4 ms·

It seems there is no safe cell phone. They all run closed source software, written in unsafe languages (C and C++) and can be abused by cyber criminals and gove

by _wldu 5y ago

It seems there is no safe cell phone. They all run closed source software, written in unsafe languages (C and C++) and can be abused by cyber criminals and governments to spy on and track people at will. Why do we carry these things in our pockets? And I'm not convinced Signal or any other privacy protecting app is really useful. If we assume all cell phones are owned (or can be at any time) then the criminals own all the private keys on the phones as well. It's impossible to have private communications with a cell phone.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
>It seems there is no safe cell phone. They all run closed source software, written in unsafe languages (C and C++) and can be abused by cyber criminals and governments to spy on and track people at will. Why should we have any expectation of privacy when we use a cell phone at all? It is triangualating your location 24/7 even if its not a smartphone. When/why did we expect them to be private in any way? How can you expect privacy when your location data is being broadcast and you're carrying a tracking device? >Why do we carry these things in our pockets? Its worth it for the tradeoffs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
LogonType10 5y ago
GrapheneOS runs all open source software (no closed source Google code), doesn't phone home to Google, doesn't allow for targeted updates based on IMEI, has strong app memory isolation, and isn't vulnerable to run of the mill NSO zero days. Buy a Mint Mobile SIM card with cash and boom, anonymous phone not tied to your name.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Yet you're connecting to T-mobile towers and having your location tracked 24/7. How is that in any way private?
  - LogonType10 5y ago
    My phone is in a faraday bag when it gets anywhere close to my home or place of work. Even if you were bulk collecting cell tower data and location data you couldn't identify my phone, it's lost in the noise.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Your disconnects will flag it in the metadata. You don’t think they can identify phones in bulk collection? What evidence is there of that?
      - LogonType10 5y ago
        >Your disconnects will flag it in the metadata. This would make too many false positives, for which you'd have to do in person surveillance to verify. >You don’t think they can identify phones in bulk collection? What evidence is there of that? It doesn't matter if a cell tower can read your IMEI. It matters if that IMEI can be associated with your real name. Have you seen anyone's location data successfully correlated with a real identity when that location data doesn't include travel to residence or place of work? If you can solve this problem, you can sell it for more money than you could fathom.
        GhettoComputers 5y ago
        You don’t think they can match location data with metadata and figure it out? Circumstantial evidence is easily used to figure it out.
        LogonType10 5y ago
        >You don’t think they can match location data with metadata and figure it out? Automatically, with dragnet surveillance? Not a chance, the search space is too huge. But if you think it's so easy, feel free to try building this and selling it, you would become the next billionaire.
badRNG 5y ago
> They all [are] written in unsafe languages (C and C++) and can be abused by cyber criminals and governments to spy on and track people at will. All major OSes (regardless of formfactor) that a consumer uses are written in C. All languages, including C, are "unsafe" if the standard is that software in said language can be written in an unsafe way. Writing an operating system, firmware, or embedded software is a fundamentally different category of activity from writing some CRUD app (other than unhelpfully sharing terms like "engineering", "language", and "software.") OSes are written in C because the task demands it; the reason that there isn't a Javascript-based kernel isn't an arbitrary one. Perhaps Rust will change the game at some point, however as it stands, it doesn't make any sense to draw a distinction between OSes written in so-called "unsafe" and "safe" languages.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Programming languages won’t stop triangulation. The assumption of privacy is not rooted in any fact. In Japan people can disappear if they want to because of the culture. Privacy is a culture. You can’t use tech as the panacea, because the US is not inherently culturally private. Privacy occurs because others aren’t tracking you, if you’re being traced by computers, motivated people with advanced tools, living in a world where you’re supposed to share and a paparazzi celebrity culture, you’re not going to get privacy no matter how “safe” you program your memory to be.

by _wldu 5y ago

GhettoComputers 5y ago

>It seems there is no safe cell phone. They all run closed source software, written in unsafe languages (C and C++) and can be abused by cyber criminals and governments to spy on and track people at will. Why should we have any expectation of privacy when we use a cell phone at all? It is triangualating your location 24/7 even if its not a smartphone. When/why did we expect them to be private in any way? How can you expect privacy when your location data is being broadcast and you're carrying a tracking device? >Why do we carry these things in our pockets? Its worth it for the tradeoffs.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

LogonType10 5y ago

GrapheneOS runs all open source software (no closed source Google code), doesn't phone home to Google, doesn't allow for targeted updates based on IMEI, has strong app memory isolation, and isn't vulnerable to run of the mill NSO zero days. Buy a Mint Mobile SIM card with cash and boom, anonymous phone not tied to your name.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
Yet you're connecting to T-mobile towers and having your location tracked 24/7. How is that in any way private?
- LogonType10 5y ago
  My phone is in a faraday bag when it gets anywhere close to my home or place of work. Even if you were bulk collecting cell tower data and location data you couldn't identify my phone, it's lost in the noise.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    Your disconnects will flag it in the metadata. You don’t think they can identify phones in bulk collection? What evidence is there of that?
    - LogonType10 5y ago
      >Your disconnects will flag it in the metadata. This would make too many false positives, for which you'd have to do in person surveillance to verify. >You don’t think they can identify phones in bulk collection? What evidence is there of that? It doesn't matter if a cell tower can read your IMEI. It matters if that IMEI can be associated with your real name. Have you seen anyone's location data successfully correlated with a real identity when that location data doesn't include travel to residence or place of work? If you can solve this problem, you can sell it for more money than you could fathom.
      - GhettoComputers 5y ago
        You don’t think they can match location data with metadata and figure it out? Circumstantial evidence is easily used to figure it out.
        LogonType10 5y ago
        >You don’t think they can match location data with metadata and figure it out? Automatically, with dragnet surveillance? Not a chance, the search space is too huge. But if you think it's so easy, feel free to try building this and selling it, you would become the next billionaire.

badRNG 5y ago

> They all [are] written in unsafe languages (C and C++) and can be abused by cyber criminals and governments to spy on and track people at will. All major OSes (regardless of formfactor) that a consumer uses are written in C. All languages, including C, are "unsafe" if the standard is that software in said language can be written in an unsafe way. Writing an operating system, firmware, or embedded software is a fundamentally different category of activity from writing some CRUD app (other than unhelpfully sharing terms like "engineering", "language", and "software.") OSes are written in C because the task demands it; the reason that there isn't a Javascript-based kernel isn't an arbitrary one. Perhaps Rust will change the game at some point, however as it stands, it doesn't make any sense to draw a distinction between OSes written in so-called "unsafe" and "safe" languages.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
Programming languages won’t stop triangulation. The assumption of privacy is not rooted in any fact. In Japan people can disappear if they want to because of the culture. Privacy is a culture. You can’t use tech as the panacea, because the US is not inherently culturally private. Privacy occurs because others aren’t tracking you, if you’re being traced by computers, motivated people with advanced tools, living in a world where you’re supposed to share and a paparazzi celebrity culture, you’re not going to get privacy no matter how “safe” you program your memory to be.