4 ms·

The Neo900 sandboxes the baseband, our best hope for a secure phone and last I checked they're busy arguing with PayPal to get their account back, very sad.

by jrcii 10y ago

walterbell 10y ago
Looks like they are now accepting down payments via wire transfer, https://my.neo900.org https://my.neo900.org. The FAQ claims they will pay 2% monthly (!) interest on down-payments, http://neo900.org/faq http://neo900.org/faq. Even with reuse of a Nokia N900 case/LCD, the motherboard will cost about $1K USD. The FAQ mentions baseband isolation: "We're going to address privacy concerns of non-free modem firmware by ensuring that the modem has access to no more data than absolutely necessary, so it won't be able to spy on anything that's not already available on carrier side. On Neo900 one can be sure that the modem is actually turned off when requested, not just pretending to be. Users will be notified in case of the modem wanting to do something without their consent. Unlike some other smartphones do, Neo900 won't share system RAM with the modem and system CPU will always have full control over the microphone signal sent to the modem. You can think of it as a USB dongle connected to the PC, with you in full control over the drivers, with a virtual LED to show any modem activity." It might be possible to attack the phone from the USB connection to the baseband, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673735
- Arch-TK 10y ago
  The proposal you linked would not work if the specific USB interface was set up correctly to only allow a specific device (identified by a specific whitelisted USB device descriptor) to operate only with a specific driver. This internal USB interface in the Neo900 will allow this sort of configuration which would prevent the attack you suggest. Sure if you plug in random USB devices via the OTG port or the pins under the battery you could attempt this attack (if security was once again loose on those ports) but hopefully your USB keyboard/mouse/flash drive or whatever you're plugging into there is less dangerous and black-box than a baseband modem. And heck, if you are still worried nothing stops you from applying the same security measures to those interfaces as well.
  - walterbell 10y ago
    Thanks for the analysis.
mSparks 10y ago
Pi3 + screen + 20ah lipo + mic + speaker + usb 4g modem (removable) and linfone or equivelent. Just need a 3d printer so i can print the case. A bit of a brick. but a quite the "swiss army knife" of comms. I also dont know how many people are aware just how sensitive the mic is on modern phones. I wrote a little app that turns android phones into bugs (broadcasts sound from the mic over wifi) a few years ago. It can pick up a whisper from 40m away, while when using it as a phone there is never any background noise.
- jrcii 10y ago
  > Pi3 + screen + 20ah lipo + mic + speaker + usb 4g modem (removable) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eaiNsFhtI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eaiNsFhtI8
  - mSparks 10y ago
    Thats not a modem, it suffers the same problem (mic connected to the - compromised - baseband processor). To hook a mic to the Pi you need an ADC to the GPIO or something like: https://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-accessories/cirrus_logic_audio_card?ICID=wolfson-cirruslogic-section https://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/r...

The Neo900 sandboxes the baseband, our best hope for a secure phone and last I checked they're busy arguing with PayPal to get their account back, very sad.

by jrcii 10y ago

The Neo900 sandboxes the baseband, our best hope for a secure phone and last I checked they're busy arguing with PayPal to get their account back, very sad.

walterbell 10y ago

Looks like they are now accepting down payments via wire transfer, https://my.neo900.org https://my.neo900.org. The FAQ claims they will pay 2% monthly (!) interest on down-payments, http://neo900.org/faq http://neo900.org/faq. Even with reuse of a Nokia N900 case/LCD, the motherboard will cost about $1K USD. The FAQ mentions baseband isolation: "We're going to address privacy concerns of non-free modem firmware by ensuring that the modem has access to no more data than absolutely necessary, so it won't be able to spy on anything that's not already available on carrier side. On Neo900 one can be sure that the modem is actually turned off when requested, not just pretending to be. Users will be notified in case of the modem wanting to do something without their consent. Unlike some other smartphones do, Neo900 won't share system RAM with the modem and system CPU will always have full control over the microphone signal sent to the modem. You can think of it as a USB dongle connected to the PC, with you in full control over the drivers, with a virtual LED to show any modem activity." It might be possible to attack the phone from the USB connection to the baseband, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673735

Arch-TK 10y ago
The proposal you linked would not work if the specific USB interface was set up correctly to only allow a specific device (identified by a specific whitelisted USB device descriptor) to operate only with a specific driver. This internal USB interface in the Neo900 will allow this sort of configuration which would prevent the attack you suggest. Sure if you plug in random USB devices via the OTG port or the pins under the battery you could attempt this attack (if security was once again loose on those ports) but hopefully your USB keyboard/mouse/flash drive or whatever you're plugging into there is less dangerous and black-box than a baseband modem. And heck, if you are still worried nothing stops you from applying the same security measures to those interfaces as well.
- walterbell 10y ago
  Thanks for the analysis.

mSparks 10y ago

Pi3 + screen + 20ah lipo + mic + speaker + usb 4g modem (removable) and linfone or equivelent. Just need a 3d printer so i can print the case. A bit of a brick. but a quite the "swiss army knife" of comms. I also dont know how many people are aware just how sensitive the mic is on modern phones. I wrote a little app that turns android phones into bugs (broadcasts sound from the mic over wifi) a few years ago. It can pick up a whisper from 40m away, while when using it as a phone there is never any background noise.

jrcii 10y ago
> Pi3 + screen + 20ah lipo + mic + speaker + usb 4g modem (removable) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eaiNsFhtI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eaiNsFhtI8
- mSparks 10y ago
  Thats not a modem, it suffers the same problem (mic connected to the - compromised - baseband processor). To hook a mic to the Pi you need an ADC to the GPIO or something like: https://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-accessories/cirrus_logic_audio_card?ICID=wolfson-cirruslogic-section https://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/r...