Earlier quoted context omitted.
The software on those "Temu" quality Android tablets they sell in prison is the worst I've ever encountered. And I've never seen an update of any note in the years they have been running them. If there is even a dev anywhere that could fix a bug and deploy it... Anyone know the best way to pull an image off a locked-down Android tablet? I have a prison tablet here and I want to see what is inside the APKs.
adb pull com.whatever will get you the apks which I think you don't need root for, but there isn't a way to just dd the whole image off, afaik.
How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
201–210 of 222 posts
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#202[flagged]
Can you give me a step by step explanation of how blockchain-based DNS would have helped here?
Domain transfers could be effected on-chain for a fee. Spam prevention is built-in because any action recorded on the blockchain incurs a fee. The fee is determined by the free markets and nobody holds a monopoly over the market.
People who trade domains would end up subsidizing those who hold domains; allowing them to hold domains for free, permanently (once the domain is bought and initial transfer is made).
It removes the need for an authority like ICANN who decide who gets to control what.
You don't have to limit yourself to one blockchain, new blockchains could launch and be treated as distinct gTLDs.
You don't need Certificate Authorities and the complex, trust-based infrastructure to implement certificate verification. It can all be done on-chain, anyone can sync their own nodes to verify who owns what domains.
Blockchain is naturally good for high-read scenarios. It can scale in terms of number of reads without limit; just add more nodes. The writes are limited, however, transaction fees serve as a natural regulating factor; it can always meet the demand, for the right price; which is determined entirely by the markets and based on usage of computational resources, not based on monopoly pricing.
Bitcoin, with a measly maximum of 4 transaction per second, has already proven that transaction fees can stay reasonable, even with extreme levels of hype on a global scale.
BTW, if you managed to read my comment, you can consider yourself lucky because this perspective I'm sharing is consistently suppressed and heavily down-voted... You can be sure that there are financial interests behind the current DNS system which do not want to leave room for any tech which might liberate the internet from the clutches of the incumbents and which might force them to compete on a free market.
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll entertain this, how does blockchaining DNS solve anything? Edit: Why is this down voted? I really don't understand how blockchain would help DNS.
because it won’t—entertaining the question legitimises these snake-oil peddlers
It is deceptive to infer that there is a financial benefit. My idea is purely practical. It doesn't align with any mainstream financial interest, unlike yours which only serves incumbents.
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#204Not to downplay it but at least this requires users to download the Onavo app, which isn’t so common. The one that I wonder about a lot is this: there are two (non-deprecated) types of webview you can use in iOS: WKWebview and SFSafariViewController. They’re intended for very different uses. When you tap on a link in the Facebook app they should use SFSafariViewController. It’s private (app code has no visibility int…
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn’t aware that WKWebView granted the app such power. Is there a way for me as a user to figure out if WKWebView or SFSafariViewController is being used if I have a web page open? Although I don’t use FB, I do use the web view of other apps and don’t want them to be able to do this either.
SFSafariViewController is less customizable visually so the standard "sheet coming up within the app" that looks always the same regardless of the app (at least in most apps and of course not Meta's apps) is that one. Having said that, since WKWebView is just a view that can be customized visually, nothing can stop someone to create a WKWebView-wrapping view controller that looks exactly like the "safe" Safari one an…
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#206If you or I did this, we would already be in jail for phishing plus whatever add-on charges the Feds could file. Meta has Washington in their pocket so this will never leave civil court. The penalty will be less than the money made, meaning somebody gets a bonus for being creative.
Your work does this. This is incredibly common on basically every corporate device issued today. The real issue is the NUX, which doesn't look like it made the data collection clear to users.
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#207Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Disagreeing publicly does nothing if I'm the one empowering my opposition in the first place. Of course it does. It does spread the word. That’s important. You can be an activist and have a real life. You can despise Meta but have acquaintances on WhatsApp you can’t or don’t want to move. You can be an anticapitalist and still agree to join a group of friends inviting you to McDonalds. You can be an ecologist and h…
> Having WhatsApp may be wrong for you but it may be less wrong than leaving your friends groups. If friends can't install another app to talk to you, maybe they don't really wanna keep in touch. When I moved to Telegram I told family and friends where I'd be and they all installed Telegram and actually liked it so they stayed. It's been 3 years now and I haven't touched WhatsApp. My words have no value if I can't ev…
Interestingly, your assumption works the other way too : If you can't install another app (one you don't want), maybe you don't really wanna keep in touch.
I prefer to see it from the other side : I value my friend more than which app they want to use. I do encourage my friends to use Signal but I can't force them.
> When I moved to Telegram I told family and friends where I'd be and they all installed Telegram and actually liked it so they stayed.
Same. And now I realize that Telegram is just a little less shitty than WhatsApp and that it doesn't even do E2E by default and I have no more willpower to migrate everyone on Signal.
> It's been 3 years now and I haven't touched WhatsApp.
Looks like you weren't as pure as me 3 years ago since I never touched WhatsApp until 3 months ago. And you know why ? I've been integrated into a new group of friends which was on WhatsApp. The thing is, making your current friends migrate to another app is difficult. But you can't know where your future friends will be and you will not be able to make them use your app and making new friendships is hard enough in life that I'm not going to filter them by the app they use.
Oh and I have the magic power to be able to use the 3 apps on my phone ! And with Beeper, it's now a superpower.
Anyway, FWIW, I find this messaging apps situation totally pathetic. If it was me, we should all be using an open and decentralized messaging protocol where everybody can own its own data. But since I can't convince all my friends to reach me via e-mail or Matrix, I will suffer the shitty apps and will do my best to use Signal as much as possible (but Signal is shitty in my eyes too since it's centralized).
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true, but so far there are ways to disable much of this. For example on a Ford, you can literally pull the fuse for the GSM modem. On a GM, you can pull the antenna from OnStar, and put a resister there in replacement... thus rendering it unable to communicate to home base. This doesn't solve everything, but it at least stops the immediate phone home.
You can also buy cars that don’t need an immediate debugging
Buying used/old doesn't work here, at least not for long. Lots of salt on the roads, cars older than 8 to 10 years are rust covered, and it doesn't help components either.
Not to mention, if everyone bought used, there'd be no used cars to buy.
Re: How did Facebook intercept their competitor's encrypted mobile app traffic?
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was talking about this with friends the other night. If you've been in the industry long enough, you've probably been party to creating something horrible. It takes a while for the reality of horribleness to crack the glamour of creation and monetary reward, but once it does, everyone I personally know has quit and lived with the regret. I know people who have worked for adtech, gambling and HFT industries who now…
Due to an incarcerated family member, I had to deal with privately run prison telecom software, which was as awful and exploitative as you would expect, I could see where someone might feel guilty for working in this area. Evil business model. But one of the worst things about the software was all the bugs. Silent failures so we couldn't tell what was happening, if it was a software problem or if our loved one was be…
It's weird that such a data point was the final straw, but eventually these small details build up and the whole edifice comes crashing down.
It's especially tragic as the company seemed to be full of talented, intelligent and nice people. Such seems to be the typical makeup of faceless evil.