be involved in unethical work related to getting the contract won by US vendor.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#118

Post by seniorivn »

rowanG077 wrote: post #88
jszymborski wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) The activities of the US gov't have precisely nothing to do with the probability that a device from China has some backdoor or surveillance function. When someone raises this concern, the response "the USA has a history of surveiling its citizens" is not a rebuttal, it's irrelevant. Thus a whataboutism. 2) Your burden of proof might be different from mine, but one needs to be pretty naive to think that the CCP doe…

1) of course it does. This is an information cold war. If participant 1 is doing something then participant 2 is forced to do at least the same thing so as to ensure they don't fall behind. It's very naive to not expect the actions of one state to not affect the actions of the other.

you either intentionally or unintentionally phrased it in a way that blames unnamed participant 1. And given the context of this conversation, it seems that you blame US for CCP's inevitable spying. Seems weird given the kind of government CCP is(hint, the name).

In my opinion US is only at fault for spying on it's own citizens(im not citizen nor resident of the us), and in doing so it undermined its counter intelegence actions against state adversaries. Next time there is a good guy in the white house, All intelligence apparatus should be dismantled and replaced with something more transparent for the people, even though the reality where most of the world is despotic by design and there for hostile to a supposed to be free nation is still there.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#119

Post by johannes1234321 »

dariosalvi78 wrote: post #83
RF_Savage wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because of FCC certification requirements. Usually, if the end user can modify the lowlevel radio firmware on the device, the device looses it's FCC certification and cannot be sold in USA. It also seems that Espressif has bought their wifi IP, so their contracts and licensing terms with the IP vendor likely prevent any sharing. But FCC is the reason for closed binary blob firmware for all wifi radios out there…

I don't understand how the license affects certification TBH. As this post clearly shows users can implement their own stack if they really want to, it's not that the license is going to prevent them. Why can't one have an open source stack with specific builds that are approved, tested and certified?

They can, but they lose their certification. Same if you don't use a certified board your antenna might need new certification of your device. It may work, but if authorities find out it may become quite expensive.

I can also remove my lights and breaks from my car and it will still work, but if authorities find out I might be in trouble.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#120

Post by trallnag »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #115
lannisterstark wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have at least some civil rights in those countries, you don't in China. Be careful of a layover.

civil rights.... haha i live under a literal tyrant right now in india. does it really matter if i have "Civil rights" and china and usa and india is snooping on me? https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2023/12/02/kollam-chi... here. this is literally fresh off the oven. 26000 people's internet history was looked with a fine tooth comb in order to find that one IP which had viewed tom and jerry on youtube. youtube…

The person was talking about "the West" vs China. India is not part of "the West".
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