6 ms·

How the NSA can 'turn on' your phone remotely

57 points by sunilkumarc 12y ago

Zigurd 12y ago
This article contains some likely disinformation. For example, there is no "mode" that will prevent a phone with a charged battery from processing commands to the baseband. Their second suggestion, "create a barrier" is hard to test for reliability. Just because your phone thinks it has too-poor signal to connect a call doesn't necessarily mean that it is truly isolated and can't be a room bug. Pulling the battery is a reliable way to make the phone safe.
- nthj 12y ago
  > Just because your phone thinks it has too-poor signal to connect a call doesn't necessarily mean that it is truly isolated and can't be a room bug. And/or recording audio to send home later.
- chippy 12y ago
  disinformation or misinformation? Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately
  - tritium 12y ago
    No. You've got it backwards. Disinformation is prevention of awareness (not informed at all). Misinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately (informed with mistakes). ...but I see what you did there.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      No, the broadly understood difference is that disinformation is intentionally spread wrong information, while misinformation is just wrong information. When I say 'broadly understood', I mean that it is the reasonable understanding you should come away with if you consult some reference like a dictionary or encyclopedia, it's what they say.
      - tritium 12y ago
        Look at the root prefixes, and compare with similar words. Example: Disrespect. Respect is immutable, you either have it or you don't. It's either provided or absent, but does not manifest itself in malignant forms. Example: Mistrial. A trial has already has already happened, and is found to be problematic. It cannot be reversed, and its results cannot me revoked, only amended. The events happened, and were wrong. Conclusion: Disinformation is socially engineered ignorance, misiformation is socially engineered misunderstanding. Disinformation: The water is pure. Misinformation: You might notice that the water has a funny taste, but it is uncontaminated, and the taste is benign and harmless. Another example: I disinform you of my user account by never telling you I use this website, and never browse it in a way that would give away my participation, even though we are co-workers, and I eat lunch with you every day. I always tell you about awesome articles and online reading material, but I never reveal how I found them. You disinform me of your awareness of my user account, by never hinting that you saw me through my bedroom window, two night's ago, sitting at my computer browsing this site and responding to a thread. Yesterday, we ate lunch, and I told you about that "Door To Hell" Wikipedia article. You ask how I found it, and I misinform you that I used wikipedia's random article link. Today, you confront me face-to-face about what you witnessed, and I misinform you that my user account is "pavement", and I only just started using this site five days ago. I lie to your face and tell you that I'm unfamiliar with the "tritium" account.
        pavement 12y ago
        I have no idea what this guy is talking about.
        maxerickson 12y ago
        Just check some reference material. You might not like (or agree with!) what it says, but it should be instructive as to how other people are likely to be using the words (because the people who bother to put such materials together are usually careful to make them reasonably accurate). Also check out mistrial, it's actually a trial that is stopped before there is a result.
        deleted 12y ago
    - chippy 12y ago
      I just got the definition from wikipedia :)
jloughry 12y ago
New application of an old technique: spoofing the "trusted path"; in the old days by means of a fake login prompt to harvest passwords, today with a fake "slide to power off" that blanks the screen and makes the phone play dead but with its radio continuing to operate.
Spearchucker 12y ago
Everything is relative. You can track cellphones that are switched off anyway, because companies like CellSense (http://www.cellsensegroup.com/ http://www.cellsensegroup.com/) make detectors that track moving ferromagnetic objects. While CellSense's sweet spot is prisons, there are others who's use cases are more imaginative. As always, if you're targeted, you're probably toast no matter what you do, short of going off-grid in a remote but populated area with absolutely no tech on or near you, and cash, no plastic.
Theodores 12y ago
When cell phones first started to become popular it was strange to see how you could buy them without having to provide much in the way of ID, particularly with PAYG phones. One would have thought that it would have made more sense to have a reasonable amount of identity checks going on, after all we wouldn't want to have the bad guys able to do things with mobile phones,would we? However, if all of the phones are bugged anyway, if they all work like tracking devices and if the carriers (e.g. Vodafone) are completely happy with being complicit with that, then it makes sense to have phones available for a low price and with not lot of background checks going on. The only safe way to use a phone (if you have something to hide) is to not have one and social engineer others into 'lending' you there phone on a fake pretext of your battery being dead etc. and then to call a number where there is no expectation of bugging going on.
