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What's keeping government agencies from putting keylogging code on the SIM card or baseband processor (whichever has the best access to host cpu/memory) via the

What's keeping government agencies from putting keylogging code on the SIM card or baseband processor (whichever has the best access to host cpu/memory) via the carriers to obtain the passcode? Not much I guess. Has Apple publicly claimed that they will also refuse to push individualized compromising code updates to devices on demand by gov't authorities?

abritishguy 12y ago
>keylogging code on the SIM card or baseband processor That won't work. >Has Apple publicly claimed that they will also refuse to push individualized compromising code updates to devices on demand by gov't authorities? No, and even though I strongly doubt the government would even try to do this and even more strongly doubt Apple would comply, their new tech (apple pay and touch ID use hardware support to even protect against this sort of breach which shows that they are certainly thinking about it). I'm pretty sure Apple won't even have the ability to silently push an OS update (if they did then someone could find out because it would be in the OS and then all hell would break loose) - it would have to be accepted by the target which means there is a reasonably large chance of detection.
- kabouseng 12y ago
  Not on the sim card, but on the base band processor it very probably will work, since the base band on many cell phone cores share the memory with the application processor.
  - abritishguy 12y ago
    Well it certainly doesn't work like that on an iPhone.
    - kabouseng 12y ago
      Please illuminate me then as to what the iPhones processor architecture looks like, seeing as iPhones also use Qualcomm basebands, same as most Android devices...
      - abritishguy 12y ago
        The baseband processor has no access to the parts of memory it is not meant to, possibly some of the early iPhones did but currently they are properly isolated.
        kabouseng 12y ago
        Please substantiate with a link.
        sigterm 12y ago
        Considering iPhone has their custom processor design, this information is most likely confidential. However, it isn't inconceivable that some sort of memory protection method similar to IOMMU can be added to the internal fabric to prevent baseband processors (or any other peripherals) from accessing arbitrary physical memory.
        kabouseng 12y ago
        Thats fine, I just wasn't sure how abrittishguy can state his assertions so absolutely as facts.
        function_seven 12y ago
        The baseband firmware is cyptographically signed by Apple (and would thus require their complicity in backdooring) and the A7 models have a so-called Secure Enclave, which handles the encryption and decryption of memory contents. Link: http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_Feb14.pdf http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_Feb14.p...
        kabouseng 12y ago
        Thank you very much, I'll definitely read through the doc through the course of the day. But a cursory glance still does not mean that rogue software on the baseband cannot compromise your phone, but it is getting more and more difficult to place rogue software on the baseband. "And would require Apple's complicity" - Or perhaps rather Qualcomms's...
thornjm 12y ago
Some very knowledgable iOS security people have told me how hard it is to break iOS. You need quite a few chained exploits to do anything meaningful. Browsers are pretty much the only things with Read/Write/Execute memory. Security is always a convenience/security trade-off. iOS is about as good as you can get before inconvenience will turn people to less secure devices.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- cyphunk 12y ago
  There is the question of vanilla iOS being susceptible to attack from NSA and any other malicious attacker and then there is the question of is the security design sufficient such that even apple could not backdoor your privacy should they desire. The latter is what the original commented was addressing. I think the statements from apple do not clarify this matter and we should assume they can backdoor should be required by warrant. I need to see detailed technical specifications for their claimed security measures before I would trust these statements (if someone has a RTFM link, much appreciated).

abritishguy 12y ago

>keylogging code on the SIM card or baseband processor That won't work. >Has Apple publicly claimed that they will also refuse to push individualized compromising code updates to devices on demand by gov't authorities? No, and even though I strongly doubt the government would even try to do this and even more strongly doubt Apple would comply, their new tech (apple pay and touch ID use hardware support to even protect against this sort of breach which shows that they are certainly thinking about it). I'm pretty sure Apple won't even have the ability to silently push an OS update (if they did then someone could find out because it would be in the OS and then all hell would break loose) - it would have to be accepted by the target which means there is a reasonably large chance of detection.

kabouseng 12y ago
Not on the sim card, but on the base band processor it very probably will work, since the base band on many cell phone cores share the memory with the application processor.
- abritishguy 12y ago
  Well it certainly doesn't work like that on an iPhone.
  - kabouseng 12y ago
    Please illuminate me then as to what the iPhones processor architecture looks like, seeing as iPhones also use Qualcomm basebands, same as most Android devices...
    - abritishguy 12y ago
      The baseband processor has no access to the parts of memory it is not meant to, possibly some of the early iPhones did but currently they are properly isolated.
      - kabouseng 12y ago
        Please substantiate with a link.
        sigterm 12y ago
        Considering iPhone has their custom processor design, this information is most likely confidential. However, it isn't inconceivable that some sort of memory protection method similar to IOMMU can be added to the internal fabric to prevent baseband processors (or any other peripherals) from accessing arbitrary physical memory.
        kabouseng 12y ago
        Thats fine, I just wasn't sure how abrittishguy can state his assertions so absolutely as facts.
        function_seven 12y ago
        The baseband firmware is cyptographically signed by Apple (and would thus require their complicity in backdooring) and the A7 models have a so-called Secure Enclave, which handles the encryption and decryption of memory contents. Link: http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_Feb14.pdf http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_Feb14.p...
        kabouseng 12y ago
        Thank you very much, I'll definitely read through the doc through the course of the day. But a cursory glance still does not mean that rogue software on the baseband cannot compromise your phone, but it is getting more and more difficult to place rogue software on the baseband. "And would require Apple's complicity" - Or perhaps rather Qualcomms's...

thornjm 12y ago

Some very knowledgable iOS security people have told me how hard it is to break iOS. You need quite a few chained exploits to do anything meaningful. Browsers are pretty much the only things with Read/Write/Execute memory. Security is always a convenience/security trade-off. iOS is about as good as you can get before inconvenience will turn people to less secure devices.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cyphunk 12y ago
There is the question of vanilla iOS being susceptible to attack from NSA and any other malicious attacker and then there is the question of is the security design sufficient such that even apple could not backdoor your privacy should they desire. The latter is what the original commented was addressing. I think the statements from apple do not clarify this matter and we should assume they can backdoor should be required by warrant. I need to see detailed technical specifications for their claimed security measures before I would trust these statements (if someone has a RTFM link, much appreciated).