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Blackphone

blackphone.ch

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Re: Blackphone

#181

Post by agwa »

rdl wrote: post #168
agwa wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what you'd like to see in a travel router. Is it mainly the software or hardware you think needs work, or both? On the software front, I have an OpenWRT image which I think works pretty well for travel which I've been meaning to publish (routes all traffic over an OpenVPN tunnel and can act simultaneously as a WIFI client to the hotel network and as an access point for your own network). The hardware is n…

Hardware. USB powered. Dual radio, ideally dual dual band (so 4 radios which can be 1-4 in use). Ethernet port. Probably a USB port for 4g. Ideally a good form factor. Probably no battery, use a USB battery or laptop. My goal would be to never ever connect my devices to wifi, and run everything through the device. There are lots of attempts to make current hw work for this, but while you can get close, nothing is goo…

Thanks.

Yes, it sounds like it will be challenging to fit everything in the power budget. Do you think there's a need to use this on battery power? Won't most people be using it in a hotel room? A wall wart that's compact and dual-voltage would work for me and would provide much more power than USB.

I'll also put in a pitch for at least two Ethernet ports, so you can use one for connecting to the hotel and another for your LAN, in case WIFI's not cutting it or you need to connect a non-WIFI device (in my case, a VoIP phone).

One usability problem which has vexed me is that most hotels force you through a captive portal, which doesn't work if you're routing all traffic over a VPN. (Some even make you do it every 24 hours!) My latest solution is a special Ethernet port that's on a separate subnet which isn't routed over the VPN. You use that for going through the captive portal and then you switch over to WIFI or another Ethernet port. I think a hardware switch to turn the VPN on and off would also be a good solution.

Re: Blackphone

#182

Post by agwa »

rdl wrote: post #170
agwa wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what you'd like to see in a travel router. Is it mainly the software or hardware you think needs work, or both? On the software front, I have an OpenWRT image which I think works pretty well for travel which I've been meaning to publish (routes all traffic over an OpenVPN tunnel and can act simultaneously as a WIFI client to the hotel network and as an access point for your own network). The hardware is n…

The problem with doing wifi weird bridge mode where you are on both networks leads to performance issues on busy networks because you are necessarily on the same channels. It might be worth giving that up since then existing hardware is usable.

Yeah, it's definitely suboptimal but it seems to work. If it's easy to have a second radio then you should probably have one. On the other hand, urban areas are usually so saturated with access points that using a separate channel might not gain you much.

Re: Blackphone

#183

Post by ThatGeoGuy »

reedlaw wrote: post #139
revelation wrote: post #33

The privacy issue in smartphones isn't the freaking application processor running Android. Sure, that ones terrible enough. But the actual problem is the baseband processor running completely non-free software, with an enormous attack surface and access to all the interesting periphery (GPS, microphone). There is not just opportunity to compromise your privacy, Qualcomm and others actively implement such features at…

I totally agree that adding privacy features to what is essentially a tracking device isn't addressing the right issues. Why not start out with simply a free, private laptop? Something that uses Coreboot and doesn't require any firmware driver blobs. This is something that so far, only one Chinese company has been able to do, albeit producing only a rather underpowered model [1]. Where are the private laptops that ri…

You appear to have missed the article by the free software foundation where they approved another, fully free computer.

See: http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/

Re: Blackphone

#184

Post by notdrunkatall »

panacea wrote: post #56
joosters wrote: post #19

Completely useless web page. All wooly 'feel-good' words and no hard, concrete information. So I guess we just have to take it on trust then? Also, their privacy policy is laughable: We turn the logging level on our systems to log only protocol-related errors - great! the pages on our main web site pull in javascript files from a third party. This allows our web developers and salespeople to know which pages are bein…

"Blackphone is re-shaping the landscape of personal communications. Pre-ordering begins..." How is it re-shaping anything before it's started shipping?

Do you even marketing, somewhat obtuse bro?

Re: Blackphone

#185

Post by daxelrod »

dobbsbob wrote: post #90
rdl wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that your "high side" device is a phone, with all your apps, etc. It communicates over a well defined interface (USB seems like the best, but bt or wifi could be adequate given certain considerations) to a fully-functional mifi dongle or whatever which does normal cell/public-wifi/etc. functionality. No compromise of the external cell modem can get at high side data. The current "baseband can DMA your mai…

Snapdragon and every other baseband coming out has them on an 'all in one' chip which is application CPU and baseband sharing direct memory. Unless you have a microscope you can't build a hw firewall. Cryptophone uses an older Samsung to do this but has no SIM protection. The firewall isn't foolproof either it only detects extended use of the baseband cpu without the application cpu being busy then shuts down the dev…

> Another problem is simply walking around with 2 phones which is an opsec indicator for feds that you are up to something and req targeted surveillance. They have full automated access to every cell tower db to look for this as per snowden docs dumped on cell meta data

Do you happen to have a link? That's pretty terrible for anyone with a work phone and a personal phone.

