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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

Which is why it's nice to be in full control of the software/hardware stack you use. Walled gardens may look nice and be convenient in the present, and may even give the illusion of security, but in the end they're inevitably abused.

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However, the only documented case of the abuse is on the "most open" hardware stack. Jailbreakers saw no keylogging on the iPhone. (In fact, it's disabled by default on the iPhone).

I'm not sure if you meant for this particular interpretation or not, but the way you invoke "walled garden" makes it sound a lot like you are targeting iOS specifically. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Based on my own reading. Carrier IQ is installed on many Android-based phones, including those from AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile networks. Apple, HTC and Samsung have all confirmed that Carrier IQ is on their phones. HOWEVER, Apple has also announced that it has stopped supporting CIQ as of iOS 5, and will completely scrub the software from later releases.

So no, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not your phone exists in a closed ecosystem. The problem is that companies are incentivized to get away with as much of this kind of information collection as it possibly can. And just because I have to jailbreak my iPhone if I want to install unvetted software, doesn't mean Apple is thumbing their noses at legitimate customer complaints and concerns.

Carrier IQ is in iOS 5. It is, however, disabled by default. It is also buried in the second or third level down in Preferences, so its very unlikely a user will enable it by accident -- and will probably only do so upon the instruction of an Apple Store Support Rep.

There's no way to send a remote message to enable it?

Unknown.

However, the FBI can send a remote message to ANY phone to turn on its microphone and essentially use it as a wiretap. That's been built into every phone in the USA for something like 10 years now. It's why you have to surrender a cell phone in secure locations and military bases.

That's old news. Said wiretaps have actually been used against organized crime in America in the past and is likely used with more success now.

Oh, and you do know that everything you SEND through a cellular network -- texts, pics, urls visited are logged, right?

The only way to have a private network is to own the network. And know your netsec.

>However, the FBI can send a remote message to ANY phone to turn on its microphone and essentially use it as a wiretap. That's been built into every phone in the USA for something like 10 years now. It's why you have to surrender a cell phone in secure locations and military bases.

Really? When a phone is off, it's off, I don't believe the FBI can make a phone that has been hard powered off come up and start recording. The hardware just isn't capable of doing anything when it's hard powered off (evidenced by the fact that most phones need a signal to establish what time it is when you power them on.)

So how many cell phones do you know that a powered off with a hard switch. You know, flip the switch like you do on your living room light. Or how many people do you know that take their battery out when the power their phone off. Well there is your answer.

When the phone is powered off it is physically incapable of receiving a wake-up request over the radio.

Again, how do you know the phone is powered off unless you have a flip switch connected to the battery, take the battery out (and at the same time assume there is other smaller battery in there) ?

Said wiretaps have been used against the Olympic Committee: googling "Athens Affair" yields a nice story, http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-athens-affair There are rumors of the FBI's "Carnivore" (A.K.A. "DCS-3000" and "DCS-6000" getting used the same way in the USA.

I've been hearing that story about the FBI remotely activating cellphone microphones for several years now, but do you have a credible source for it?

source: http://www.zdnet.com/news/fbi-taps-cell-phone-mic-as-eavesdr...

But the deeper you dig, the spottier the evidence really gets, with people confusing and jumbling a whole variety of facts together. For instance, the zdnet article cites "A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method."

Here's that article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3522137.stm

It mostly seems to be talking about a physically bugged phone, except for the parts about decrypting conversations over the air. And the lasers.

All people have to go on is the words "roving bug" in a court opinion which has somehow morphed into "all phones contain SMS activated spy microphones."

Yes.

Any briefing involving a secure area will mention that phones can be triggered this way, and that your customer (military, intel, DoD, or DOE) forbids their access for the very reason.

Are such briefings classified, or is there some chance of a citable reference?

I wouldn't be at liberty to comment either way. Talk to your friendly, neighborhood defense contractor.

I've got some questions on that first claim. Where's this done? I was under the opinion that you'd need system support for that to work --- the GSM radio's not directly plugged into the mic. I'd expect an android hacker to have found it there, if it's being injected in from the carriers.

For secure locations, you have to surrender just about every electronic device you have, because they could be used to transport data outside the secure location. The same rule applies to USB sticks, hard drives, PDAs, ipods, etc.

I'm invoking "walled garden", speaking of closed, controlled hardware environments in general, whether that be Apple or phone carriers or laptop manufacturers or the like. Once the controllers of that environment gain power, the human tendency to abuse and extend that power is only a matter of time.

The only way to ensure that you can trust the hardware and software you use is if it is 100% transparent. And while that is not always possible, the ability to control what runs on your own hardware goes a long way towards mitigating the risk of a betrayed trust.

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