Waiting for the next Snowden.

In the meantime, you can use your smartphone inside a Faraday cage. Wrapping it in aluminium should help.

Not sure what you're implying with this comment. Is it that people concerned about security of their phones are wearing Tin-Foil Hats?

That if governments have privileged access to the hardware, it's not safe to use a phone until a whistleblower tells us what exactly they can do.

you can use your smartphone inside a Faraday cage.

Or, more accurately stated, "you can't".

The FBI has been tapping mobile phones as "roving bugs" for a decade: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html

You can't use it inside any sort of Faraday cage, that's pointless. It's to prevent people from accessing it while it's inside one.

Pro tip: Refrigerator doesn't work, but cocktail shaker apparently does. (http://makezine.com/2013/06/26/edward-snowden-can-a-refriger...)

I thought that the refrigerator was more about soundproofing (that way it wouldn't matter if it was listening or not.)

Maybe if you are really in that sort of situation you should just do both, just in case.

I thought that the refrigerator was more about soundproofing (that way it wouldn't matter if it was listening or not.)

I think it depends on the model. I tested a couple of phones, including a blackberry, inside my fridge a few years before Snowden did his thing. We put them in and then tried to call them and none of them rang. But the fridge was one of those trendy stainless steel models. Perhaps a more ordinary fridge would have less effect on signal strength.

Waiting for the next Snowden.

The pinnacle of democracy: waiting for someone else to do it.

"Lastly, the baseband processor is usually the master processor, whereas the application processor (which runs the mobile operating system) is the slave."

Can maybe somebody explain what this means exactly? Could the baseband processor/OS be used as an attack vector to exploit the main mobile OS? Could the OS protect itself from this?

The baseband processor may have unrestricted access to the entire address space of the device or to address space which the application processor (and the operating system it's running) implicitly trusts.

I am assuming that the RTOS has direct and full unrestricted access to the hardware such as the camera and microphone? If so then I would also assume that an over the air attack to silently suck data from the camera and microphone would be pretty easy for those with access to the RTOS (such as governments)?

I know there has been software to do just this in the past on some Nokia devices but I would assume (I am doing that a lot in this post!) it is just as possible in pretty much every mobile phone?

Anyone with knowledge of this care to comment on my assumptions?

Why would the baseband processor need access to anything but the RF and maybe the GPS hardware?

Quite often the baseband has the only direct access to the handset mic and speaker, including things like the agc and speakerphone. That's why a room bug can be implemented this way.

The article hints at a way to democratize access to this capability by using the RIL commands to turn on auto-answer and turn off any indication it's happening.

RIL commands being extended AT commands? There is a community of phone unlockers who know everything about these for Qualcomm chipsets but their tools have the best DRM I've ever seen.

Way back when a wrote a couple chapters for Android Application Development I wrote about Android's RIL daemon and the underlying device-specific RIL libraries. It's gotten a lot more complicated, but the source code is open and includes what appears to be a reference implementation: https://github.com/android/platform_hardware_ril

I have not looked at this part of Android source code in depth in a while, but from a quick look it still looks very edifying about how this part of a smartphone works.

Similarly, the open source implementation of the Firefox OS RIL daemon can be read here: https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/system/go...

(Sadly, it's not used in all production devices.)

I would also assume that an over the air attack to silently suck data from the camera and microphone would be pretty easy for those with access to the RTOS (such as governments)?

This is correct. The rule of thumb is this: If you need to avoid being tracked, do not under any circumstances carry a cell phone unless you have removed the battery. Even if it's powered off, it can still be activated to remotely track you as long as the battery is in it. This tactic was used in catching the recent serial killer Luka. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luka_Magnotta

From the article: "His cell phone signal was traced to a hotel in Bagnolet, but he had left by the time police arrived.[55]"

You can bet that, since he was on the run, his cell phone was off.

There are other examples besides Luka. Circumstantial evidence is very strong that law enforcement can track you if you've powered off your phone but haven't removed the battery.

(I feel so strange posting this comment, since those who would benefit from this advice are probably of dubious character.)

EDIT: I edited my comment before Guvante's reply. But it looks like some people aren't really convinced. So here's another comment, from tlb 113 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6087399

"There is reason to believe phones have been remotely hacked by law enforcement using carrier credentials to leave the cellular radio running and registering with the cell network even after the off button has been pushed and the phone appears to be off. Starting point for further reading: http://www.brighthub.com/electronics/gps/articles/51103.aspx "

tlb = Trevor Blackwell, one of the best electronics hackers in the world. You may know him as the creator of the first robot that walks like a human. http://paulgraham.com/anybots.html

Now I've presented circumstantial evidence and an appeal to authority, so of course feel free to doubt me. But don't be surprised to discover you've been tracked when carrying a powered-off cellphone with a battery in it.

it is also an important piece of advice that could save someone's life for instance. there's nothing dubious about demanding privacy. now I just wish my nexus 4 had a removable battery..

