31–40 of 299 posts
IMHO, carrier settings are a small portion and not super impactful part of the phone configuration you see in the settings list. This is actually a somewhat cool feature. Imagine going to another country, jumping on another network and your phone automatically knows what cell bands and towers to connect to. Carriers can't change regular settings like language, lock screen code or background. Just what cell towers you…
The part you mention I was aware of and am actually thankful for. This, at least to me, goes much further. Hence the shock. Updated my post w/more details so it makes more sense (hopefully).
I've understood cell broadcasts are also used for advertisements/otherwise spammy stuff in eg. the US? Then I could understand you considering cell broadcast being turned on being unreasonable
Even with a rooted device where perhaps you personally coded up the ROM you are still missing a piece which is the binary blob that runs the baseband radio. That firmware is, afaik, not something which exists in any sort of open-source or rootable manner. It's a closed blob running proprietary software on your phone, and it runs at a lower level than the ROM/OS does. So, even if you go to great lengths to secure most of the software that runs on the device (a noble goal, it's your hardware after all!) then you still must contend with the uncertainty and perhaps risk (depending on your threat model) of that untrusted code running there. You can search around the web for articles covering baseband radio exploits that span the years...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_aler...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdmkTkWB40Q
[3] https://media.ccc.de/v/osmodevcon2019-107-production-grade-c...
[4] https://osmocom.org/projects/cellular-infrastructure/wiki/Se...
Absolutely they can. Carriers have access to the system partition aka We do what we want (hopefully they do what makes sense). This is how bloatware is installed (the things you can't get ride of).
I googled the issue and it's affecting quite a lot of people. It's unclear whether the culprit is the provider or a long-standing bug in iOS (the first mention I found is a few years old). Some people suggested that you take out the SIM and the options would reappear. Didn't work in my case.
(1) I wasn't aware of it, but I am not surprised that something like this was written into the standard (presumably. I doubt carriers rolled their own thing) (2) All the ways I can think off are significantly harder than rooting, so essentially no. (3) I don't really mind that much, I have Google services running on my phone and I am certain those can do far more than my carrier could ever dream off. I have begrudgin…
What standard are you referring to?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The part you mention I was aware of and am actually thankful for. This, at least to me, goes much further. Hence the shock. Updated my post w/more details so it makes more sense (hopefully).
I don't know if this happens in The Netherlands, but if they forced your phone to receive NL Alerts it would seem very reasonable to me. Only the government issues those. I've understood cell broadcasts are also used for advertisements/otherwise spammy stuff in eg. the US? Then I could understand you considering cell broadcast being turned on being unreasonable
For example, what politician could turn down the grieving parents of a kidnapped child, when they call for using the emergency alert system for missing children?
But if I work from home, and there aren't any kidnapped children in my home, then waking me up at 5am with a missing child alert just inconveniences for no benefit to anyone.
> I must say I strongly dislike losing control over my own device. It feels dystopian to me. Even with a rooted device where perhaps you personally coded up the ROM you are still missing a piece which is the binary blob that runs the baseband radio. That firmware is, afaik, not something which exists in any sort of open-source or rootable manner. It's a closed blob running proprietary software on your phone, and it r…
Probably illegal and the firmware running the radio hardware is still proprietary.