10 ms·

Hacked memo leaked: Apple, Nokia, RIM supply backdoors for government?

286 points by pash 15y ago

JanezStupar 15y ago
I really enjoy posting this... RMS was right all along.
- nilchameleons 15y ago
  I think you mean Shinedown was right all along.
tzs 15y ago
The memo says "all major device vendors".
- Niten 15y ago
  I would assume that the backdoor for Android devices is the Android Market itself. Because Android is open source and each device manufacturer has its own build, it isn't really plausible to have a single backdoor within the core operating system. However, the closed-source Android Market application is the perfect candidate for such a mechanism; when you install an app via the market, all of the following happens: 1. You request the application from the Market and agree to any permissions requested. 2. The Market pushes an install instruction to the phone via Google's XMPP-based Android notification service. 3. The phone downloads and installs the .apk as instructed. Step 3 requires no interaction from the user – this is how, for instance, you can send an app to your phone from the Market web site. But it also means that any government with sufficient leverage over Google can coerce them to use this mechanism to install an arbitrary SpyOnStuff.apk at any time. But if this is the case it isn't entirely bad news for Android users, rather it yields two means of protecting yourself which aren't necessarily options on other platforms: 1. Use an open source Android build such as CyanogenMod, without the closed-source Market app installed. 2. Proxy Google's XMPP notification service and require user confirmation before pushed APKs are installed. I don't know of any Android mods that currently implement this capability, but it would be nice to see in future versions of Cyanogen or similar.
  - wvenable 15y ago
    > I would assume that the backdoor for Android devices is the Android Market itself. Not necessarily. The baseband firmware on your phone is probably more capable than you think. I played around with hacking my old HTC WinMo phone and with a little work I got the (Qualcomm) firmware to respond over USB. There's a complete file system on there that's nearly identical to the file system structure on my wife's dumb-phone (and accessed the same way). I assume they'd put everything they need at that level and don't have to insert anything into Android itself.
    - Niten 15y ago
      Yes, but even on devices where the baseband has full access to main system address space, the baseband device is something that varies from one Android phone to the next; on the other hand, the Android Market is a constant across almost all Android devices. So which would you rather develop: a different backdoor mechanism for every Android baseband out there, or a single mechanism for all phones equipped with the Android Market?
      - wvenable 15y ago
        This code probably doesn't vary that much. Across all the qualcomm phones I looked at (Smart and feature phone), it's clearly the same basic operating system. So this one underlying OS that's almost identical across all phones smart or feature that use the same chipset (in my case, they are all CDMA phones). So what's easier to develop, a backdoor mechanism that works for every phone (feature or smart) in exactly the same way using the same code or a different mechanism for each phone OS?
      - pash 15y ago
        You don't develop either. All you do is tell whoever wants to sell the phone that they must include a backdoor. That means the backdoor almost certainly gets implemented in vendor-specific code (whether their firmware, their add-ons, or their branch of the core OS).
    - quadhome 15y ago
pash 15y ago
The reason this is interesting is not so much that some companies have apparently provided backdoors so that governments can spy on their users. We already knew (or could reasonably surmise) that that was happening. No, the fun part is that one government's spies (India's) have apparently used these backdoors to spy on the agents of another country (the US). So, you see, by mandating these sorts of security compromises, governments have in fact made it easier for foreign governments to steal their own secrets—an irony apparently lost on the author of the Indian memo and on the authors of these policies.
- awda 15y ago
  Precisely.
- billybob 15y ago
  Exactly. Any backdoor comes with the possibility of use by other parties - hackers, foreign governments, etc. Which is why they are always unacceptable, even if you trust the US government (or whoever is asking for it), including everyone who does or ever will work for them (which is an absurd risk).
awda 15y ago
Shocker.
ytadesse 15y ago
Given the US Gov (and I'm fairly certain most other govs as well) has wiretapping laws in place (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...), I don't see why anyone would be surprised that the hardware providers also provide a mechanism to allow for tapping.
Mithrandir 15y ago
Second announcement: http://pastebay.com/272823 http://pastebay.com/272823 Third announcement: http://pastebay.com/272822 http://pastebay.com/272822 Images of document: http://imgur.com/a/8XoGf http://imgur.com/a/8XoGf
mmaunder 15y ago
The lesson is, don't trust commercial security products. Only trust open source peer reviewed products like TrueCrypt, GPG, etc. If you want your data to be secure, use your own layer of encryption, preferably on your own physical disk or at the very least have the encryption executing in an environment you control. e.g. Not someone else's package of TrueCrypt running on their server, rather your verified package on your machine and then upload it. Encryption is a major strategic issue and few governments will lay down and accept that their citizens or other countries have the ability securely store and transmit data. I was at an NSA show and tell recently and they had an original enigma machine on display which speaks volumes.
- Joakal 15y ago
  The article is about OS-level backdoors, not software-level backdoors. The aforementioned software wouldn't do anything against keyloggers on the phone. I think the software you're hoping for is jailbreaking the phone. But some governments are making or made that illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention
JonnieCache 15y ago
If you're scared of your government, you shouldn't be using any form of communication without end-to-end encryption that you control fully. This much should have been obvious for decades now. Criminals and revolutionaries are surely just as aware of these simple facts as we are, so these systems will likely mainly be used to spy on the innocent for political or personal gain. If you make secure crypto a crime, only criminals will have secure crypto.
- wahnfrieden 15y ago
  This doesn't help when you have e.g. an OS-level keylogger.
  - billybob 15y ago
    You missed his point. If you have "any form of communication with end-to-end encryption that you control fully", that precludes "an OS-level keylogger".
    - dextorious 15y ago
      No, it does not. Communication is what happens on the wire.
      - billybob 15y ago