Re: Blackphone

#186

Post by count »

rdl wrote: post #152
chillingeffect wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you have the right idea. To isolate audio/message encryption in one box, stream it via IP to cellular (LTE/4G/etc) towers in another box. Then, the customer puts those two boxes into one box. It could basically be done today with an Android PDA running VoiP app only, connected over wifi to a cellular hotspot in one's pocket. The next evolution would be to replace the wifi with a wired network.

I'm probably going to submit this + some specific privacy/location/etc. protecting services as a turnkey thing to DC/BH 2014. Also looking at a kickstarter for something on the "travel router which isn't a complete piece of crap" front.

Have you talked to The Grugq about this? Sounds like a beefed up version of PORTAL: https://github.com/grugq/portal

Re: Blackphone

#187

Post by rdl »

agwa wrote: post #181
rdl wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware. USB powered. Dual radio, ideally dual dual band (so 4 radios which can be 1-4 in use). Ethernet port. Probably a USB port for 4g. Ideally a good form factor. Probably no battery, use a USB battery or laptop. My goal would be to never ever connect my devices to wifi, and run everything through the device. There are lots of attempts to make current hw work for this, but while you can get close, nothing is goo…

Thanks. Yes, it sounds like it will be challenging to fit everything in the power budget. Do you think there's a need to use this on battery power? Won't most people be using it in a hotel room? A wall wart that's compact and dual-voltage would work for me and would provide much more power than USB. I'll also put in a pitch for at least two Ethernet ports, so you can use one for connecting to the hotel and another fo…

Yeah, a hardware switch for VPN/non-VPN. Two ether might make as much sense as one, and it gives you a lot of flexibility. Ultimately I'd like to see something better than dumb captive portals, too, so some kind of partnership with the roaming wifi pass providers might make sense.

For the power budget, I really want to be able to use this powered by my laptop's USB port (or a big usb battery) so when I'm at an airport or something I can safely use wifi without having to find a power socket. One option is using more power than USB, and having a battery which is charged via USB, but that would suck.

I believe everything except Tor can fit within the power budget, even with 2 normal and 2 lower power radios, though.

Re: Blackphone

#188

Post by rdl »

count wrote: post #186
rdl wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably going to submit this + some specific privacy/location/etc. protecting services as a turnkey thing to DC/BH 2014. Also looking at a kickstarter for something on the "travel router which isn't a complete piece of crap" front.

Have you talked to The Grugq about this? Sounds like a beefed up version of PORTAL: https://github.com/grugq/portal

Yes, I talk to The Grugq a lot, although our relationship does not involve bonds of affection and/or personal obligation, and/or where the I and the foreign national share private time together in a public or private setting where sensitive professional and personal information is discussed or is the target of discussion.

But yeah. Grugq's doing a lot of other cool stuff now too.

Re: Blackphone

#189

Post by bosch »

Does any one else find it odd a privacy centric phone's website won't load without scripts, cookies, etc? I would think they would have a text only version if items failed to load properly...

Re: Blackphone

#190

Post by dobbsbob »

rdl wrote: post #94
dobbsbob wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snapdragon and every other baseband coming out has them on an 'all in one' chip which is application CPU and baseband sharing direct memory. Unless you have a microscope you can't build a hw firewall. Cryptophone uses an older Samsung to do this but has no SIM protection. The firewall isn't foolproof either it only detects extended use of the baseband cpu without the application cpu being busy then shuts down the dev…

The idea is you don't use baseband functionality at all in the main high-side device. It can be a PDA, connected over USB to a separate radio. There's no way the radio can do anything particularly evil except if there are implementation bugs over USB (API problems with whatever interface you build between them, most likely), but at least that can be inspected by end users and problems found/fixed. These highly-integr…

I just tried this with a Huawei E1762 (casing removed) and a stripped down dongle. Crammed them both into the back of a Nexus and attached it using the case I have for a Seidio Innocell 3800mAh battery extention.

Activated airplane mode to kill the baseband, PPP widget runs fine on 4.2.2. Success. (kernel module loading not avail Android 4.3+ though obviously can build your own, or get a Moto G with native USB OTG support)

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