5 ms·
It's possible Facebook could be using an exclusive method to access hardware more directly, much like how Uber had access to restricted developer debugging tool
by sine 9y ago
It's possible Facebook could be using an exclusive method to access hardware more directly, much like how Uber had access to restricted developer debugging tools which allowed them to record the screen even when the app was closed.
https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/uber-screen-record-iphone.html https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/uber-screen-record-iphone....
- brandontreb 9y agoIt is, however when building a mobile substrate tweak, you have visibility / access to the headers of every single system class. One could theoretically hook into any number of audio recording mechanisms (assuming they knew where to look ;) )
- bluesign 9y agoyeah but this would be obvious (can be seen easily) as it will require some "entitlements"
- willstrafach 9y agoI have checked. Facebook does not do this.
- logicallee 9y agohow have you checked (what do you have access to). if you work for Googe on Android would be a good answer for example :)
- traek 9y agoFrom his bio: > information security research. ceo @ sudo security group (https://verify.ly https://verify.ly). > previously: founder of "Chronic Dev Team" responsible for many years of iOS jailbreaking solutions (24kPwn, absinthe, corona, greenpois0n, etc).
- logicallee 9y agoI still think "how have you checked" is a fair question.
- willstrafach 9y agoMy company collects/analyzes apps from the App Store to test their security, so I have pretty easy access to the machine code for apps. Certainly a fair question.
- maccam94 9y agoOn the Android side, it's not terribly difficult to send a copy of the app to a computer and decompile it. Then you can simply search for any code that invokes the Android function for mic access.
- pdkl95 9y ago> does not do this Do you have the hashes to prove that what you tested matches what is actually installed elsewhere? No, I'm not actually claiming there actually are different versions in the wild. I just find it strange that anybody can make broad claims about what widespread software may or may not be doing. Widespread use of "A/B testing" and forced remote updates should make everyone question the nature of every binary, even when they have the same name (including version number).
- FridgeSeal 9y agoFb's well known for large scale A/B testing though. Isn't it more than possible that the binaries/versions/etc that you tested simply weren't part of the test?
- madeofpalk 9y agoYou can't A/B test iOS app binaries though.
- _0ffh 9y agoYou could A/B test different app behaviour with the same binary by branching on some pseudorandom (quasi-) constant like IMEI or phone number.
- madeofpalk 9y agoSure. But once you know that everyone has the same binary, you can reverse engineer the binary you know everyone has.
- willstrafach 9y agoThe nice thing is that you can reverse engineer it and sniff traffic to find out what the A/B tests are and what they do.
- Zhenya 9y agoCouldn't you test 2 different behaviors in the same binary thought?
- tectonic 9y ago...and I just deleted the Uber app.
- linkregister 9y agoDelete Uber for a good reason, such as the fact that ride sharing makes driving unreliable as a source of income. Professional drivers have seen their incomes decrease and hours increase drastically. The article in question starts out breathlessly accusing Uber of spying on users, only to completely walk back the claim by the end. Just by reading the article alone we see that the permission was granted to overcome a capability lapse in the Apple Watch.
- hueving 9y ago>such as the fact that ride sharing makes driving unreliable as a source of income. That's a terrible reason. Taxi drivers also have an unreliable source of income with the burden of medallion rent in some of the larger cities. Do you also boycott all construction since that is also unreliable for basic laborers?
- macintux 9y agoThe parent’s point was that ridesharing makes life worse for other paid drivers. If Taskrabbit started sabotaging income for highway construction workers I might avoid it (although to be fair I’ve never used it).
- taneq 9y agoWaitstaff also have an unreliable source of income and see their incomes decrease or hours increase drastically. Planning to boycott restaurants?
- macintux 9y agoSee my reply to hueving
- bryondowd 9y ago
- gcb0 9y agoIf you want to get paranoid... Maybe it can detect jailbreak and do nothing. or even better, detect jail break, use it to detect if there is hooks into the audioRecord interface, if no hooks, record even more with it's new found powers :)
- dest 9y agoIt reminds me the amazing Skype protections against reverse engineering
- andai 9y agoCould you remember a little harder?
- zero_iq 9y agoAll sorts of anti-debugging tricks, self modifying code, runtime checksums, network traffic obfuscation, etc. http://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.handout.pdf http://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.handout.pdf http://runtux.com/files/download/skype.4.pdf http://runtux.com/files/download/skype.4.pdf
- adtac 9y agoThis is straight up malware behaviour.
- Sargos 9y agoWhich is why it doesn't do that.
- madeofpalk 9y agoBut Facebook doesn't have any extra, special entitlements.