        I think we're using different definitions of "control fully." In my view, in order to control the encryption process fully, you must control the device doing the encryption. If you're using an OS with a keylogger, you DON'T have "end-to-end encryption that you control fully" because you don't control one of the ends. If you fully controlled both ends, the security of the wire would be irrelevant. It could send copies of every message you send straight to your enemy's inbox and it would still be secure, because only the two fully controlled ends could decrypt the messages they send one another. If you don't control the device, you don't control the encryption.
- eternalban 15y ago
unreal37 15y ago
I do believe the US and UK governments have access to cell phone traffic (Echelon), so part of this is no surprise. But what I don't necessarily believe is that the government of India is in on it. Or that they are intercepting memos written by the United States about some confidential stuff. I feel this whole thing is a hoax and not real. Has this been confirmed by anyone? I wouldn't necessarily trust some "hacked memo" posted to Pastebin. Also, the title bothers me. Memos are leaked, not hacked.
- dextorious 15y ago
  """Also, the title bothers me. Memos are leaked, not hacked.""" This is a pedantic distinction. Both could happen, if you take it to mean something like: "Leaked": someone with "legal" access to it, made it available. "Hacked": someone hacked their systems/email, and got the memo.
fragsworth 15y ago
So there's clearly a problem here, and the only solution seems to be to use a 100% open-source device along with 100% open-source software. I mean there's pretty compelling evidence that others now have access to what we're doing on our (closed-source) devices. Would it now be totally irrational to go the Richard Stallman route?
- lallysingh 15y ago
  As an OpenMoko owner, it's not really much of an option.
  - ibisum 15y ago
    .. because the missing piece of the puzzle (something OpenMoko hasn't addressed, either) is this: 100% Open Hardware.
asdfasdfasdfff 15y ago
Not that I am defending Apple, but I hope that whoever condemns Apple also knows about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY
nirvana 15y ago
Is there any verified info showing a backdoor in Apple iOS? From my brief reading it sounds like the person writing the memo may not be able to distinguish between surveillance of the carriers and putting backdoors into the devices themselves. I can believe that the carriers would be compromised, sooner than I'll believe that the operating systems are. Specifically, one of the things Apple did with iOS 5 for iCloud was put in end-to-end encryption into the system. iOS has for an even longer period contained protections to make it less easy for an app to read data belonging to other apps, and the storage on Flash has been encrypted since at least iOS 4 (I believe.) Yet the iOS 5 binaries are subject to the scrutiny of the jail breaking community, and if there is a backdoor here, I'd think that it might have been found. (Or will be soon now that its existence has apparently been leaked.) Further, how could this actually work? (the memo is so full of jargon and nonsensical to me that I stopped trying to interpret it pretty quickly.) Its tricky to get intentional communication- FaceTime, iMessage, etc, working on devices, let alone back doors for a specific government. I don't think the indian government could successfully delver to Apple a spec for them to implement that wouldn't intrinsically cause noticeable problems and thus reveal its existence regularly. In short, I suspect that a backdoor is kinda infeasible from a software reliability viewpoint. Finally, its also quite possible that this is a psyops campaign. By announcing that they have a back door (thur a leaked memo) the indian government could be attempting to bring pressure to bear from other governments to get their own backdoors, and thus, enable india to ultimately actually get a backdoor. I remember months ago reading that the indian government wanted more access to the mobile devices but were being stymied by manufacturers. I've been observing Apple fairly closely for over 30 years and working with their operating systems, often at a fairly low level for almost 20 years. I've never seen Apple do anything that would betray their customers trust. People may object to the decisions Apple makes, but I have never seen a decision that, at the end of the day, didn't have at least the intent to do right by the customer (even when they failed to achieve that intent.) Thus I'm highly suspicious at any claim that Apple has put in a backdoor. I think this kind of claim is extraordinary and out or character, and Apple has far more integrity in my eyes than these documents. So, I'd like to see some evidence before we accept that this is fact.
- lunarscape 15y ago
  "one of the things Apple did with iOS 5 for iCloud was put in end-to-end encryption into the system." I'm not familiar with iCloud. Does it have strong client side encryption?
alexyoung 15y ago
Isn't this a legal requirement in the US? "CALEA's purpose is to enhance the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance by requiring that telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure that they have built-in surveillance capabilities, allowing federal agencies to monitor all telephone, broadband internet, and VoIP traffic in real-time." From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...
- kmfrk 15y ago
  It basically is. It's also a part of what allowed Chinese hackers to infiltrate Gmail, I believe.
  - waqf 15y ago
    I'm curious what led you to that conclusion (about the Gmail incident)?
    - kmfrk 15y ago
      This is the article I based it on: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hacking/ http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.ha.... Note that the expert used in the article is Bruce Schneier.
maeon3 15y ago
This article is precisely why I have a Linux box on my desk here and support android only. WHEN (not if) When the government decides to blacklist and whitelist ideas, actions and clicks, I can recompile the OS and comment out those lines.
- benvanderbeek 15y ago
  Are there layman-friendly tutorials on these OS-level steps to ensure full control of encryption? If it remains a matter of editing and recompiling an operating system, the masses have no hope of reestablishing that control.
  - dreamdu5t 15y ago
    They have the ability to re-establish control, which is much better than the lack thereof.
- dextorious 15y ago
  Yeah. And then, they simply move the black/whitelist to your ISP and/or make running your own recompiled-OS illegal. Political problems are NOT solved with technical solutions.
ajays 15y ago
My first impression was that the memo is fake. The author refers to people (such as Shantanu Ghosh) without titles; and from what I recall of Indian bureaucracy, titles are important and you just don't drop them. They would always say "Hon. XYZ" or "Shri ABC". Plus, it looks like the contents of the intercepts listed were there for gratuitous purposes only. I could be wrong, though.
dreamdu5t 15y ago
CALEA requires all your communication devices to have back doors... stop focusing on corporations and start looking at the law and your politicians.