Does removing the SIM prevent the common ways of tracing, or do they simply go off your IMEI?

The SIM isn't necessary to connect to a tower, meaning your GPS position will be reported unless you remove the battery.

Not a direct answer, but: by law, any cell phone can still place calls to 911 with the SIM removed. We can probably extrapolate from there.

Right, I was just wondering about the tracking methods used. Do they select by your handset identifier, or an identifier in the SIM?

Would removing the SIM be at all helpful for avoiding tracking if you couldn't ditch a phone with an integrated battery?

No, it won't help to remove the SIM card. Unless you've removed the battery from your phone, then you can be tracked. And there's no such thing as "can't ditch my phone."

So, for instance, the FBI inputs selectors as the IMEI, not the phone number, when searching for people?

And there may be a legitimate reason why you may want to have a device. For instance, to run maps at a certain location. Or having data on the device you need once you arrive at a destination.

Instead of removing the battery, you could wrap the phone in foil.

Then, when you get stopped by the cops you have to explain why your phone is wrapped in foil. For which there can only be one possible reason. You might as well also carry a set of lock picks, crowbar and an acetylene torch, perhaps with a set of scales so that you can be processed that bit easier...

You can also create a Conspiracy theorist persona. Keep asking questions online with a semi anonymous account about the government excess, about the moon, the aliens, the freemasons etc.

Then if in court you can try to argue that for a tin foil hat like you, the actual tin foil cell phone protection isn't an indication of anything. And much less suspicious.

:-).

You can bet that, since he was on the run, his cell phone was off.

You then follow this with

But if he was on the run, why was he carrying a cell phone? Answer: because he was stupid.

Your postulation that this is sufficient proof to say that they can track you with your phone off is suspect.

The baseband can control everything, and the baseband itself can be controlled remotely. It is at least technically feasible. There's no real room for doubt on that.

the baseband can control everything Why would that be the case? Baseband in this case refers to a frequency, eg taking data(audio, SMS, etc) and mod/demodulating it. It should take raw data at the bottom of the OSI model and prep it for the RF front end, and vice versa. I may absolutely be wrong, but it doesn't have any connection to the microphone other than receiving preprocessed digital audio from the application processor. Look at the interface for an e.g TI cc2500, that's the sort of device that's being discussed

I was skeptical the last time this subject came up, too, but someone pointed out that for an attacker with root access, it would be easy enough to reprogram the phone's power button to act like it was turning the phone off without actually doing so.

Given the fact that US law enforcement and security agencies are (now) indisputably known to be in the zero-day hacking business, the burden of proof is on those of us who've always claimed these stories were exaggerated.

Personally, I no longer feel confident about calling bullshit on much of anything. With the US government's infinite budget and unaccountable influence over device manufacturers and telcos, no hack is impossible.

Sorry but can't avoid laughing at infinite budget etc etc after a masterpiece such as https://www.healthcare.gov/

If all the operations are carried on by the same kind of contractors, we can sleep tight for few years.

Or a full-on cynic/paranoiac would suggest the poorly-done websites are part of a gaslighting scheme.

'gaslighting' - we don't use that term often in the UK, looks like a good word though... Please can you explain what that word means in this context. Thanks!

That's the irritating thing -- that so much money is being spent for such poor results. The NSA isn't very cost-effective at preventing terrorist attacks, and healthcare.gov isn't very cost-effective at providing health insurance.

When confronted with my government's incompetence, I never know whether to be pissed off or relieved.

NSAs job isn't just to prevent terrorist attacks, it's also to gather and analyse information for the US government and to keep US communications secure. I don't know whether or not they're "cost effective", but I don't think anyone would doubt that they've given the US a huge strategic advantage.

I don't know whether or not they're "cost effective", but I don't think anyone would doubt that they've given the US a huge strategic advantage.

It's tough to say. They say their mission is vital, but then their mission is literally to lie for a living.

How does airplane mode fit in with this? Wasn't it until recently that FAA regulations required cellphones have an explicit means to halt ALL radio communication? If the phone's radio is still potentially active even when the device is "off", how could these baseband OS's get government certification?

There is no confirmation whether baseband processor can be reached while device is OFF/in Airplane mod.

