6 ms·

Seems a bit funny, that a device that is meant for privacy allows remote control by its masters.

by timthelion 10y ago

ahoka 10y ago
It's funnier to buy a security focused phone from a random ebay seller.
- eganist 10y ago
  In conclusion: the firm has no control over its supply chain and embeds remote control into its devices. Sounds like two critical flaws to me.
  - bsder 10y ago
    I have no issue with them disabling SilentOS if you can install something else. That's very different from "bricking" the phone. > In conclusion: the firm has no control over its supply chain and embeds remote control into its devices. Dirty secret: Nobody has control of their supply chain anymore. There have been Samsung and Apple phones being sold on the black market before the real ones. If you assemble in China, you can be cloned tomorrow.
sqldba 10y ago
What are they meant to do? They build a secure phone. It gets ripped off by the manufacturer and resold by anonymous eBay people who can install whatever backdoors on the phone. Then the people using them are being snooped on - exactly what they don't want in the first place. Bricking the phones is the right thing to do.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  You can notify the user that their phone is not a legitimate product and is likely insecure without completely crippling it in the process.
  - sjwright 10y ago
    And allow the user ongoing use of a pirated copy of their Silent OS software? That's generous. (It's also not Silent Circle's fault if the counterfeit devices were sold with a locked bootloader, precluding the installation of another Android distro.)
    - sjwright 10y ago
      Receiving downvotes. Would be interested in an actual response. If someone was selling laptops with a pirated copy of Windows on it and a Windows update recognized the unlicensed install, causing the laptop to be non-functional, would that be any different? Remember, the maker of these dodgy laptops has locked the bios so that you can't reinstall a genuine operating system...
      - chipperyman573 10y ago
        It isn't like you're buying a used laptop from someone on Craigslist, the people buying these phones were intentionally mislead to believe that they were buying a brand new (in a shrinkwrapped box) phone from an authorized retailer. If bestbuy sold windows laptops, advertised that it came with a valid Windows licence and they turned out to be lying, should Microsoft brick their laptops?
        sjwright 10y ago
        Buying a counterfeit product on Ebay is exactly like buying a used laptop from someone on Craigslist, save for the buyer's perception of the seller. I don't see how the appearance of the counterfeit product, or the ignorance of the buyer, or the mainstream-ness of the seller is at all relevant here. To complete your laptop analogy, this "new" laptop from Best Buy turned out to be goods ripped off the assembly line at the Dell factory before the unit had its Windows OEM license assigned or paid for. The software is unlicensed and therefore not genuine. It is not for Microsoft to offer sympathy and a blind eye, they are well within their rights to identify counterfeit installations of Windows and disable them. The remedy is for Best Buy to offer the customer a full refund.
- mindslight 10y ago
  They're supposed to not have this capability, if they actually built a secure phone!
  - otikik 10y ago
    But they did not build the ones which are bricked - they are counterfeit.
    - timthelion 10y ago
      This is such a bad faith reply. Of course they also have the capability to brick or backdore the ones which are not coutnerfeit as well.
      - Nomentatus 10y ago
        This is a worry - a disgruntled-but-trusted employee decides might use this fine tool you built for a reasonable purpose from using it to brick every phone you've ever made on his-or-her way out your door.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    What, the capability to install updates? So you'd be fine with a secure phone that the vendor could never update?
    - mindslight 10y ago
      The vendor shouldn't be able to push an update, no. And to the extent that this update was pulled by users without a diff/sanity check/etc, then that constitutes a de facto push. In any case, any update should be completely revertible (which doesn't prevent against data leaks from hostile code, but does prevent against denial of service). This type of attack is just a test case that any truly secure device has to defend against. I'm not advocating a specific mechanism of avoiding this behavior, because there's obviously work to be done here to come up with a better mechanism than "every user audits every line of source before installing". It's just that this design work has to be done - "security" based on trusting a company is easy, and doesn't differ appreciably from what say Apple already provides.
pdkp 10y ago
Based on the article, it looks like the bricking/disabling occurred after an update to the latest version of the OS. So, I don't think it is accurate to say that it 'allows remote control by its masters,' as it appears that they just added some sort of check in the latest version of their OS that can tell if the hardware is legit. There isn't any evidence, at least not in the article, that indicates they have some sort of remote control/phone home service running on the phone that allows them to control it arbitrarily.