286 points by pash 15y ago

JanezStupar 15y ago

I really enjoy posting this... RMS was right all along.

nilchameleons 15y ago
I think you mean Shinedown was right all along.

tzs 15y ago

The memo says "all major device vendors".

Niten 15y ago
I would assume that the backdoor for Android devices is the Android Market itself. Because Android is open source and each device manufacturer has its own build, it isn't really plausible to have a single backdoor within the core operating system. However, the closed-source Android Market application is the perfect candidate for such a mechanism; when you install an app via the market, all of the following happens: 1. You request the application from the Market and agree to any permissions requested. 2. The Market pushes an install instruction to the phone via Google's XMPP-based Android notification service. 3. The phone downloads and installs the .apk as instructed. Step 3 requires no interaction from the user – this is how, for instance, you can send an app to your phone from the Market web site. But it also means that any government with sufficient leverage over Google can coerce them to use this mechanism to install an arbitrary SpyOnStuff.apk at any time. But if this is the case it isn't entirely bad news for Android users, rather it yields two means of protecting yourself which aren't necessarily options on other platforms: 1. Use an open source Android build such as CyanogenMod, without the closed-source Market app installed. 2. Proxy Google's XMPP notification service and require user confirmation before pushed APKs are installed. I don't know of any Android mods that currently implement this capability, but it would be nice to see in future versions of Cyanogen or similar.
- wvenable 15y ago
  > I would assume that the backdoor for Android devices is the Android Market itself. Not necessarily. The baseband firmware on your phone is probably more capable than you think. I played around with hacking my old HTC WinMo phone and with a little work I got the (Qualcomm) firmware to respond over USB. There's a complete file system on there that's nearly identical to the file system structure on my wife's dumb-phone (and accessed the same way). I assume they'd put everything they need at that level and don't have to insert anything into Android itself.
  - Niten 15y ago
    Yes, but even on devices where the baseband has full access to main system address space, the baseband device is something that varies from one Android phone to the next; on the other hand, the Android Market is a constant across almost all Android devices. So which would you rather develop: a different backdoor mechanism for every Android baseband out there, or a single mechanism for all phones equipped with the Android Market?
    - wvenable 15y ago
      This code probably doesn't vary that much. Across all the qualcomm phones I looked at (Smart and feature phone), it's clearly the same basic operating system. So this one underlying OS that's almost identical across all phones smart or feature that use the same chipset (in my case, they are all CDMA phones). So what's easier to develop, a backdoor mechanism that works for every phone (feature or smart) in exactly the same way using the same code or a different mechanism for each phone OS?
    - pash 15y ago
      You don't develop either. All you do is tell whoever wants to sell the phone that they must include a backdoor. That means the backdoor almost certainly gets implemented in vendor-specific code (whether their firmware, their add-ons, or their branch of the core OS).
  - quadhome 15y ago

