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Nobody's Cellphone Is Really That Secure, Bruce Schneier Reminds (theatlantic.com)
Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that the Russians and the Chinese were eavesdropping on President Donald Trump's personal cellphone and using the information gleaned to better influence his behavior. This should surprise no one, writes Bruce Schneier. From a story: Security experts have been talking about the potential security vulnerabilities in Trump's cellphone use since he became president. And President Barack Obama bristled at -- but acquiesced to -- the security rules prohibiting him from using a "regular" cellphone throughout his presidency. Three broader questions obviously emerge from the story. Who else is listening in on Trump's cellphone calls? What about the cellphones of other world leaders and senior government officials? And -- most personal of all -- what about my cellphone calls?
There are two basic places to eavesdrop on pretty much any communications system: at the end points and during transmission. This means that a cellphone attacker can either compromise one of the two phones or eavesdrop on the cellular network. Both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks. The NSA seems to prefer bulk eavesdropping on the planet's major communications links and then picking out individuals of interest. In 2016, WikiLeaks published a series of classified documents listing "target selectors": phone numbers the NSA searches for and records. These included senior government officials of Germany -- among them Chancellor Angela Merkel -- France, Japan, and other countries.
Other countries don't have the same worldwide reach that the NSA has, and must use other methods to intercept cellphone calls. We don't know details of which countries do what, but we know a lot about the vulnerabilities. Insecurities in the phone network itself are so easily exploited that 60 Minutes eavesdropped on a U.S. congressman's phone live on camera in 2016. Back in 2005, unknown attackers targeted the cellphones of many Greek politicians by hacking the country's phone network and turning on an already-installed eavesdropping capability. The NSA even implanted eavesdropping capabilities in networking equipment destined for the Syrian Telephone Company. Alternatively, an attacker could intercept the radio signals between a cellphone and a tower. Encryption ranges from very weak to possibly strong, depending on which flavor the system uses. Don't think the attacker has to put his eavesdropping antenna on the White House lawn; the Russian Embassy is close enough.
There are two basic places to eavesdrop on pretty much any communications system: at the end points and during transmission. This means that a cellphone attacker can either compromise one of the two phones or eavesdrop on the cellular network. Both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks. The NSA seems to prefer bulk eavesdropping on the planet's major communications links and then picking out individuals of interest. In 2016, WikiLeaks published a series of classified documents listing "target selectors": phone numbers the NSA searches for and records. These included senior government officials of Germany -- among them Chancellor Angela Merkel -- France, Japan, and other countries.
Other countries don't have the same worldwide reach that the NSA has, and must use other methods to intercept cellphone calls. We don't know details of which countries do what, but we know a lot about the vulnerabilities. Insecurities in the phone network itself are so easily exploited that 60 Minutes eavesdropped on a U.S. congressman's phone live on camera in 2016. Back in 2005, unknown attackers targeted the cellphones of many Greek politicians by hacking the country's phone network and turning on an already-installed eavesdropping capability. The NSA even implanted eavesdropping capabilities in networking equipment destined for the Syrian Telephone Company. Alternatively, an attacker could intercept the radio signals between a cellphone and a tower. Encryption ranges from very weak to possibly strong, depending on which flavor the system uses. Don't think the attacker has to put his eavesdropping antenna on the White House lawn; the Russian Embassy is close enough.
Cell phones have been possible to listen in to, even by citizens (with some skills, and expensive equipment) for quite some time now.
The technology is the same that it has been using for the last 10-15 years, the encryption back then was too hard for that time, but today - with insanely strong GPU's and CPU's - heck...even FPGA's with a little specialized design - can crack that stream open like a tunnel wide gate, and there's even open source software so you can experiment with your "own" equipment and algorithms. Figure this - you can purchase a 2$ cellphone module complete with IMEI number, receiver/transceiver, data module, parser, encryption/decryption all-in-one-chips on eBay for the longest time. Did anyone really think these would have such processing capacity in 2018 that it couldn't be hacked today with our insane home computers (insane in comparison to 10+ years ago)?
There was even this instance where there were an old Nokia Telephone (33xx I think, not sure - but it's googleable), that had a bug that enabled you to get into monitoring mode, that phone was sought after for sinister purposes back then - and hard to find, but it was quite true.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Yes, despite his manifest personal weirdness rms is completely right about his: you don't control your phone. Google/Apple and any vendor you give access to your mic and camera could be listening in on you at any time it is on. I am not convinced that turning your phone off that's it's necessarily *really* off -- Snowden agrees. There is no physical way to distinguish between the phone being off and malware which emulates the phone being off, or in the case of actors with "national means", hacked firmware; after all the "power" button isn't connected to the actual battery.
I've said for years now phones need at a hardware switch that disconnects their mic and cameras, and in addition to the standard power button a battery disconnect slide switch. If you took those features and added them to an iPhone 6 you could market it as a security phone.
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