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Comment by surge | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much of it's related to fears that every iPhone is a secret NSA listening device?

I mean if you knew the KGB could possibly listen in on your phones, how likely would US carriers keep it?

I've been thinking an overseas consumer and business/government backlash against US technology products is inevitable now that the NSA being in bed with every major US technology company is public knowledge.

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If that were the case then why are Russians buying Microsoft phones too? Sorry doesn't pan out as an acceptable reasoning.

Seriously, unlike 99% of hackernews users, if the average smartphone user even knows what PRISM is, he/she probably doesn't give a damn.

And carriers go where the money is. This sounds like a purely economics driven decision.

Well, if people over hear heard something like the KGB can spy on people who use Russian tech company products, people would avoid them even if it isn't necessarily true. Supposedly, the encryption iOS implements is supposed to be NSA proof. But public perception and consumer confidence in a product is everything. Reddit talks about it as much if not more so then Hacker News on the common front page reddits and I've seen quite a bit of griping about it from non-techie friends on FB.

I think its very likely the contractual disagreement, but I'd be very interested to know if sales for US-based technology products have fallen since recent revelations came to light.

Come on - people overhearing that "KGB can spy on people using X" would not change anything, it is expected and well known that KGB/FSB can spy on you no matter what equipment you use; heck, if you're a political activist or interesting to the politically connected megacompanies, then you may have microphones in your house (no matter if your phone is "safe") and physical keyloggers in your keyboard cable (no matter if your software is "safe").

In that environment, you aren't surprised by backdoors, you treat them as a natural part of life.

ALL things have backdoors, no matter who made them, so for individuals (not army/gov't purchases) that isn't a factor, you just choose whichever device you like. If they're not spying on you, then backdoors don't matter; and if they're spying on you, then they'll get the backdoor in anyways.

If it didn't have backdoors at manufacturing time then it may have backdoors by the time it's sold to you. If the device didn't have backdoors when arriving at your house, well, it might have been installed yesterday.

Americans could/should be surprised, but not Russians.

What phone isn't? Is even cyanogenmod safe from the NSA?

Well, if you don't use Google Apps with it, then yeah probably.

You still have the radio firmware, which is closed source and can't be changed. That's where I'd expect snooping back doors to be located.

Well most of the firmware is written by an Asian company, doesn't put it outside the realm of possibility.

I think so, since it's fully community made, and beyond the "official" CyanogenMod team, there are hundreds more developers making "unofficial" CM ROMs for other phones, and they get to see the code, too.

Plus, the CyanogenMod team is now working on encrypted end-to-end messaging that is built-in:

https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/23vfN2qdZTu

No, it's not, because everything useful that happens with your phone happens over a carrier network or the internet, both of which are available to the NSA.

End-to-end encrypted messaging is a good sign, but it doesn't matter how "community made" your endpoints are - the NSA has the network.

Yes, but if the communication is encrypted it doesn't really matter. So these text messages should be by and large safe.

I agree about the voice calling, though, which is why I'd like them to use RedPhone as the default dial app, too, so at least you can have encrypted voice conversations when connected to the Internet.

Perhaps, but voice calls, and SMS all go through the carrier. While russian carriers don't have to provide data to the NSA, the probably do to the FSB. Yes you can make apps the communicate via encrypted channels, but that requires the same app at both ends, and ultimately I suspect apps are secondary for most people. Voice and SMS are the primary function of phones still.

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