abritishguy 12y ago
Such a clickbait title.
- dang 12y ago
  Happy to change it if anyone can suggest a better.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  It's a sloppy article, but the title is apropos.
dm2 12y ago
Does anyone have any more information on what is actually possible from a malicious tower? Below is all I could find. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCcKk8R0LFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCcKk8R0LFI http://www.pcworld.com/article/216842/coming_soon_a_new_way_to_hack_into_your_smartphone.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/216842/coming_soon_a_new_way_... http://openbts.org/ http://openbts.org/ Is anyone else cautious when receiving free electronics? I'm always suspicious that it could be bugged by a rival company (from another country) or possess malware such as http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429394/placeraider-the-military-smartphone-malware-designed-to-steal-your-life/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429394/placeraider-the-... Also, this seems dangerous: http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/technology/security/drone-phone/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/technology/security/drone-ph...
- a1a 12y ago
  Second question: I recently spoke with a guy working right now on analyzing off-the-shelf usb-sticks from all kinds of vendors. He called it "night-shift malware" and his advice was to fdisk the hell out of all devices before even considering to use it. This might be old news(?), but my point is that it's not only free electronics you should worry about. Of course free electronics contains another security aspect as these might be used to attack you specifically while night-shift stuff is directed at "as many as possible". Last article: This is why you should put tape over your smartphone cam. Imagine what criminals (ex. burglars) could do using such technology. Correct me if I'm wrong here -- but I find it surprising that most people care to put tape over their laptop cam but not on their smartphone, why is this?
  - IvyMike 12y ago
    Laptops often have a good view of the room. Cell phones often have a good view of the inside of a pocket. Nitpicker's corner: Your usage patterns may differ.
- tmosleyIII 12y ago
  You can probably take a look at some AT commands to see what all is possible: http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gts/07/0707/05.00.00_60/gsmts_0707v050000p.pdf http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gts/07/0707/05.00.00_60/gsm... As far as how easy, you just need the right hardware and software.
jimhefferon 12y ago
Phones and laptops should have a slide switch, a hardware switch, to turn off the mic. I can cover the camera but I can't turn off the mic.
- Istof 12y ago
  speakers can also be used as a microphones...
  - dm2 12y ago
    I was skeptical about this at first but it seems true: http://www.zyra.org.uk/sp-mic.htm http://www.zyra.org.uk/sp-mic.htm Even the accelerometer in a phone can be used to record keystrokes from a keyboard. http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/6430-your-smartphone-spies-on-what-you-type-.html http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligenc... Even WiFi can potentially be hacked to map/pinpoint people in a room/building. Must be a fun time to be a spy with everyone putting numerous bugs, sensors, and cameras in their work and home willingly.
    - Silhouette 12y ago
      I have been coming round to the once-crazy-sounding idea that the only way to protect consumers from unwittingly bugging themselves and others around them is to require all devices to state a prominent warning about any components they include that can be used as sensors or communication devices, and to include at least a hardware-driven indicator of when any sensor or communication channel is active and preferably a hardware switch to force it off. Whether any government would ever support such a move is a different question, of course. I suspect not in the current climate, because they'd fear losing their own intelligence capabilities against targets they wanted to single out legitimately. However, I also get the feeling that the tide is finally turning against the "mass surveillance/database state" in the general public consciousness and not just for geeks and civil liberties campaigners. Probably not at the next major electoral cycles but maybe in the ones afterwards, I suspect preserving personal privacy will be a political issue with some real weight, and this kind of issue will be part of that debate.
zw123456 12y ago
I can tell you with certainty from my experience in the field that phones, in particular smart phones, can be turned on remotely, that is common knowledge in the industry. The only way to prevent it is to remove the battery which is not possible on all phones. I think a cool product would be a replacement battery that had a hard on/off switch like a magnetic reed switch built in and if you put a magnet on that spot it would disconnect the power.
Istof 12y ago
You might be able to test if it was secretly kept ON by checking battery levels...