pash 15y ago

The reason this is interesting is not so much that some companies have apparently provided backdoors so that governments can spy on their users. We already knew (or could reasonably surmise) that that was happening. No, the fun part is that one government's spies (India's) have apparently used these backdoors to spy on the agents of another country (the US). So, you see, by mandating these sorts of security compromises, governments have in fact made it easier for foreign governments to steal their own secrets—an irony apparently lost on the author of the Indian memo and on the authors of these policies.

awda 15y ago
Precisely.
billybob 15y ago
Exactly. Any backdoor comes with the possibility of use by other parties - hackers, foreign governments, etc. Which is why they are always unacceptable, even if you trust the US government (or whoever is asking for it), including everyone who does or ever will work for them (which is an absurd risk).

awda 15y ago

Shocker.

ytadesse 15y ago

Given the US Gov (and I'm fairly certain most other govs as well) has wiretapping laws in place (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...), I don't see why anyone would be surprised that the hardware providers also provide a mechanism to allow for tapping.

Mithrandir 15y ago

Second announcement: http://pastebay.com/272823 http://pastebay.com/272823 Third announcement: http://pastebay.com/272822 http://pastebay.com/272822 Images of document: http://imgur.com/a/8XoGf http://imgur.com/a/8XoGf

mmaunder 15y ago

The lesson is, don't trust commercial security products. Only trust open source peer reviewed products like TrueCrypt, GPG, etc. If you want your data to be secure, use your own layer of encryption, preferably on your own physical disk or at the very least have the encryption executing in an environment you control. e.g. Not someone else's package of TrueCrypt running on their server, rather your verified package on your machine and then upload it. Encryption is a major strategic issue and few governments will lay down and accept that their citizens or other countries have the ability securely store and transmit data. I was at an NSA show and tell recently and they had an original enigma machine on display which speaks volumes.

Joakal 15y ago
The article is about OS-level backdoors, not software-level backdoors. The aforementioned software wouldn't do anything against keyloggers on the phone. I think the software you're hoping for is jailbreaking the phone. But some governments are making or made that illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention

JonnieCache 15y ago

If you're scared of your government, you shouldn't be using any form of communication without end-to-end encryption that you control fully. This much should have been obvious for decades now. Criminals and revolutionaries are surely just as aware of these simple facts as we are, so these systems will likely mainly be used to spy on the innocent for political or personal gain. If you make secure crypto a crime, only criminals will have secure crypto.

wahnfrieden 15y ago
This doesn't help when you have e.g. an OS-level keylogger.
- billybob 15y ago
  You missed his point. If you have "any form of communication with end-to-end encryption that you control fully", that precludes "an OS-level keylogger".
  - dextorious 15y ago
    No, it does not. Communication is what happens on the wire.
    - billybob 15y ago
      I think we're using different definitions of "control fully." In my view, in order to control the encryption process fully, you must control the device doing the encryption. If you're using an OS with a keylogger, you DON'T have "end-to-end encryption that you control fully" because you don't control one of the ends. If you fully controlled both ends, the security of the wire would be irrelevant. It could send copies of every message you send straight to your enemy's inbox and it would still be secure, because only the two fully controlled ends could decrypt the messages they send one another. If you don't control the device, you don't control the encryption.
eternalban 15y ago

unreal37 15y ago

I do believe the US and UK governments have access to cell phone traffic (Echelon), so part of this is no surprise. But what I don't necessarily believe is that the government of India is in on it. Or that they are intercepting memos written by the United States about some confidential stuff. I feel this whole thing is a hoax and not real. Has this been confirmed by anyone? I wouldn't necessarily trust some "hacked memo" posted to Pastebin. Also, the title bothers me. Memos are leaked, not hacked.

dextorious 15y ago
"""Also, the title bothers me. Memos are leaked, not hacked.""" This is a pedantic distinction. Both could happen, if you take it to mean something like: "Leaked": someone with "legal" access to it, made it available. "Hacked": someone hacked their systems/email, and got the memo.

