4 ms·

Everything in theory could be compromised, that's the story of computer security but that doesn't mean we should ignore any threats. That's like saying I might

by wicket 11y ago

Everything in theory could be compromised, that's the story of computer security but that doesn't mean we should ignore any threats. That's like saying I might as well use dictionary words for all my passwords because they are easy to remember and there's no such thing as a secure system. The point is that the Neo900's baseband sandbox will provide significant protection that no other device can offer. _If_ a government agency decides they want to try to break the sandbox of a device owned by only 400 people, maybe they'll find a vulnerability that they can exploit, but it may take them many man hours to do so and even then there's no guarantee that they will find anything. Accessing the base station controller (or any other part of the cellular infrastructure for that matter) lawfully or unlawfully, is indeed possible but that does very little to help an adversary take over your device. What it does help them to do is to read your communications. If you are paranoid about that, you can use your own encryption. If you are paranoid about your location being tracked then just turn off the modem or don't use a mobile phone. The difference between the Neo900 and everything else is that when turn off the modem, you know it actually is off.

dogma1138 11y ago
Again with the "significant" protection, there is no evidence that the Neo900 or any other commercially available "secure" phone actually will provide any significant level of protection against state sponsored threats. I look at this from another perspective if http://goldelico.com/ http://goldelico.com/ could create a phone which is NSA proof on any level from commercial over the shelf hardware than the NSA is a colossal failure, but they aren't. The number of users that will use the phone is also irrelevant, because you look at this as only 400 people, the NSA looks at it as these are 400 people that intentionally attempt to evade our surveillance lets check it out. Back to the phone part everything they've done might seem right, and might seem to be harder to break, but as it seems that not a single phone that is actually used by government agencies in the states is build that way, the NSA certifies certain devices, they do not allow any of them to be used to store or communicate secret information, but it's allowed to be used for confidential matters. If the NSA could build a phone that they would think it secure, they would do, which again leads me to strongly believe that all of these measures are pointless, yes they might offer some additional level of protection against non-state agents or states without a sufficiently advanced intelligence services but even that might be doubtful because it's unlikely that we'll see this phone going head to head against commercial phone exploitation solutions.
- seba_dos1 11y ago
  It's not the Neo900's goal to be protected from high-profile targeted attacks. That's hardly feasible. However, that doesn't make it pointless. Neo900 aims to protect as much as possible from fishnet style mash surveillance. On most devices you simply cannot protect yourself from that, since any E2E encryption you'd employ could be easily attacked by shared RAM access from the completely uncontrolled (and often known to be exploitable) modem firmware. When you don't completely control your device, you cannot do anything to protect your privacy. When you do (and there are also other reasons to want it aside of privacy), you can start thinking about it. It won't help when you're specifically targeted by super secret agency, but it will in 99% of other, more common cases.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

by wicket 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago

Again with the "significant" protection, there is no evidence that the Neo900 or any other commercially available "secure" phone actually will provide any significant level of protection against state sponsored threats. I look at this from another perspective if http://goldelico.com/ http://goldelico.com/ could create a phone which is NSA proof on any level from commercial over the shelf hardware than the NSA is a colossal failure, but they aren't. The number of users that will use the phone is also irrelevant, because you look at this as only 400 people, the NSA looks at it as these are 400 people that intentionally attempt to evade our surveillance lets check it out. Back to the phone part everything they've done might seem right, and might seem to be harder to break, but as it seems that not a single phone that is actually used by government agencies in the states is build that way, the NSA certifies certain devices, they do not allow any of them to be used to store or communicate secret information, but it's allowed to be used for confidential matters. If the NSA could build a phone that they would think it secure, they would do, which again leads me to strongly believe that all of these measures are pointless, yes they might offer some additional level of protection against non-state agents or states without a sufficiently advanced intelligence services but even that might be doubtful because it's unlikely that we'll see this phone going head to head against commercial phone exploitation solutions.

seba_dos1 11y ago
It's not the Neo900's goal to be protected from high-profile targeted attacks. That's hardly feasible. However, that doesn't make it pointless. Neo900 aims to protect as much as possible from fishnet style mash surveillance. On most devices you simply cannot protect yourself from that, since any E2E encryption you'd employ could be easily attacked by shared RAM access from the completely uncontrolled (and often known to be exploitable) modem firmware. When you don't completely control your device, you cannot do anything to protect your privacy. When you do (and there are also other reasons to want it aside of privacy), you can start thinking about it. It won't help when you're specifically targeted by super secret agency, but it will in 99% of other, more common cases.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]