57 points by sunilkumarc 12y ago

This article contains some likely disinformation. For example, there is no "mode" that will prevent a phone with a charged battery from processing commands to the baseband. Their second suggestion, "create a barrier" is hard to test for reliability. Just because your phone thinks it has too-poor signal to connect a call doesn't necessarily mean that it is truly isolated and can't be a room bug. Pulling the battery is a reliable way to make the phone safe.

nthj 12y ago
> Just because your phone thinks it has too-poor signal to connect a call doesn't necessarily mean that it is truly isolated and can't be a room bug. And/or recording audio to send home later.
chippy 12y ago
disinformation or misinformation? Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately
- tritium 12y ago
  No. You've got it backwards. Disinformation is prevention of awareness (not informed at all). Misinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately (informed with mistakes). ...but I see what you did there.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    No, the broadly understood difference is that disinformation is intentionally spread wrong information, while misinformation is just wrong information. When I say 'broadly understood', I mean that it is the reasonable understanding you should come away with if you consult some reference like a dictionary or encyclopedia, it's what they say.
    - tritium 12y ago
      Look at the root prefixes, and compare with similar words. Example: Disrespect. Respect is immutable, you either have it or you don't. It's either provided or absent, but does not manifest itself in malignant forms. Example: Mistrial. A trial has already has already happened, and is found to be problematic. It cannot be reversed, and its results cannot me revoked, only amended. The events happened, and were wrong. Conclusion: Disinformation is socially engineered ignorance, misiformation is socially engineered misunderstanding. Disinformation: The water is pure. Misinformation: You might notice that the water has a funny taste, but it is uncontaminated, and the taste is benign and harmless. Another example: I disinform you of my user account by never telling you I use this website, and never browse it in a way that would give away my participation, even though we are co-workers, and I eat lunch with you every day. I always tell you about awesome articles and online reading material, but I never reveal how I found them. You disinform me of your awareness of my user account, by never hinting that you saw me through my bedroom window, two night's ago, sitting at my computer browsing this site and responding to a thread. Yesterday, we ate lunch, and I told you about that "Door To Hell" Wikipedia article. You ask how I found it, and I misinform you that I used wikipedia's random article link. Today, you confront me face-to-face about what you witnessed, and I misinform you that my user account is "pavement", and I only just started using this site five days ago. I lie to your face and tell you that I'm unfamiliar with the "tritium" account.
      - pavement 12y ago
        I have no idea what this guy is talking about.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        Just check some reference material. You might not like (or agree with!) what it says, but it should be instructive as to how other people are likely to be using the words (because the people who bother to put such materials together are usually careful to make them reasonably accurate). Also check out mistrial, it's actually a trial that is stopped before there is a result.
        deleted 12y ago
  - chippy 12y ago
    I just got the definition from wikipedia :)

jloughry 12y ago

New application of an old technique: spoofing the "trusted path"; in the old days by means of a fake login prompt to harvest passwords, today with a fake "slide to power off" that blanks the screen and makes the phone play dead but with its radio continuing to operate.

Spearchucker 12y ago

Everything is relative. You can track cellphones that are switched off anyway, because companies like CellSense (http://www.cellsensegroup.com/ http://www.cellsensegroup.com/) make detectors that track moving ferromagnetic objects. While CellSense's sweet spot is prisons, there are others who's use cases are more imaginative. As always, if you're targeted, you're probably toast no matter what you do, short of going off-grid in a remote but populated area with absolutely no tech on or near you, and cash, no plastic.

