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Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't know what code is running on your baseband processor, do you? Do you know what other hardware your baseband processor has the ability to inspect?
In most SoC's the answer is 'everything' because there's no such thing as an IOMMU.
Is there a way to set up a phone so that typing a "special" password puts the phone in an alternate state with different apps and content, etc. (and possibly erase the regular content)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could we know for sure? Basebands are 100% proprietary, we have no idea how they operate and even less of an idea of how their operation might be subverted.
This is why I'm an open source advocate. It's not that open source automatically makes software/firmware trustworthy, it's that closed source empirically guarantees the software/firmware can never be deemed trustworthy.
Why would you think that a bunch of people volunteering their time would be more motivated to look for security issues and even those that are found, how many would be disclosed responsibly instead of being sold to places like Pegasus?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially when searching for evidence left behind by competent adversaries (e.g. NSA, GCHQ, etc) who have a strong motivation to remain undetected.
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence But it is also not evidence of the thing for which there is absence of evidence. EDIT: > especially when searching for evidence left behind by competent adversaries (e.g. NSA, GCHQ, etc) who have a strong motivation to remain undetected. No, there is no “especially”; absence of evidence means no basis for any affirmative belief, period, equally for any fact proposition…
In risk management, you shouldn't ignore known unknowns like that, you should either adapt your threat model or risk accept, not simply consider that risk nonexistent until proven.
Can the thing France just made legal be done? > French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late on Wednesday, July 5. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/07/06/france-s... Why would anyone stir up the civil libertarians if the thing you are making legal is not possible?
This question has been in my head recently. How feasible is it really? The answer in the link isn’t comprehensive. Is it really out of the question for manufacturer’s to ship a particular version of a device and software for a target country? Nation states have a history of backdooring or weakening particular technologies.
Baseband backdoor. No need to target the OS or the primary CPU.
BUT sophisticated attackers like US or Israeli governments (and I assume Russian or Chinese but I don’t have direct experience with these) don’t need these backdoors, getting anywhere near your phone is enough to root it to allow installation of spyware, according to my CSO who worked in naval intelligence. There are simply too many vulnerabilities for there to be a hardened device in the consumer space. Some are better than others (Apple) but as Bruce Schneier says, if you are worried about this sort of thing you really have to be totally disconnected from the internet and exchange encrypted physical media.
This question has been in my head recently. How feasible is it really? The answer in the link isn’t comprehensive. Is it really out of the question for manufacturer’s to ship a particular version of a device and software for a target country? Nation states have a history of backdooring or weakening particular technologies.
Baseband backdoor. No need to target the OS or the primary CPU.