And I join the crowd who think that is impossible. I bet someone would notice weird patterns if the baseband kept working despite of device off. (Speakers catching 2G, battery drain, interference with other devices, etc.)

The radio interface could listen/wait without even replying, ie wouldn't make the GSM RFI speaker noise. If governments, carriers and law enforcement could all manage to use this so incredibly rarely that it's never been observed.. then it could be real.

Given the types of people that would have to have access / knowledge of this though. For example people that suspect their partner of infidelity and is on the police liaison team of a carrier say...

I agree it's very unlikely, someone would have noticed it by now.

Oh, that is a fair point.

Though, not receiving any information back, draws the tracking practice significantly more difficult.

It need only reply if it is requested to do so, therefore for 99.9 recurring percent of the time there need be nothing observable.

TL;DR yes, the BB cpu has full access to everything, including the "main" cpu and all running processes. Why not, right? :)

It is important to note that all smartphone chips are optimized first for low cost and low power usage.

To actually isolate the baseband processor+GPS+Cell radio+Mic+Speaker would require a second high-speed bus.

Most cell phone processor designs put both the baseband and application processor in the same package both for cost and power saving reasons. Since both processors are typically ARM cores they will easily interface to the same bus for memory and peripherals. Only having one external bus means fewer external components, which is typically the strongest factor relative to the total power and cost.

There is also the legacy element. The article notes that most of the BB code is at least a decade old by now. Unless that code got a major rewrite, it would not run on a new, isolated architecture.

Specific processor block diagrams:

Samsung - https://memorylink.samsung.com/ecomobile/mem/ecomobile/appli...

Qualcomm (page 4) - https://developer.qualcomm.com/download/qusnapdragons4whitep...

That's not always the case. For instance, on Galaxy Nexus (CDMA), the radio is split from the AP, and are in fact manufactured by two completely different folks (the AP is TI OMAP, and the radio is VIA Telecom). I'd imagine the same thing with Mediatek, who is a large and growing player. You are right that Qualcomm does fuse their radio with their AP, though, and they do control quite a lot of the US market.

"I am assuming that the RTOS has direct and full unrestricted access to the hardware such as the camera and microphone?"

You're thinking small ... the baseband processor (typically) has DMA access to the processor itself. Never mind pedestrian stuff like peripherals...

Further, since carriers interface with the baseband processor for OTA updates, that means your carrier has (essentially) DMA access to your phones cpu. I wish people appreciated just how deeply (as deep as deep gets, basically) your carrier can control the device in your hand - even if you have "rooted" it.

No, not really. The actual answer is more complex.

Camera:

The high data rate required for imaging module means that it doesn't run on a shared bus. There's a number of standards, some proprietary and others loosely defined, but they all use direct connections to the image processor (which is in many cases part of the SoC).

Microphone:

Probably not going to access this one, because microphone wouldn't be on any sort of bus. They'll have a direct connection to a ADC, which would have a direct connection to an audio signal processor in the SoC.

Other sensors:

This depends on the implementation. If they use I2C, there's a good chance they'll be on a shared bus on which the baseband processor is also located. However, accessing that data requires details about the specific sensor. If a particular model of phone is being targeted, this isn't too hard. For example, I know the iPhone 4 uses the LIS331DLH Accelerometer. I can find the datasheet for that part, and then write a simple driver to access it's data. If they use SPI, which isn't a bus-based protocol, there's little chance of accessing the information directly. SPI devices can be daisy chained or separately selected to put more than one on a single port, but in such a configuration there's only ever one master (which would be the CPU).

No wonder not only NSA, but also FBI and probably other agencies exploit these like crazy by using fake towers or other methods.

Who says they need fake towers? I would bet that they can get direct access with the right court order.

There is also a second OS hiding in your computer right now! (There might even be a third, or forth, depending on your hardware configuration and manufacturer.)

Proprietary BIOS software has suffered the same issues for the last twenty+ years.

Good thing all these embedded computers in my computer don't have antennas attached with buggy baseband that blindly decodes and trusts messages coming thereon. :-)

Right, it's not like wifi adapters have independent processors of their own with closed-source, potentially buggy firmware that does DMA into main processor memory. :-)

It's also worth thinking about netboot (which comes in several flavors), in which the main processor's potentially buggy BIOS may be independently decoding and processing packets coming over physical wires.

And on USB, don't forget SMM code emulating PS/2 input devices by parsing USB HID packets. I think part of the reason why real mode exploits was never very common was that the address DOS allocated memory depended on for example what TSRs you were running.

