Just link to the original blog post by Moxie instead?
Exploiting vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26891811 - April 2021 (293 comments and counting)
Love it.
I assume those images are going to be for the benefit of somebody looking at data extracted through Cellebrite?
As it stands, if law enforcement for some bizarre reason decide to examine my personal devices, there will be nothing on there of interest to them. If Signal start bundling exploits onto my device, that will no longer be the case. That's a potential risk to me, and Signal should be asking my permission before taking the risk.
Yes you have nothing to hide, but the police in many cases aren't honest. What if you live in the Middle east and are gay, you use signal, this protects you. Cellebrite are happy to sell their product to oppressive regeimes and if you are black the US police could be considered oppressors.
"Hey, your phone corrupted our 'lawful' intrusion system. That violates a long list of statutes. We're going to beat you with this wrench now, because you made our day worse, and then charge you with crimes against the state."
So now we are saying don't protect yourself because if you do that would imply you have something to hide,and are therefore guilty and deserving of the wrench beating.
It is a different game if Signal makes the sharding opt-in. If someone vacuums my phone and it turns out that my treatise about Little Bobby Tables [1] breaks the vacuum, that is fine by me.
If they make it opt-in then surely that is worse for the user. Then the oppressive regime can say "you deliberately did this thing".
I am outlining a hypothetical scenario where the authorities choose to look through my phone for ${UNRELATED_REASON}, and the presence of Signal's hypothetical exploit files would cause their digital forensics software to crash. In this hypothetical scenario, that crash in and of itself could then be taken as a reason to charge me. I don't believe "the app software maker selected my phone at random to have those files on it!" would help me out in that situation; that's the sort of nuance that tends to get completely lost.
The opt-out option would help me because, having opted out in advance, the hypothetical exploit files would not be on my phone.
I do agree that this is a slightly far-fetched scenario. However, I am very confused how HN can generally be of the opinion that having unwanted malware on your phone is a good thing, even if Signal put it there.
This fantasy that you can get away from a situation in which you are being interrogated and your phone is being searched by being compliant and proving your innocence to the nice police officers is extremely dangerous. Being compliant and providing information beyond what's legally required is the exact opposite of what you want to do, and preventing yourself from being charged should be the last thing on your mind. You should take it as a given that you will be charged.
edit: If you're outside the USA ignore this advice and listen to someone more local who knows their stuff.
Why would they make it crash the software though? There's no reason to do anything that's visible to the operator, perhaps it just alters data previously downloaded from other devices and then deletes itself. Or changes nothing other than adding a friendly file called moxie.says.hi.txt
1. We found a cellebrite kit that "dropped out from the back of a van" (yeah right lol)
2. Cellebrite is a tool to extract data out of phones (general intro to what Cellebrite is)
3. Looks like Cellebrite is using a bunch of open source libraries and they also use Apple DLLs (???!!!)
4. Oops looks like they are using like YEARS old libraries and there are hundreds of KNOWN vulnerabilities on each of those libraries.
5. Oops looks like the vulnerabilities allow ACE. Here's a demo where we placed a carefully crafted file with the ACE payload on a phone where if you just click the scan button on Cellebrite's software, you can do ACE (this is the video in the middle of the article)
6. (by the way for cellebrite users) this calls into question all data extracted with Cellebrite since these exploits are trivially exploitable. There are so many exploits possible so you can use any of them to create ACE attacks.
7. For COMPLETELY TOTALLY UNRELATED AESTHETIC REASONS we are putting some files on the Signal app. You're welcome!
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to spell it out: yes, they are putting ACE payloads on Signal to try to crash investigators/spies/whatever trying to use Cellebrite on phones with the Signal app.
7 is actually a lot more subtle, I didn't get it at first. They're putting some files on some signal phones, somewhat randomly, and only those which seem like they've been in active normal use since before this disclosure. So likely none of the devices Cellbrite might own for testing, and no device Cellbrite might buy in the future, but some random set of existing devices in the field. And there might be multiple such files, so even if Cellbrite find one they can't be sure they've got them all.
Now assume these files are (as somewhat implied) exploits that cause the falsification of data in all current and future reports issued by a given Cellbrite device.
That means that if a Cellbrite has, after this point, ever scanned a phone with Signal installed it might be issuing false reports.
THAT means that there's a reasonable doubt in any evidence obtained by the use of a Cellbrite device, going forward. That gives an easy out to defense attorneys in the US, where Cellbrite devices are used by police to gather evidence.
Any defense attorney can now argue that evidence obtained from a Cellbrite shouldn't be admitted in court, since they don't maintain forensic integrity. This essentially spoils Cellbrite's entire business in the US (and any other country with similar standards for the admissibility of evidence).
So Cellbrite has to find ALL the exploits in their system, and be very, very sure they've not missed any. Because defense attorneys will then try to call that into doubt. Etc.