Yes, but then someone would have to come to your home to perform the modification. Your argument is weak.
Meanwhile nobody ever made a peep of all the stuff Windows XP logged just for diagnostics and auditing.
Granted, the data was mostly left sitting around, but still. Those logs have put a lot of bad people in jail.
Not if they were produced and distributed that way, which is analogous to our current situation. I guess this is the part where I say your counterargument is weak then.
Something approaching 100% of consumers could not identify whether or not there was anything weird with a telephone analog construction, and the idea that a company could produce some sort of defeat circuit into them is wholly plausible. Phone company sends a certain tone, produces a response and enables the microphone, most of which could be done using relatively stone age technology from the era youâre discussing.
What is needed here is not some crazy regression in tech towards the stone age, but stronger laws to force companies to behave appropriately and enforcement of those laws.Our laws are not keeping up with current technology in a meaningful way, which leads to companies exploiting the empty zones, and american culture encourages that exploitation by calling it âdisruptiveâ and financially rewarding companies who do it.
But thereâs nothing preventing you from going and buying one of those old phones right now and isolating itâs circuitry yourself - heck, you could even build your own, I think thereâs kits for it.
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It sure would ruin the slimness that modern devices so covet; but the sort of mechanical interlocks @earnestinebrown is referring to are about as blatant as they get(especially during the brief craze for phones with transparent plastic housings).
Certainly not bulletproof; you could do something sneaky with a transparent indium layer to construct an apparently unmodified switch that remains conductive whether closed or âopenâ; but itâd take some actual tinkering; and it would be difficult to change the bugged switchâs behavior once in the field. Since nobody wants their cellphone in âman portabeâ size, though, Iâm not sure that nice tactile killswitches on important connections would be a design win.
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Yeah, Iâm just saying that most users couldnât tell the difference between on and off and âoff but not reallyâ. You could just make it look like itâs there and secretly not. Hire a magician and you could make a device that looks like however you want and still does something else.
That being said, both Android and iOS are introducing more and more ways for users to control their devices, which is another way that we are influencing positive behavior with major companies.
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No, no, no. Youâre missing the point. (I suppose that is the point my socky friend.) Itâs about protection. Itâs about control. Itâs about your personal well beling. It is not about returning the the 70âs.
Donât buy products that subvert your interests, rights, and safety. Yes, you may have show disciple but itâs worth it.
Are you calling me a sockpuppet because I disagree with you? Alright, well Iâll just stop considering you a valid person either, thanks. Since I no longer consider you a valid human, Iâll stop being polite.
Iâm not missing the fucking point. The idea that an analog device canât lie to you is easily fucking understood because all it has to do is trick you which could be done in ANY number of ways.
A viewable interlock that looks like it works, with a hidden one that does the actual work, hidden behind the original and made to look like something else. Unless youâre asking about a goddamn frankenstein style huge switch (which again, you could just have a secondary interchange behind) nothing short of a multimeter will tell you what itâs doing - and consumers donât bust out fucking multimeters to test shit like that.
Stop being an asshole and actually engage in discussion without pretending that everyone that isnât a paranoid person is a fucking sockpuppet. I donât go around calling you a sockpuppet for some company making money off of privacy concerns, although thereâs nothing preventing them from doing so.
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I think youâre right. Even if there were analog kill switches, I suspect our government would require device manufacturers to include a way to remotely override the analog switch and activate the system. Or to activate some part of it.
In order to sue these Silverpush people, you would probably have to prove you were in an affected class. But since no one knows what apps include Silverpush technology, that would be very difficult. Kind of like how itâs difficult to sue the NSA, even though we know theyâre spying on all of us.
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Silly goose! Everything works better when done covertlyâŚ
(editâŚEverything is Better with Bill Bonnet On It !!! )
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Thatâs great, but to show discipline I suppose I would then:
Pick up an unlocked Android mobile and maybe cook some Cyanogenmod for it, following asking the telco for permission, eyes sharp for subroot bits like OTA update keys and fuses?
Be Tim Cook and then go find the bits monetizing more firmware than needs to be monetized, then see if antivirus partners want to help interdict apps installed otherwise, then ask for corroboration?
Fuzz my ultrasonic environment against file handle count, maybe.
Go to mobi dev conferences; sit in on Silverpush sessions, expedite free trips for attendees to a state that likes to covertly link and track all your devices, relatives, organs. Maybe a last-minute Georgia or Myanmar option.
As for Falcon2001âs certainty that their analog switch would disconnect the circuit; of course not! Even if the local loop operator (or 5i engineer) felt obligated to connect over a half-mile of twisted pair, thereâs some capacitance on the disconnect and some RF could bridge the gap, maybe bias the electret mic⌠Kind of spoils it for the guy-on-pole-with-loudspeaker from the first Paper Moon movie though.
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The triggers had better involve the Queen of Diamonds in some capacity, or I shall be gravely disappointed.
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Any ads I canât avoid are muted, so I donât have to worryâŚ
Come to think of it, maybe folks who are prepared to listen to ads, and thus justify their existence and inflict them on society, kinda deserve some disincentive?
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What, like a rheostat? Thatâs pretty steampunk.
It would actually be interesting to see how well hidden use of the SDK in apps is.
Nothing prevents or forbids the use of fairly aggressive obfuscation on iOS apps; but Appleâs âDefault deny, signed apps only, on approved devices onlyâ policy reduces the incentive to get tricky. On âDefault allowâ platforms, vendors have greater incentive to make reverse engineering and tampering hard; because if somebody produces a cracked copy it will run on anything. In iOS land, a cracked copy will run only on jail broken devices because it lacks the appropriate cryptographic signature.
You can still obfuscate, if you fear your competitors or wish to hide something; but it is harder to justify going to the trouble.
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Or you could attack the Silverpush infrastructure directly, instead of relying upon a government has sold you out.
There were ways around this, but few people were aware of them, and they werenât often used.
I have done this. But the devices are getting so small and integrated that it is becoming less feasible. How do you wire a switch to a part which is the size of a grain of sand?
Why not? I donât believe that money or property represent anything like real concepts. But the problem is that while I might not own what I use, there isnât anybody else who owns it either. So devices need to be configurable for the user. If you think you own it, then donât buy anything which is signed by the company instead of you - you decide who the trusted parties are.
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