Remember that story a few months ago about how some government agency had replaced all its keyboards and mice in response to a malware infestation? A lot of folks (including some here) took this as Yet Another Show of Government Cluelessness. I found myself wondering instead if there was a world in which folks advised by government security experts (i.e., you-know-who) would have a good reason to do something like this and not say why.

There is. It's a world in which their opponents had a zero-day against the Windows USB driver, and a way into the government's supply chain. And in which you-know-who wants to play the same game themselves against opponents elsewhere.

I don't think you realize how much noise computers radiate. If someone wanted to emit a signal instead of noise, it would be quite possible to do so. (People are doing DX work by connecting an IO pin of their Raspberry Pi to a long wire.)

What is DX work?

This is all a bit over the top. Yes, the baseband may be compromisable, that doesn't mean that the operating system is. Your photos, data etc should be safe as long as there aren't further exploits (which of course exist).

Furthermore, i have yet to hear of a slave high level operating system to the baseband. iOS or android being initialised and commanded by a secondary baseband OS would just be a bizarre setup. That of course does not mean that the baseband doesn't pass commands to the high level OS. Though if the interface is well shielded, exploiting it could be tough (correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think baseband exploits exist for iPhone 5/5s).

Now, I'm sure the NSA however have some interesting possibilities that Angela Merkel would be all to keen to know about ;).

This is all a bit over the top. Yes, the baseband may be compromisable, that doesn't mean that the operating system is.

Incorrect. In most cases the baseband processor has complete, unfettered access the application processor, which means it has complete, unfettered access to the OS.

.. and by unfettered, we mean it has DMA access to the application processor. It's not a hook or an API call or some functions it can call - it has low level bit for bit access to manipulate the CPU that your OS (like android) runs on.

Further, your carrier (verizon, att, whatever) can push OTA updates and commands straight to baseband via the radio, bypassing the CPU and OS (like android) and manipulating the phone on a low level bit by bit basis.

Even the most well secured, rooted, reloaded phone has every piece of it totally owned by the carrier, via the baseband processor.

Yes, that includes your photos.

"That complexity is exactly one of the reasons why it's not easy to write your own baseband implementation. The list of standards that describe just GSM is unimaginably long - and that's only GSM. Now you need to add UMTS, HSDPA, and so on, and so forth. And, of course, everything is covered by a ridiculously complex set of patents. To top it all off, communication authorities require baseband software to be certified."

This is HN.

I don't think implementing a replacement is all that daunting given enough time and money. I wonder if there's a business model that will pay for it?

I got a chance to look inside Fabrice Bellard's LTE eNodeb code. http://www.bellard.org/lte/

It runs on an i7.

FFS, does that guy ever sleep?

Baseband hacking is how people made software-based carrier unlocks for iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS, and 4 (GSM). Those exploits are somewhat documented here: http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Baseband_Device#Exploits

... The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror ... The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. (1.1.3)

Oceanians live in a constant state of being monitored by the Party, through the use of advanced, invasive technology.

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called. (1.5.65)

Is the the google input box a door to the world or a window into your mind?

How many fingers do you see?

But we've _always_ been at war with Eastasia…

I was expecting this OS to be the browser. The browser really is another OS these days especially with all the new HTML5 specs (firefox OS being the proponent of such things).

The way HTML5 is progressing it might even beat the API of the OS it seems! For example, the OS itself might have no contacts API but the browser has HTML5 API to access them!

I don't think you understand what an operating system is.

Cant wait Tegra 4i hacking allows unrestricted i500 SDR platform access :D

I think we'd all be better off and get to a user-centric mobile experience a lot sooner by isolating the network communication in a dedicated device.

I'm toying with the idea that next time I have to upgrade my mobile (hopefully not soon), a better way to go is something like mifi + netbook + smart watch (+ maybe some compact chorded keyboard).

Exactly.

If you want a mobile phone that you control, you need to buy something like a samsung galaxy player (contains no baseband processor, contains no mobile phone infrastructure) and then attach a USB modem to it (or carry a MIFI or whatever).

There's one problem, however, and that is all of the fancy noise cancellation and voice smoothing are actually done on the baseband proc, and userland implementations of this for VOIP apps are typically pretty crummy.

Me, I am sticking with my MOTO FONE / F3 for now.

The Mifi is the same thing as the baseband in your cell phone, and can even do SMS. Many of them are running Linux on the AP side now to support more advanced Wifi routing features.

If you were really paranoid, you might consider the possibility that it has a microphone or a speaker that can be treated like a microphone. (Though I don't know of any that actually have a beeping, vibrator or piezo output.)

