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Shock & Awe! You'd think the fact that a smartphone stays in your pocket would be more alarming. The things have multiple cameras, microphones, GPS tracking de

by namuol 12y ago

Shock & Awe! You'd think the fact that a smartphone stays in your pocket would be more alarming. The things have multiple cameras, microphones, GPS tracking devices, and a whole myriad of personal information stored on them. They're even rectangular screens! Someone needs to write an article that refers to smartphones in the context of "telescreens" and describe what they do matter-of-factly so we can snap out of it...

fivedogit 12y ago
This is why I do absolutely nothing on a new phone until it's been unlocked, rooted, wiped and Cyanogenmod-ed.
- synx508 12y ago
  Those steps might make you feel better but buy you very little in terms of privacy. Your telecoms provider will still know roughly where you are at all times, they have to, it's how their switches know which towers to route your traffic to and from. Unless you tunnel all your data traffic they'll also get copies of that and may sell pseudo-anonymous website usage statistics to one of the web metrics businesses. In some countries they also intercept and modify web content that you might view. And what can you do about the baseband radio processor and its code? Nothing. Assuming you have a tunnel in operation, the phone could still be collecting and quietly sharing metadata and you'd never know.
  - fivedogit 12y ago
    Well you're right that it's not a silver bullet, but it does have some benefit. At least I know no software running within or on top of the OS is reading/stealing my info.
    - nucleardog 12y ago
      "Well sure, my OS might have a rootkit, but I've replaced Internet Explorer with Chrome, so my online banking should be secure!" The baseband has its own processor and, to my understanding, pretty much complete hardware control of the phone. I don't deny that that the benefit is non-zero, but I think saying "it's not a silver bullet" is still overselling it. I think it would be more accurate to describe it as "It's all I can do, and it's better than nothing."
pluma 12y ago
I'm aware of the sarcasm, but this is actually not mere hyperbole. Imagine every American being in the vicinity of a remote-controllable intercept device with a microphone, camera and GPS tracker 24 hours each day. But don't worry, you have nothing to hide, right? Can't let the terrorists win.
- namuol 12y ago
  Actually I wasn't being sarcastic -- our smartphones really are more insidious than Telescreens, from a technical standpoint.

by namuol 12y ago

fivedogit 12y ago

This is why I do absolutely nothing on a new phone until it's been unlocked, rooted, wiped and Cyanogenmod-ed.

synx508 12y ago
Those steps might make you feel better but buy you very little in terms of privacy. Your telecoms provider will still know roughly where you are at all times, they have to, it's how their switches know which towers to route your traffic to and from. Unless you tunnel all your data traffic they'll also get copies of that and may sell pseudo-anonymous website usage statistics to one of the web metrics businesses. In some countries they also intercept and modify web content that you might view. And what can you do about the baseband radio processor and its code? Nothing. Assuming you have a tunnel in operation, the phone could still be collecting and quietly sharing metadata and you'd never know.
- fivedogit 12y ago
  Well you're right that it's not a silver bullet, but it does have some benefit. At least I know no software running within or on top of the OS is reading/stealing my info.
  - nucleardog 12y ago
    "Well sure, my OS might have a rootkit, but I've replaced Internet Explorer with Chrome, so my online banking should be secure!" The baseband has its own processor and, to my understanding, pretty much complete hardware control of the phone. I don't deny that that the benefit is non-zero, but I think saying "it's not a silver bullet" is still overselling it. I think it would be more accurate to describe it as "It's all I can do, and it's better than nothing."

pluma 12y ago

I'm aware of the sarcasm, but this is actually not mere hyperbole. Imagine every American being in the vicinity of a remote-controllable intercept device with a microphone, camera and GPS tracker 24 hours each day. But don't worry, you have nothing to hide, right? Can't let the terrorists win.

namuol 12y ago
Actually I wasn't being sarcastic -- our smartphones really are more insidious than Telescreens, from a technical standpoint.