An iPhone case that will tell you if the NSA is listening ?
invite response
2016 Jul 21, 3:39pm 1,083 views 5 comments
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Strategist
2016 Jul 21, 3:44pm
?
ha ha ha Cool!
I won't bother to buy it, because I don't mind the NSA listening to my boring calls to my office.
Heraclitusstudent
2016 Jul 21, 3:52pm
I won't bother to buy it, because I don't mind the NSA listening to my boring calls to my office.
They are probably listening conversations at your dinner table.
Strategist
2016 Jul 21, 3:54pm
I won't bother to buy it, because I don't mind the NSA listening to my boring calls to my office.
They are probably listening conversations at your dinner table.
Last night my wife said she has a headache. How boring is that?
Heraclitusstudent
2016 Jul 21, 4:03pm
Last night my wife said she has a headache. How boring is that?
She caught you watching boobs on patnet?
RWSGFY
2016 Jul 21, 5:19pm
So instead of trusting the phone's software to tell the user if something is fishy, the pair proposes something else: A device that plugs into the hardware and constantly scans to see whether is transmitting.
Plug though the standard charging port and believing whatever the phone is telling them? And this is different from believing what is shown on the screen how?
This is lazy approach and it will be easily defeated. If they serious about it they need to detect whether the phone is transmitting certain signals and not rely on what the phone is telling them (but this still won't help to detect whether GPS is on). The only way to be absolute sure the thing doesn't transmit or receive anything is to put it into a Faraday cage.
Along with his co-author and fellow hacker Andrew Huang, Snowden presented his research (link below) on phone "hardware introspection" at MIT, which aims to give users the ability to see whether their phone is sending out secret signals to an intelligence agency.
"This work aims to give journalists the tools to know when their smart phones are tracking or disclosing their location when the devices are supposed to be in airplane mode," the pair wrote in their technical paper
In their paper, Snowden and Huang make it clear that what you see on your phone's screen is not always true.
If you turn off Bluetooth or cellular service, the phone's radios and other electronics can still be made to send signals, especially if they are compromised by a sophisticated intelligence agency or hackers. Even airplane mode isn't a defense, since the current version of Apple's iOS still keeps the GPS active while in that state.
"Trusting a phone that has been hacked to go into airplane mode is like trusting a drunk person to judge if they are sober enough to drive," they write.
So instead of trusting the phone's software to tell the user if something is fishy, the pair proposes something else: A device that plugs into the hardware and constantly scans to see whether is transmitting.
Though they think their research can be applied to just about any phone, for right now they are building a device for the 4.7" Apple iPhone 6.
Though it's not actually built yet. Right now, there's just research and a technical analysis of their findings, but both Snowden and Huang plan to create a prototype of the device this year.
"As the project is run largely through volunteer efforts on a shoestring budget, it will proceed at a pace reflecting the practical limitations of donated time," they wrote. "If the prototype proves successful, [The Freedom of the Press Foundation] may move to seek the necessary funding to develop and maintain a supply chain. This would enable the FPF to deploy modified iPhone 6 devices for field service among journalists in high-risk situations."
More: http://www.techinsider.io/edward-snowden-phone-2016-7
Full Research Article - All the technical stuff with pictures etc. https://www.pubpub.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection
#iPhone #NSA #SciTech