Also, they may have some form of e911-compliant GPS receiver, though whether the RF is hooked up for it I wouldn't know.

Well even a completely trustable cell radio is tracked with tower triangulation. The only way I see to fix this is to completely rearchitect the mobile network by getting rid of subscriber IDs, using anonymous payments for tower access, and then a mix network for transit privacy. That is to say, location data is a wash for the foreseeable future..

Surreptitious microphones and other sensors are indeed still a problem, but they seem easy to audit/remove in the short term, and if this model catches on and they become a real threat, the physical audits just have to go deeper.

What you do gain is a processor that can be trusted by the user (in the same way we all trust Intel CPUs), with the Mifi only seeing encrypted communications. Also we've moved the demarc point solidly between two separate physical devices - upgrade your pocket computer without involving your cell provider, and replace your communications ability without affecting your user environment.

Well first you're assuming that those that created the system consider known identity to be a misfeature, even beyond that necessary for payments.

Trustable/trusted doesn't mean trustworthy in the sense of an individual citizen's expectation of privacy, it means that you have given the entity your private information, in trade for service and convenience.

The irony of old spy tradecraft is that we all possess hardware that could conceal in plain sight anything that previously had to be hidden completely, the existence of electronics or recording/transmitting ability (including film) would immediately indicate the role of the person as someone engaged in some kind of espionage. Now we can all carry sophisticated sensors and communication devices in most places, and all but cameras in many others.

What physical audit would tell you if the MEMS sensor in your device has been repurposed for audio pickup. (Assuming that the capability isn't already in the firmware, or that simple observation of the signal output (including power fluctuations) could reveal the same information to the microprocessor.

The only case I'm aware of where the courts have blocked this kind of surveillance involved an OnStar vehicle system using an analog cellphone which could only serve it's intended purpose or the government's, but not both simultaneously. This is not an issue with digital and IP-based systems, which can easily serve two masters.

Ah, you're use of "trust" again, Intel CPUs have features that actively work against you, such as with vPRO. I would agree that a non-cellular PDA and Mifi are superior to an integrated device from a privacy and personal autonomy perspective.

There is actually a 3rd inside the SIM as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subscriber_identity_module#Desi...

This is what Java Card was developed to run on.

If you are interested in getting lower level access to your radio, you could look at the defunct http://openmoko.com/freerunner.html project or the resurrection of the Freeruner, http://www.openphoenux.org/

Or the neo900

http://neo900.org/

AFAICT, the neo900 has a plain old closed baseband processor.

So you can "root" it and control the OS all you want, your carrier still owns you and your phone, what with (potentially) DMA level access to your CPU.

neo900 is interesting, but it is not any more open in this regard than any other handset.

There was a great Defcon talk about this called The Secret Life of SIM Cards that I can recommend watching (they release the video for these some time after the conference).

The talk itself was about a group that had an enormous camping trip (I hope that phrasing doesn't diminunise it) called Toorcamp of a few thousand people that thought it would be fun to also put together their own cell network for just them. They bought and programmed SIM cards and hid puzzles in the programs on them.

But the amount of programming that can be done on the SIM card alone without involving the main processor at all was really quite fascinating and there's a lot of detail in the talk if you can track it down. Here are the slides at least https://speakerdeck.com/codebutler/the-secret-life-of-sim-ca...

I did some JavaCard development on a project probably ten years ago - and the highlight was meeting the "Head of SIM" at a major network, being told how many times a day everyone's SIM card 'crashes'.

I wrote my Master's thesis on software platforms for smartcard applications in 1999. An interesting platform running javacard apart from SIMs is/was the Java iButton from Maxim (then Dallas Semiconductor).

Also, all ATM cards which are smartcards (i.e. almost all of them in countries such as France, Norway) can also hold several applications. The banks just doesn't allow it. In theory you could, even with today's technology, buy a blank card (say, with a David Bowie picture if that's your thing) and have the bank, visa, mastercard, grocery loyalty programme, library card, frequent flyer applications etc on it. Just carry one card! But no, everyone wants to own the card have their logo in it. Sigh.

I'm in London and they are rolling out contactless applications for certain things now. Subway sandwiches all take them. London buses you can pay by swipign your debit card and there is one bank that has a debit card/oyster card(oyster card is use on all London transport).

The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone? Really?

There's a ridiculous number of operating systems hiding in every mobile phone. What do you think runs on the GPU? What about bluetooth, wifi and GPS? What about all those sensors? The camera interface? The video acceleration? The SIM card? The NAND flash?

Try harder.