Seems a bit funny, that a device that is meant for privacy allows remote control by its masters.

ahoka 10y ago

It's funnier to buy a security focused phone from a random ebay seller.

eganist 10y ago
In conclusion: the firm has no control over its supply chain and embeds remote control into its devices. Sounds like two critical flaws to me.
- bsder 10y ago
  I have no issue with them disabling SilentOS if you can install something else. That's very different from "bricking" the phone. > In conclusion: the firm has no control over its supply chain and embeds remote control into its devices. Dirty secret: Nobody has control of their supply chain anymore. There have been Samsung and Apple phones being sold on the black market before the real ones. If you assemble in China, you can be cloned tomorrow.

sqldba 10y ago

What are they meant to do? They build a secure phone. It gets ripped off by the manufacturer and resold by anonymous eBay people who can install whatever backdoors on the phone. Then the people using them are being snooped on - exactly what they don't want in the first place. Bricking the phones is the right thing to do.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
You can notify the user that their phone is not a legitimate product and is likely insecure without completely crippling it in the process.
- sjwright 10y ago
  And allow the user ongoing use of a pirated copy of their Silent OS software? That's generous. (It's also not Silent Circle's fault if the counterfeit devices were sold with a locked bootloader, precluding the installation of another Android distro.)
  - sjwright 10y ago
    Receiving downvotes. Would be interested in an actual response. If someone was selling laptops with a pirated copy of Windows on it and a Windows update recognized the unlicensed install, causing the laptop to be non-functional, would that be any different? Remember, the maker of these dodgy laptops has locked the bios so that you can't reinstall a genuine operating system...
    - chipperyman573 10y ago
      It isn't like you're buying a used laptop from someone on Craigslist, the people buying these phones were intentionally mislead to believe that they were buying a brand new (in a shrinkwrapped box) phone from an authorized retailer. If bestbuy sold windows laptops, advertised that it came with a valid Windows licence and they turned out to be lying, should Microsoft brick their laptops?
      - sjwright 10y ago
        Buying a counterfeit product on Ebay is exactly like buying a used laptop from someone on Craigslist, save for the buyer's perception of the seller. I don't see how the appearance of the counterfeit product, or the ignorance of the buyer, or the mainstream-ness of the seller is at all relevant here. To complete your laptop analogy, this "new" laptop from Best Buy turned out to be goods ripped off the assembly line at the Dell factory before the unit had its Windows OEM license assigned or paid for. The software is unlicensed and therefore not genuine. It is not for Microsoft to offer sympathy and a blind eye, they are well within their rights to identify counterfeit installations of Windows and disable them. The remedy is for Best Buy to offer the customer a full refund.
mindslight 10y ago
They're supposed to not have this capability, if they actually built a secure phone!
- otikik 10y ago
  But they did not build the ones which are bricked - they are counterfeit.
  - timthelion 10y ago
    This is such a bad faith reply. Of course they also have the capability to brick or backdore the ones which are not coutnerfeit as well.
    - Nomentatus 10y ago
      This is a worry - a disgruntled-but-trusted employee decides might use this fine tool you built for a reasonable purpose from using it to brick every phone you've ever made on his-or-her way out your door.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  What, the capability to install updates? So you'd be fine with a secure phone that the vendor could never update?
  - mindslight 10y ago
    The vendor shouldn't be able to push an update, no. And to the extent that this update was pulled by users without a diff/sanity check/etc, then that constitutes a de facto push. In any case, any update should be completely revertible (which doesn't prevent against data leaks from hostile code, but does prevent against denial of service). This type of attack is just a test case that any truly secure device has to defend against. I'm not advocating a specific mechanism of avoiding this behavior, because there's obviously work to be done here to come up with a better mechanism than "every user audits every line of source before installing". It's just that this design work has to be done - "security" based on trusting a company is easy, and doesn't differ appreciably from what say Apple already provides.

pdkp 10y ago

Based on the article, it looks like the bricking/disabling occurred after an update to the latest version of the OS. So, I don't think it is accurate to say that it 'allows remote control by its masters,' as it appears that they just added some sort of check in the latest version of their OS that can tell if the hardware is legit. There isn't any evidence, at least not in the article, that indicates they have some sort of remote control/phone home service running on the phone that allows them to control it arbitrarily.