Mahonia

joined 1 year ago
[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Much of your data can just be subpoenaed and then provided to law enforcement without physical access however. Apple complies 90% of the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/sep/23/apple-user-data-law-enforcement-falling-short

Also, there are ways that LE can bypass your iphone's encryption. Just doesn't work all the time.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ag5yj/unlock-apple-iphone-database-for-police

GrapheneOS, based on AOSP, is really the only truly private and secure option. Android offering interoperability is not a downside and Apple having a walled garden does not mean it provides increased security. Apple is decidedly not transparent and this is ultimately not a good thing.

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is insanely moralistic and just a bad idea, but also... of all the things going on, how can this possibly be a priority?

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

Nevermind the infringement on human rights and the conservatives' historical tendency to cater to corporate interests. Affordable housing wasn't a priority under Harper either.

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't understand the format of this. Why put a dictator/murderer/war criminal and shitty capitalist/conservative talking head having this detailed and interesting conversation. These two in no way deserve any of the positive association this meme implies.

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If you're using a stock android device, the OS on your phone still has permissions to read and write to storage, by necessity. If what you're concerned about is privacy, you have very limited ability to set storage scopes if you don't trust the OS, and this doesn't really change if you install an app.

If you're using fossify file manager or any other file manager, you've given that app+the default Files app access to your storage. This is not more private. Most of those similar apps are essentially just skins on top of the default manager (which I suppose could be useful). This only really adds attack surface and doesn't have any meaningful privacy benefits, and potentially some detractors depending on the app you use.

If you don't trust the operating system and its utilities, the best option is to find an operating system you trust, and not to just install new skins on top of existing apps.

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I don't get these arguments. These tools aren't weapons, and limiting legal access to pentesting tools will decrease corp's and individuals' ability to be proactive about security.

These devices can be manufactured relatively easily and making them illegal will essentially mean the only people doing security tests are criminals. Large tech companies, correctly, run bug bounties where independent security researchers can make income by reporting reproducible and exploitable bugs. The concept here is called offensive security and it's extremely important for building better and more secure platforms. This situation will never be improved by limiting legal access to useful testing tools.

The responsibility should be on automakers and other companies that have massively insecure products, not on open source developers who are making products for security researchers.

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 66 points 9 months ago

Well that's actually exactly what I'd expect

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago

It seems like maybe the problem is that automakers were able to widely market vehicles that use wireless protocols that are relatively easy targets for attack. This was never properly secure.

Automakers should absolutely be held to higher standards (in general) than they are, and it's not likely that banning specific devices is going to have any measurable outcome here. It's pretty well known that people buy and sell malware, and people can just... make devices similar to a Flipper with cheaply and readily available hardware.

This is just dumb posturing to avoid holding automakers and tech companies accountable for yet another dumb, poorly thought out, design feature.

And obviously it doesn't stop at cars. It seems pretty clear that snooping on any feature using RFID or NFC tech is only going to become more widespread. Novel idea: what about using... actual keys as the primary method of granting physical access? Lock picking is obviously possible but a properly laid out disc-detainer lock is pretty goddamn hard to bypass even with the proper tools, and that skill can't just be acquired in the same way as with electronic methods of bypass.

[–] Mahonia@lemmy.world 106 points 9 months ago

I once tried to do a relatively basic repair on a phone, and ended up really breaking it. Like the touch screen won't work because I broke some shit on the motherboard that now requires micro soldering broke it.

So I send it to a repair company that allegedly does some micro soldering, and they call me to tell me they can't repair it because their diagnostic utility doesn't work unless it's the stock OS (I've been a GrapheneOS user for many years). What they do is... wipe my data and then tell me it's not the screen so they can't repair it.

Then I sent it to an actually good repair shop and they fixed it very quickly, easily understanding the problem. Good repair companies aren't easy to find but damn are they worth it. They're almost always smaller shops and they do not GAF what you do with your phone's software.

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