The GPU, bluetooth, wifi, and GPS chips are not running their own operating system kernels. They have firmware microcode that gets loaded when their drivers are loaded, but they aren't running a completely separate dedicated realtime OS.

What do you think is in that "microcode"? Most of what I mentioned is usually running on an ARM of some sort. I count that code as an OS, because it's a pretty narrow definition otherwise.

Default register initialization values and functions to encode/decode and transmit/receive packets of data do not equal an operating system in my book. Maybe you draw the line at a different level of the stack than I do.

I'm totally willing to be admit that I might be wrong about this, but I wasn't under the impression that Broadcom and Atheros and Intel were using ARM CPUs in their wifi/bluetooth/GPS chipsets.

The missing piece here is that WiFi/Bluetooth/GPS chipsets ARE usually using ARM CPUs internally. GPUs generally run a funky DSP-like core but there's still some kind of OS scheduling tasks and running code to interact with the main CPUs.

The cost of laying down a fully-fledged CPU has reduced to the point where it's simpler and less risky to use an off-the-shelf ARM core (or similar), instead of a big bunch of hard logic combined with coefficient. And most of those CPUs have some sort of runtime, which is an OS, depending on where you draw the line on that.

These are drivers in the kernel. RTOS is another thing.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that you're not "offline" unless you take the battery out of your phone and wait a good minute or so. And there's no wireless power source "force feeding" your phone...

This is well known to anyone who's done DSP optimization work for any of the wireless carriers.

After reading all the comments, I'm beginning to think the Butlerian Jihad may not be such a bad thing after all...

I had to Google this. Here's a Wiki P link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad

It's from Frank Herbert's Dune :( Sad because I read this series (all six, I kid you not!! 1,2,6 are good 3,4,5 not so good) 25 years ago nearly and I had forgotten this specific detail. Time is indeed a cruel mistress and thanks for making me feel old :)

For all the "NSA's probably in on this", remember this also leaves openings for China, Russia, and possibly others to get in on this.

Coming from a background of developing audio hardware drivers for the Blackberry (I worked on the last generation and current generation before getting bored and leaving a year ago), I can tell you that even if the baseband were able to turn on auto-answering, (I have no idea if that's possible, by the way) it wouldn't know how to configure the microphone and speakers to allow for recording or playback unless it convinced the application processor to help.

If you are concerned about your Blackberry spying on you, there's a special "security plug" that you can insert into the headphone jack which will short all of the pins to ground, disabling the microphone. I assume other phones support this as well.

Have never heard of a security plug before.

where can I get one?

I don't know where, but it sounds fairly simple to make: cut the connector off from an old headset, and solder all of the wires in it together. One of the wires (the uninsulated one) in there is ground, the other three are signal.

Yeah, I'm not sure either. I don't see it in the official accessories store.

antsar's correct though. It's simple to make one yourself. The nice thing about the security plug is that it's small; it doesn't look like your headphones' cable snapped off. :)

If you don't trust the manufacturer who put the code into your handset, how can you trust that the security plug will always work (other than checking the internal wiring yourself)?

plug the security plug and make a call to someone and see if they can hear you?

In the hypothetical in which the phone has been created to act as a bug, surely it would be easy to detect the security plug and disable the microphone for normal uses while leaving it enabled for hidden use. The security plug is only secure if the wiring means that when plugged in, software cannot access the normal mic - if software can access it, it can trick the user into thinking anything.

With the security plug plugged in, actual hardware, the microphone, is short-circuited and cannot produce any signal. That's the whole point.

If you trust the wiring, of course ;-]

In the case of the baseband processor, the company that put code into it is not the company that put the phone together.

It is a complex trust situation. In this case, you can reduce the number of agents you have to trust by using the security plug. This is good for security.

The handset manufacturer could still be spying on you, but if the security plug actually works as advertised it would disable all attacks that would listen in on your mic. These attacks could be deliberate by any of the companies that have code in your handset, or it could be via an accidental weakness in any of this code that is exploited by a third party. This last kind of attack is what the linked article talks about, and a security plug would actually reduce the severity of such an attack.

Re: the security plug, I'll believe you that it might work for your line of devices, but in the schematics for the relatively few phones I've looked at there was always active selection on the phone pins.

Think about it: you put normal headphones in the jack (no microphones, only tip, ring, sleeve): it will already short the mic input

One of the side effects of software eating the world is that the world becomes more exploitable. I expect that over time we may see the emergence of general 'software building codes' much like there are physical building codes, and more importantly liability associated with failing to provably meet such codes.

