3 ms·

This reminds me a problem I'm currently having. My iPhone freezes completely sometimes when I ride BART, requiring a hard reboot. I notice it happens when pas

by ww520 5y ago

This reminds me a problem I'm currently having. My iPhone freezes completely sometimes when I ride BART, requiring a hard reboot. I notice it happens when passing the Daly City station. It seems there's a strong signal tower nearby that the strong signal causes the problem. It's probably the strength level read by the hardware causing an out of bound error somewhere and corrupting the phone's memory.

3np 5y ago
Probably just someone broadcasting a new 0-day
jrockway 5y ago
Does this happen to anyone else? There aren't a ton of iPhone variants out there, so if it's a baseband-level defect, it would be happening a lot. I'll also say, if it's just the signal strength being too high, it seems unlikely that would cause memory corruption. The signal strength is probably just an integer, and there aren't any operations defined on integers that involve using other bytes of memory. (If you have an uint8 and add 1 to 255, you just get 0; it doesn't upgrade the integer to a uint16 and overwrite adjacent memory.)
- ww520 5y ago
  It’s an iPhone XS model. Occasionally I would get a “no carrier detected” error at the location while the signal bar is full. Looks like it’s signal related and it’s the path of handling error or exception. Also does iPhone use ECC memory for all chips? Another possibility is my phone’s EM shielding is not good, and a strong EM/microwave signal scrambles the memory in one of the chips, probably the signal receiving chip. The freeze only happens occasionally.
not1ofU 5y ago
Do you have an IMSI Catcher [0] detection app on your phone? I used to have the same issue (EU country), using Metro. One single stop which was above ground and near International conference centre. Evertime I went through that staion my phone would lock up. Needed Hard hard reboot (remove battery), Until I removed the IMSI catcher detection software. After that I used in flight mode using that metro line. Edit: rooted / android / HTC phone. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher
- ww520 5y ago
  I don’t have IMSI detection catcher app running. Good to hear a similar case happens, not just my phone going crazy. And it’s signal related.

by ww520 5y ago

3np 5y ago

Probably just someone broadcasting a new 0-day

jrockway 5y ago

Does this happen to anyone else? There aren't a ton of iPhone variants out there, so if it's a baseband-level defect, it would be happening a lot. I'll also say, if it's just the signal strength being too high, it seems unlikely that would cause memory corruption. The signal strength is probably just an integer, and there aren't any operations defined on integers that involve using other bytes of memory. (If you have an uint8 and add 1 to 255, you just get 0; it doesn't upgrade the integer to a uint16 and overwrite adjacent memory.)

ww520 5y ago
It’s an iPhone XS model. Occasionally I would get a “no carrier detected” error at the location while the signal bar is full. Looks like it’s signal related and it’s the path of handling error or exception. Also does iPhone use ECC memory for all chips? Another possibility is my phone’s EM shielding is not good, and a strong EM/microwave signal scrambles the memory in one of the chips, probably the signal receiving chip. The freeze only happens occasionally.

not1ofU 5y ago

Do you have an IMSI Catcher [0] detection app on your phone? I used to have the same issue (EU country), using Metro. One single stop which was above ground and near International conference centre. Evertime I went through that staion my phone would lock up. Needed Hard hard reboot (remove battery), Until I removed the IMSI catcher detection software. After that I used in flight mode using that metro line. Edit: rooted / android / HTC phone. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher

ww520 5y ago
I don’t have IMSI detection catcher app running. Good to hear a similar case happens, not just my phone going crazy. And it’s signal related.