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Apple Says iPhone Jailbreaking Could Hurt Cell Towers
AHuxley writes "Apple suggests that the nation's cellphone networks could be open to 'potentially catastrophic' cyberattacks by iPhone-using hackers at home and abroad if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their wireless devices. The Copyright Office is currently considering a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to legalize the widespread practice of jailbreaking. Apple has responded to the request by saying that if the 'baseband processor' software — which enables a connection to cell phone towers — is exposed, then a user could crash the tower software, or use the Exclusive Chip Identification number to make calls anonymously. Apple also thinks its closed business model is what made the iPhone a success. The Vodafone scandal from a few years back showed how a network could be compromised, but that was from within. So, what do you think? Is Apple playing the 'evil genius' hacker card or can 'anyone' with a smartphone and a genius friend pop a US cell tower?"
Even Microsoft isn't this stupid... yet anyway.
I've been avoiding Apple products due to their control issues, but this is just ridiculous.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Ya bad people won't look for flaws in the system if only Apple can keep people tied to their contracts. I'm having a hard time seeing the logic.
We should ban the sale of iPhones with this potentially dangerous bug until Apple can fix it, either by providing unlocked iPhones, or without this being handled by the iHpone's locking mechanism.
This seems like the equivalent of saying 'If you are allowed to install software on your PC you might bring down your ISP's entire network."
Speak for yourself.
then only outlaws will own cracked iPhones!
Seriously - if you're going to do an illegal activity (hacking) anyway, then making another activity (jailbreaking) illegal isn't going to deter you.
If somebody's going to try to "pop" a cell tower they're certainly not going to care if step 1 of the process was legal or not.
If a person is going to commit a felony "cyberattacks", why the hell would they worry about the legality of jailbreaking? It's like armed bank robbers worrying that they're fully automatic rifle isn't legal.
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
Instead of locking the whole thing down, just lock down the baseband processor. That way people who want to run their own apps can do so without having to jailbreak anything, and the baseband processor won't have any attention given to it. But of course this would still be a problem with AT&T, who provides the connectivity.
If these towers could be brought down from a user who jailbroke his iPhone, then it would have happened already.
No hacker is going to say "Oh well I guess I can't bring down this series of towers, ATT/Apple said it's not legal. Darn..."
This is the lamest excuse I've heard yet...
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
It would be like saying that allowing PC/Mac programmers to use the IP sockets API will let them crash their local router.
Give us a break Apple, you're coming across as more and more control freaks and foolish every week.
We all know the deal. If I wanted to compromise said cellular network, I could use the current published, freely, and openly available jailbreaking techniques. If they legalize jailbreaking of the phones, it is not going to legalize hacking cellphone towers, so the people that are going to do it are already trying. This is just a another preemptive strike by Apple. They are going to lose credibility, because too much press in a short ammount of time for a company can be just as bad as flying under the wire. I think it is time they slip back into the ether and keep quiet for a few weeks.
In order for the towers to be protected, there must be a *law* against jailbreaking (a practice that is currently perfectly feasible, just questionably legal). Will the law, sensing a helpless tower is in danger, jump off the page and stop the evil hacker from using his jailbroken phone to expose flaws in the upstream hardware/software, and save the day?
Even if this is true, legislation is clearly NOT the way to go here. Either they are giving away too many secrets just by having easily exploited hardware/software in consumers hands, or they are running woefully unprotected towers (or both). In any case, a law against it isn't going to do a whole lot except speed the prosecution of said 'evil hacker' who would already be breaking numerous laws anyway.
The ability to make anonymous phone calls shouldn't be seen as such an evil.
Security by obscurity does not get you very far. If the cell tower software is so fragile, it needs to be secured correctly.
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Play the fear card whenever you want your political way...
Worse, trusting the client is always an idiotic plan. Even if it isn't iSteve's precious baby, there will always be some phone(s) were the evil unauthorized users have access to the baseband(if nothing else, the people who design phones have to have the baseband interface specs, and I'm sure that sort of thing gets lost/dumpster dived/hacked/inside-jobbed from time to time). Solving cell tower security issues by trying to lock every handset would be like trying to make the internet safe by making Symantec Endpoint Security mandatory for all devices with public IPs.
This is just Apple wrapping themselves in the "Security" blanket to get what they want. Should we expect a series of PSAs about how iPhone jailbreaking aids the terrorists?