The current 'random person implements firmware that controls the this chip' practice and the 'no warranty etc etc' disclaimers will, I predict, be replaced by manufacturers who are willing to warrant their code.

Extending that metaphor, a profession could evolve around zoning for permissible uses of code based on types of software and intended audience, much like urban planners do with zoning codes and city master plans.

I think it is a consequence of the fast improvements in functionality made. People would rather be on a feature rich beta branch, than a safe stable branch. I also expect this to change as the industry matures.

Actually I find its broken down into two camps:

Consumers want the latest.

Companies want the most stable.

After some particularly huge disasters I've had to deal with coming onto new projects and with general consumer electronics, I'd go for the latter every time both as a consumer and company these days. Time is valuable and losing it to a feature packed unreliable mess is a big risk to that time.

These already exist, for example it is very difficult to build biomedical software that gets hooked up into a living thing - even if you use it only for research. In practice such a hard realtime guarantee can only be met by a devices like an FPGA. All of this is in a code.

Real issue here is why such codes don't exist for for this particular problem.

You can code bugs and security failures into a FPGA as well as in software.

Yes, but you depend less on bugs caused by levels of abstraction below your code, such as runtimes, OSes etc.

In practice such a hard realtime guarantee can only be met by a devices like an FPGA.

There have always been fully deterministic CPUs around for that purpose. The simpler the system, the better; just hook a Forth chip to a memory without caches and you're set.

Do you have any experience with Forth chips? I've been looking for an excuse to play with the GreenArray devices.

First of all, all that code must be open-sourced. It's so obvious that it really hurts. Next, hardware needs to become "open-source", too.

Thats easy to just say, but how wil you financially protect the company developing the software / hardware, if their competitors can just copy the work. Or stated the other way round, how will you keep companies encentivised to develop new software / hardware?

Actually quite the opposite. If legislation were passed that required an entire industry to open source their firmware (automotive, voting machines, medical, etc), it would provide better IP protection. Did company A copy company B's code? Well it's open source ... go look! As opposed to being able to hide things in binaries.

But yes, this only applies if the competition must also open their kimonos. That seems practical for industries where regulation is required or provides reasonable benefits to society (automotive, voting machines, medical, etc).

You are making the mistake of equating 'visible source code' with 'Open Source', which has a fairly precise meaning, which explicitly allows copying:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition

Making the source code visible would probably be sensible in this case though, so I think the idea is a good one even if you need to be careful with the terminology.

A country could enforce openess of the source code for imported software and firmware.

- If Toyota (or any car manufacturer) wants to import cars into my country, then they better show us the sources of their firmware and software (and let us re-compile it and re-install it, to make sure it corresponds to the embedded code). And let the papers compare the code quality of Toyota vs. BMW.

- If Microsoft (or any software vendor) wants to import software into my country, then they better show us the sources of their systems and applications (and let us re-compile it and re-install it, to make sure it corresponds to the binary code, and doesn't contain backdoors to the NSA (or the MSI, or the MI5 or whatever).

- and so on.

And actually, citizens can do the same at their level, not letting enter their house any device or software whose code is not open source or even libre software (so they can recompile it and reinstall it on their hardware).

But a country has more weight than a few citizen that would be qualified of lunatics, and has more resources to analyse and validate the software and firmware.

And actually, citizens can do the same at their level, not letting enter their house any device or software whose code is not open source or even libre software (so they can recompile it and reinstall it on their hardware).

I tried that, but at the moment it means you can't even own a cellphone, etc

You probably don't want a system where all the hardware and software for controlling mobile radios is readily accessible to and modifiable by anyone. You might think you do, but the first time you try to call an emergency service and you can't get through because one idiot somewhere in range of the same base station has screwed up his debugging code and jammed a control channel, you'll change your mind.

I've been the guy who drives around in a truck with a lot of mobile scanning equipment to try and figure out where the rogue device is. There is no magic button like in the movies, where they can immediately triangulate the source of the interference to within a 5 cubic metre box. You basically have to rely on simple physics and boots on the ground. The device you're hunting for isn't playing nicely, so any assumptions you could normally make based on things like which base stations it's in contact with won't necessarily be valid. Things are a bit smarter in modern networks than they were back when I worked in the field, but physics is still physics.

In short, there is a legitimate justification, born of experience, for every telecommunications regulatory authority in the known universe requiring this stuff to be certified before you can legally use it. This is also why in some jurisdictions agents acting for telecommunications regulators have certain legal rights to access private property.

