4 ms·

This is yet another good argument for TextSecure and RedPhone, which don't depend on the SIM card encryption. https://whispersystems.org/ https://whispersystem

• hannibalhorn 12y ago
  While certainly a step in the right direction, the lack of an open baseband remains a huge problem, even with TextSecure. Any smartphone has a whole separate OS running, with access to the system bus and memory, that we generally have zero visibility into. There could be exploitable bugs, there could be actual backdoors, and we just have no idea. If you truly want to secure data, you need to use an airgapped system with hardware that is much more open.
  • orbifold 12y ago
    That should be a solvable problem, aren't there tons of operating systems professors and electrical engineers around in Europe that could in principle develop an open baseband chip and operating system? Germany and France should have an interest that their communication can't be trivially backdoored by the NSA.
    • SXX 12y ago
      Main issue is there really no specifications available on many things. Also it's will be nearly impossible to pass certification so no real manufacturer would use it. If you want more details you may check OsmocomBB site and IRC. > Germany and France should have an interest that their communication can't be trivially backdoored by the NSA. Nobody saying that governments don't have trusted hardware with only their own backdoors. In almost every country manufacturer have to provide source code and specs in order to pass certification so gov does have everything needed. Though it's not help anybody else as it's will never be open.
  • patcon 12y ago
    Manual baseband isolation via mobile hotspot and nexus 7, does the trick for now
    • tmzt 12y ago
      Until the AMSS in the hotspot is compromised and used to attack your Android device via wifi. This applies to mobile hotspots built around Qualcomm baseband/application processors, in other cases you would have to exploit the main CPU first.
      • scintill76 12y ago
        Well, at least that requires two exploits/backdoors, instead of one.
  • mike_hearn 12y ago
    Modern basebands are sandboxed, from what I understand. Partly because phones kept getting unlocked through exploiting baseband bugs and that messes with carrier subsidies.
  • alecco 12y ago
    Indeed. Samsung baseband was found to have a backdoor to read files in the phone. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/replicant-developers-find-and-close-samsung-galaxy-backdoor https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/replicant-developers-fin...
• chinathrow 12y ago
  Yet they do depend on a good RNG, don't they? Is that a given on common smartphones these days?
  • pixl97 12y ago
    I'm not sure about hardware RNG, but many if not most phones have sources of 'random' enviornmental data they can use to generate a random number such as cameras and phone movement. https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/42428/is-generating-random-numbers-using-a-smartphone-camera-a-good-idea https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/42428/is-genera...
• contingencies 12y ago
  The problem with these sorts of on-phone-afterthoughts are that they are just lipstick on a pig. You are still being tracked (GSM, wifi) and vulnerable to local hacks. Due to the nature of the devices (millions of identical devices are produced for major models), their distribution patterns (model selection led by fashion and price point), their homogeneity (two dominant embedded OS platforms only), their complexity (leading to a very large potential attack surface), and their ubiquitousness (your phone number, IMEI, local physical cell, or email address is probably terribly easy to find) it would be extremely foolhardy to rely upon the security of a modern, commercially available handset.
• Tepix 12y ago
  It's unfortunate that the free Linphone for iOS crashes since the last update... it offers standard ZRTP calls for iOS.