Theodores 12y ago

When cell phones first started to become popular it was strange to see how you could buy them without having to provide much in the way of ID, particularly with PAYG phones. One would have thought that it would have made more sense to have a reasonable amount of identity checks going on, after all we wouldn't want to have the bad guys able to do things with mobile phones,would we? However, if all of the phones are bugged anyway, if they all work like tracking devices and if the carriers (e.g. Vodafone) are completely happy with being complicit with that, then it makes sense to have phones available for a low price and with not lot of background checks going on. The only safe way to use a phone (if you have something to hide) is to not have one and social engineer others into 'lending' you there phone on a fake pretext of your battery being dead etc. and then to call a number where there is no expectation of bugging going on.

abritishguy 12y ago

Such a clickbait title.

dang 12y ago
Happy to change it if anyone can suggest a better.
Zigurd 12y ago
It's a sloppy article, but the title is apropos.

dm2 12y ago

Does anyone have any more information on what is actually possible from a malicious tower? Below is all I could find. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCcKk8R0LFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCcKk8R0LFI http://www.pcworld.com/article/216842/coming_soon_a_new_way_to_hack_into_your_smartphone.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/216842/coming_soon_a_new_way_... http://openbts.org/ http://openbts.org/ Is anyone else cautious when receiving free electronics? I'm always suspicious that it could be bugged by a rival company (from another country) or possess malware such as http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429394/placeraider-the-military-smartphone-malware-designed-to-steal-your-life/ http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429394/placeraider-the-... Also, this seems dangerous: http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/technology/security/drone-phone/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/technology/security/drone-ph...

a1a 12y ago
Second question: I recently spoke with a guy working right now on analyzing off-the-shelf usb-sticks from all kinds of vendors. He called it "night-shift malware" and his advice was to fdisk the hell out of all devices before even considering to use it. This might be old news(?), but my point is that it's not only free electronics you should worry about. Of course free electronics contains another security aspect as these might be used to attack you specifically while night-shift stuff is directed at "as many as possible". Last article: This is why you should put tape over your smartphone cam. Imagine what criminals (ex. burglars) could do using such technology. Correct me if I'm wrong here -- but I find it surprising that most people care to put tape over their laptop cam but not on their smartphone, why is this?
- IvyMike 12y ago
  Laptops often have a good view of the room. Cell phones often have a good view of the inside of a pocket. Nitpicker's corner: Your usage patterns may differ.
tmosleyIII 12y ago
You can probably take a look at some AT commands to see what all is possible: http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gts/07/0707/05.00.00_60/gsmts_0707v050000p.pdf http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gts/07/0707/05.00.00_60/gsm... As far as how easy, you just need the right hardware and software.

jimhefferon 12y ago

Phones and laptops should have a slide switch, a hardware switch, to turn off the mic. I can cover the camera but I can't turn off the mic.

Istof 12y ago
speakers can also be used as a microphones...
- dm2 12y ago
  I was skeptical about this at first but it seems true: http://www.zyra.org.uk/sp-mic.htm http://www.zyra.org.uk/sp-mic.htm Even the accelerometer in a phone can be used to record keystrokes from a keyboard. http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/6430-your-smartphone-spies-on-what-you-type-.html http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligenc... Even WiFi can potentially be hacked to map/pinpoint people in a room/building. Must be a fun time to be a spy with everyone putting numerous bugs, sensors, and cameras in their work and home willingly.
  - Silhouette 12y ago
    I have been coming round to the once-crazy-sounding idea that the only way to protect consumers from unwittingly bugging themselves and others around them is to require all devices to state a prominent warning about any components they include that can be used as sensors or communication devices, and to include at least a hardware-driven indicator of when any sensor or communication channel is active and preferably a hardware switch to force it off. Whether any government would ever support such a move is a different question, of course. I suspect not in the current climate, because they'd fear losing their own intelligence capabilities against targets they wanted to single out legitimately. However, I also get the feeling that the tide is finally turning against the "mass surveillance/database state" in the general public consciousness and not just for geeks and civil liberties campaigners. Probably not at the next major electoral cycles but maybe in the ones afterwards, I suspect preserving personal privacy will be a political issue with some real weight, and this kind of issue will be part of that debate.

zw123456 12y ago

I can tell you with certainty from my experience in the field that phones, in particular smart phones, can be turned on remotely, that is common knowledge in the industry. The only way to prevent it is to remove the battery which is not possible on all phones. I think a cool product would be a replacement battery that had a hard on/off switch like a magnetic reed switch built in and if you put a magnet on that spot it would disconnect the power.

Istof 12y ago

You might be able to test if it was secretly kept ON by checking battery levels...