Of course this only affects the radio equipment. I see no reason it should be necessary or possible for such software to have any control over other integrated peripherals such as cameras, speakers, microphones or local storage. And the primary concern is people who could modify the code and break the network, not preventing any legitimate audit to prove that devices are only doing what they say they're doing.

The FCC already regulates who can broadcast what over the airwaves. And if you're not licensed for that part of the spectrum, the source code will do you a fat lot of good with your radio experimentation.

Nobody is asking for some sort of hacker radio anarchy, here. They're asking to see the source code for machines they own, machines that reside in their pockets, machines that are responsible for storing and communicating their most sensitive personal data.

If you cause the device you own to operate according to your own will (i.e. the core concept of FOSS) instead of the will of the carrier, there is a strong likelihood it will cause a denial or degradation of service for everyone else.

Verizon has the right to transmit on spectrum allocated to it using consumer devices as its agents. It employs engineers and QA processes to make sure that any device transmitting on its spectrum plays well with others before it is allowed to leave RF-isolated testing facilities.

The public does not and should not have the right to transmit on Verizon's spectrum, even using devices they own which are legally and technically capable, except according to Verizon's carefully vetted programming. If they were able to run their own radio firmware, you'd have the situation described in the parent.

Cellular radios necessarily cannot be open source. The source could be released for inspection and audit, but it cannot be possible or permissible for you to run modified source on "your" radios.

The source could be released for inspection and audit,

Dude, that's exactly what he asked for.

Open source encompasses permission to modify and redistribute. Disclosed source != open source, which is what was advocated upthread.

Parent claimed that modifying the source wouldn't hurt anything since your phone can't transmit in ways you're not licensed to, but this is incorrect.

Possibly; there are already standards in certain areas. But it can greatly increase cost and time-to-market, so even when there are codes corners will be cut. See the Toyota lawsuit at the moment.

Oh, and applying pretty much any "software building codes" to the web app industry would probably kill startup culture entirely.

applying pretty much any "software building codes" to the web app industry would probably kill startup culture entirely.

Not necessarily. To use the analogy with the building industry, there are different requirements depending on what the building will be used for. Startups holding or processing financial information might have one set of regulations, whereas those hosting cat pictures might be less rigorous.

PCI compliance already exists, as a counterexample.

We are truly the generation where the mediocrity and corruption of the human race becomes digital.

Mediocre compared to what?

Perfect security: nonexistence.

I am getting tired of seeing physical building codes thrown around in comparison to software. I've looked at residential building codes, because I've done my own work like building a deck, framing and finishing my basement, and researching how to build concrete & steel suspended floors, or wood floors - seeing what their spans are - seeing how lightweight steel framing vs wood framing works - it's quite fascinating. (I was considering designing my own house, but the wife shot that down)

And there is simply NO COMPARISON in complexity to software. In physical building, you over engineer and get redundancy. You also know that almost everyone builds plumb and level, rectangular rooms, with easy span and shear calculations. You also know that wood follows a predictable strength pattern. So you put in enough nails of the right length, to enough wood of the right thickness, and you're good. How much intelligence do you think you need to follow a building code? Building materials and techniques change GLACIALLY compared to software. (A good thing!)

Whereas in software, one single bit flip will just fuck you up.

Does anyone know if the Firefox OS replaces these proprietary RTOSes?

Often the RTOS is not exactly free, but not entirely closed either. A while back, i used to work on Nucleus RTOS by Mentor Graphics with a pretty impressive global foot print http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleus_RTOS. It used to be sold as an api (with source code given to customers) who developed applications based upon it. I have written portions (IPsec/IKE, SNMP, Ipv6) of its networking stack and at least all of its customers have access to source code. It is pretty well written with very decent coding conventions and can be compared to any good well known open source project (VLC, even Linux kernel). Then there are others such as Wind River's VxWorks among the more popular ones. Though i am not very sure of its licensing model, but it is pretty well recognized and established in the embedded world. Just that these are not as well known in the over all software community but rather more restricted towards those in the embedded industry.

I always wanted to play with Nucleos! What's it like?

I'm a fan of QNX personally though I only got to play with it a tiny bit. Some awesome ideas in it.

It's one of those rare cases (like BIOS too) where obscurity actually means more security...

The problem is that ONLY obscurity shields users from exploits - and it's not much of a shield (it never is).

So yes, it is "more" security. And no, it doesn't help much. Arguably it makes matters worse because the code can't be checked by independent security researchers (whitebox testing).

I talked to a friend of mine who is an engineer at Qualcomm, and he said the article is exaggerated and out-dated. Current basebands don't use REX OS anymore, and they put mitigation mechanisms in place, so this piece seems like FUD.