4 ms·

I tend to think this is an impossible hack, or at least the article is grossly exaggerating things. From the sound of it, they somehow managed to get directly i

by earlz 13y ago

I tend to think this is an impossible hack, or at least the article is grossly exaggerating things. From the sound of it, they somehow managed to get directly into the wifi and bluetooth chipsets, hijacked them to use [something?] to magically transfer data while they are disabled somehow below the TCP/IP level, within a sandbox... I mean, assuming they actually did manage this, it wouldn't be portable either. It sounds like they'd have to implement their own driver, which would mean hardware dependence.. and then theirs the fact that they are apparently breaking out of the sandbox and getting direct hardware access, a major exploit.. I call BS edit: Note, I know that wifi is capable of P2P/ad-hoc connections, and it's what bluetooth uses exclusively... The article seems to say that this app doesn't use that though and has these things disabled

highphive 13y ago
The article is unclear about what exactly needs to be enabled in order for the app to work, but I don't think they are saying they can hijack wifi even when it's disabled. An important quote from the article on this note is "So while PDQ doesn’t require existing connections, it uses the existing wireless chips to send data across short distances, which could be useful during power outages or natural disasters. That means you can’t have your iPhone in airplane mode while using PDQ, for example, because then it wouldn’t be able to tap into its wireless chips."
- proksoup 13y ago
  It's a stretch, but I think the implication is that even if your wifi router is out of power, two powered on phones will be able to communicate, even with "wifi" disabled as long as the wifi or bluetooth radio can get power. Transfers even without power, as in wireless network routers/towers don't have power, but phones still do.
freehunter 13y ago
The implication in the article is that it turns on the Bluetooth or WiFi chip and sends the data. The radios are off to begin with, but the software turns them on.
- thevdude 13y ago
  The article states they they have to be powered up, so airplane mode is still a no-go.
  - nwh 13y ago
    WiFi works in Airplane mode on iOS.
- phyalow 13y ago
  Still cant see apple approving that. I also don't think sandboxed and non jail broken apps can modify hardware power states.

by earlz 13y ago

highphive 13y ago

The article is unclear about what exactly needs to be enabled in order for the app to work, but I don't think they are saying they can hijack wifi even when it's disabled. An important quote from the article on this note is "So while PDQ doesn’t require existing connections, it uses the existing wireless chips to send data across short distances, which could be useful during power outages or natural disasters. That means you can’t have your iPhone in airplane mode while using PDQ, for example, because then it wouldn’t be able to tap into its wireless chips."

proksoup 13y ago
It's a stretch, but I think the implication is that even if your wifi router is out of power, two powered on phones will be able to communicate, even with "wifi" disabled as long as the wifi or bluetooth radio can get power. Transfers even without power, as in wireless network routers/towers don't have power, but phones still do.

freehunter 13y ago

The implication in the article is that it turns on the Bluetooth or WiFi chip and sends the data. The radios are off to begin with, but the software turns them on.

thevdude 13y ago
The article states they they have to be powered up, so airplane mode is still a no-go.
- nwh 13y ago
  WiFi works in Airplane mode on iOS.
phyalow 13y ago
Still cant see apple approving that. I also don't think sandboxed and non jail broken apps can modify hardware power states.