fragsworth 15y ago

So there's clearly a problem here, and the only solution seems to be to use a 100% open-source device along with 100% open-source software. I mean there's pretty compelling evidence that others now have access to what we're doing on our (closed-source) devices. Would it now be totally irrational to go the Richard Stallman route?

lallysingh 15y ago
As an OpenMoko owner, it's not really much of an option.
- ibisum 15y ago
  .. because the missing piece of the puzzle (something OpenMoko hasn't addressed, either) is this: 100% Open Hardware.

asdfasdfasdfff 15y ago

Not that I am defending Apple, but I hope that whoever condemns Apple also knows about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

nirvana 15y ago

Is there any verified info showing a backdoor in Apple iOS? From my brief reading it sounds like the person writing the memo may not be able to distinguish between surveillance of the carriers and putting backdoors into the devices themselves. I can believe that the carriers would be compromised, sooner than I'll believe that the operating systems are. Specifically, one of the things Apple did with iOS 5 for iCloud was put in end-to-end encryption into the system. iOS has for an even longer period contained protections to make it less easy for an app to read data belonging to other apps, and the storage on Flash has been encrypted since at least iOS 4 (I believe.) Yet the iOS 5 binaries are subject to the scrutiny of the jail breaking community, and if there is a backdoor here, I'd think that it might have been found. (Or will be soon now that its existence has apparently been leaked.) Further, how could this actually work? (the memo is so full of jargon and nonsensical to me that I stopped trying to interpret it pretty quickly.) Its tricky to get intentional communication- FaceTime, iMessage, etc, working on devices, let alone back doors for a specific government. I don't think the indian government could successfully delver to Apple a spec for them to implement that wouldn't intrinsically cause noticeable problems and thus reveal its existence regularly. In short, I suspect that a backdoor is kinda infeasible from a software reliability viewpoint. Finally, its also quite possible that this is a psyops campaign. By announcing that they have a back door (thur a leaked memo) the indian government could be attempting to bring pressure to bear from other governments to get their own backdoors, and thus, enable india to ultimately actually get a backdoor. I remember months ago reading that the indian government wanted more access to the mobile devices but were being stymied by manufacturers. I've been observing Apple fairly closely for over 30 years and working with their operating systems, often at a fairly low level for almost 20 years. I've never seen Apple do anything that would betray their customers trust. People may object to the decisions Apple makes, but I have never seen a decision that, at the end of the day, didn't have at least the intent to do right by the customer (even when they failed to achieve that intent.) Thus I'm highly suspicious at any claim that Apple has put in a backdoor. I think this kind of claim is extraordinary and out or character, and Apple has far more integrity in my eyes than these documents. So, I'd like to see some evidence before we accept that this is fact.

lunarscape 15y ago
"one of the things Apple did with iOS 5 for iCloud was put in end-to-end encryption into the system." I'm not familiar with iCloud. Does it have strong client side encryption?

alexyoung 15y ago

Isn't this a legal requirement in the US? "CALEA's purpose is to enhance the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance by requiring that telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure that they have built-in surveillance capabilities, allowing federal agencies to monitor all telephone, broadband internet, and VoIP traffic in real-time." From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...

kmfrk 15y ago
It basically is. It's also a part of what allowed Chinese hackers to infiltrate Gmail, I believe.
- waqf 15y ago
  I'm curious what led you to that conclusion (about the Gmail incident)?
  - kmfrk 15y ago
    This is the article I based it on: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hacking/ http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.ha.... Note that the expert used in the article is Bruce Schneier.

maeon3 15y ago

This article is precisely why I have a Linux box on my desk here and support android only. WHEN (not if) When the government decides to blacklist and whitelist ideas, actions and clicks, I can recompile the OS and comment out those lines.

benvanderbeek 15y ago
Are there layman-friendly tutorials on these OS-level steps to ensure full control of encryption? If it remains a matter of editing and recompiling an operating system, the masses have no hope of reestablishing that control.
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  They have the ability to re-establish control, which is much better than the lack thereof.
dextorious 15y ago
Yeah. And then, they simply move the black/whitelist to your ISP and/or make running your own recompiled-OS illegal. Political problems are NOT solved with technical solutions.

ajays 15y ago

My first impression was that the memo is fake. The author refers to people (such as Shantanu Ghosh) without titles; and from what I recall of Indian bureaucracy, titles are important and you just don't drop them. They would always say "Hon. XYZ" or "Shri ABC". Plus, it looks like the contents of the intercepts listed were there for gratuitous purposes only. I could be wrong, though.

dreamdu5t 15y ago

CALEA requires all your communication devices to have back doors... stop focusing on corporations and start looking at the law and your politicians.