They're not really playing to the ignorance of their base, as it's not their base that they're trying to convince. They're trying to convince the Copyright Office, which is almost as bad because they cannot be reasonably expected to understand the intricacies of cellular network technology. That burden lies with the network operators and the FCC. As for the question of whether jailbreaking is good policy from a copyright perspective, the Copyright Office shouldn't care much about potential network problems.
Now from a technical perspective: AT&T is a GSM/EDGE/UTMS network. If the iPhone is supposed to work on their network, it conforms to those international, well-vetted standards. (An part of those standards is the use of a SIM card specifically so a user can separate the handset from the network.) There shouldn't be anything that an iPhone can do on their network that any other cell modem couldn't do. TFA isn't coming up for me, so I'm not sure what Apple's specific claims are, but I have a hard time imagining that AT&T gave them some unique, magic software key to a very well-defined tower structure.
Should we expect a series of PSAs about how iPhone jailbreaking aids the terrorists?
Might not be as far off as you think. "...could...use the Exclusive Chip Identification number to make calls anonymously." sounds like a good set-up for that kind of approach.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If you were a giant company making shit-tons of money for lazy coding, would you pay for the security changes, or would you do the much cheaper and simpler option of passing legislation that makes breaking your crappy code illegal?
Remember, they've already bought the congresspersons and senators needed.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If the software is vulnerable, it is vulnerable with or without a jailbroken iPhone. Even confiscating every single iPhone in existence will not stop someone from taking advantage of the vulnerabilities, if they are so inclined.
Attacking a cell tower is already illegal. No additional legislation is needed here.
This is IDIOTIC. How can any reasonable person possibly buy this argument.
Anyone that wants to bring down a cell phone tower or cell network IS NOT GOING TO CARE whether or not it's LEGAL to screw with the cell radio baseband software. They are ALREADY attempting to do something much worse.
Let's be honest here, the "security" aspect of this argument is a smokescreen. It's blatantly all about the profit!
Furthermore, the cellular network should NOT be so fragile that a single rogue cell phone could take it down (AFAIK it is not). BUT if AT&T is truly insistent on making this argument, then I believe a full investigation by the FCC is mandated. The self-admitted fragile state of their network means that their stewardship of a public resource (radio spectrum) is being poorly managed and truly endangering national security.
And does anyone seriously believe that someone willing to launch a DoS on a cell phone tower would be deterred because the jailbreaking process isn't legal?
True, this is like MS claiming allowing unauthorized applications and devices on the internet would break the ISP's or Tier 1 provider's routers and then locking up all applications with a App store raking in 30% of the cost compulsorily.
Also, from the response from Apple:
Looking at the four statutory fair use
factors,18 although the use per se of the modified iPhone bootloader and OS on an individual
handset is of a personal nature, it is not a transformative use, and because a jailbroken OS is
often used to play pirated content, the act of jailbreaking should be considered of a commercial
nature since it facilitates obtaining applications without paying fees for the them.
snip...
In sum, the value of the OS software to the iPhone, and therefore to Apple, is that it
enables the iPhone to function as a platform for the mobile computing experience that
differentiates the iPhone from its many competitors. This, in turn, increases the value of Appleâ(TM)s
iPhone copyrights and, again, overall consumer utility, making the iPhone a more attractive
product to consumers.
Huh? WTF? A jailbroken OS is often used to play pirated content? Apple keeps rejecting(censoring?) useful apps that developers and companies have spent lots of time and money on for silly reasons such as political content, duplication of functionality, mature content etc. The real reason is not piracy, it's because Apple wants to keep that 30% cut of all apps sold and control all the content while at the same time not angering AT&T with their approved Apps to keep the ~$17/month that Apple gets paid for each iPhone customer.
Is this what Apple calls the platform for the mobile computing experience? And there are a bunch of people including Jobs calling the iPod touch the equivalent of a netbook. http://www.osnews.com/story/20424/Jobs_on_Cheap_Computers_Netbooks http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/the-iphone-and-ipod-touch-apples-netbook.ars Please, no thanks.Do not pervert the word computer to mean a walled garden. Call it a phone, gaming console, e-book reader etc. if you wish. This makes the evil MS look like defenders of freedom in shining armor. God forbid if a company like Apple won the PC wars back in the 80s instead of IBM/PC compatibles. *shudder*
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