Apparently the same applies to GoPros with their wifi adapter turned on.
Leave the phone at home. Bring a dedicated camera to record, if you must.
Apparently the same applies to GoPros with their wifi adapter turned on.
Leave the phone at home. Bring a dedicated camera to record, if you must.
Hey Cass, how're you doing?
Unfortunately, nothing I've seen so far. It's not something we can easily replicate, since we can't procure the hardware they're using in order to do it.
We know it works off of wireless communications frequencies on phones, so I'd wager that the attack can be executed through cellular, wifi, and bluetooth. I'd especially guess wifi, since I've also heard reports of wifi enabled devices being temporarily bricked. This is my first time seeing a picture of a phone screen during the attack; previously, since phones were locked out people weren't able to document what was happening. I guess this is the first person to try to take a screenshot. I've heard it works on both android and IOS.
Since the firmware blobs for each OS's wireless drivers are proprietary, we can't just look at the drivers to see how it's implemented.
heya :), this site has been rough for a couple of days, thank you for asking.
yeah, that's about what I figured. I was hoping that someone had done a forensic analysis less even so that we can understand how to replicate the attack but more so we can even just get a sense of the scope of capabilities they're displaying to us here. mainly, I want to know if this is TLA/top secret stuff or regular stuff the cops would have access to. like the state blatantly using network-exploitable firmware backdoors is capability we expect from them but doing so against protestors is an escalation in tactics and one that signals that the state considers these protests threatening enough that they're willing to reveal these techniques to foreign threats -- meaning there's a lot else they're definitely willing to do.
if this is an exploit the cops can get on the blackmarket or from vendors, though, it's going to be much easier to guard against as the trust base still includes the hardware itself (probably the firmware as well as state and local cops can't order Apple to allow them into their backdoors and the like).
From what I've heard, this is only deployed when the feds come out. However, this is all from word of mouth and I can't be sure about anything lol.
I'd assume it's a firmware backdoor. First, because it works on both platforms, and they both display a locked out message - something you can't do without malicious software already existing on the phone. If it's network stuff like the stringray, it's a protocol exploitation and doesn't require any special software on the phone. But, you also don't get any kind of warning message on the phone - since no software is needed on the endpoint. Unless this is something baked into all the wireless chips all these vendors use, it has to be some kind of firmware backdoor.
It does also show us that the state considers these protests threatening, but if they're willing to reveal this there must also be a large amount of other techniques and backdoors that they haven't revealed yet - exactly like you said. This is also hinted at since this is being deployed semi-frequently - it's commonly brought up as happening when the feds snatch someone off the street. Since we've heard about it from a bunch of people from across the country, it's likely deployed nation-wide and put into use frequently.
oh interesting, I hadn't heard about this coming out when they black van people. ok going to do some research, thanks for the info!