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A comment on Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information with US Chip-Maker. Parent comment

Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by callmeal on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @12:33PM (#35702804)
>Imagine if you bought a car from somebody, and they secretly kept a spare key and periodically used your car to run their personal errand.

It's worse than that. It's like you bought a house from somebody and they secretly left cameras all over the living room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen so they can get 'telemetry' ostensibly to improve the next house they build, for 'safety' in case there's an accident, and to 'protect the children'.

I think people are so overwhelmed and anxious that there's no space for fighting back against this kind of over-reach. And even if you did have the time and space and energy, how would you even go about it?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by wlesieutre on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @12:36PM (#35702852)
So it's like buying a Tesla

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...

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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by bgun on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @01:39PM (#35703924)
But worse, it's like being required to own a Tesla because it's the only car available.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by namibj on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @01:48PM (#35704085)
And the cameras being integrated so the driving would break if you'd neutralize them.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by entropicdrifter on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @03:39PM (#35705566)
And the laws are written such that if you were to replace the software responsible for sending the camera feeds back to Tesla with a FOSS equivalent is illegal, because you're less trusted than the spying psychopathic corporation.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by IYasha on Friday April 28, 2023 @01:29PM (#35744435)
And such people are ridiculed in the news.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by cryptoegorophy on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @03:47PM (#35705679)
You can still drive it. You can’t use autopilot thought
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by entropicdrifter on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:09PM (#35706837)
You're responding in literal terms about a Tesla to an analogy about the Qualcomm 5G chips
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by TedDoesntTalk on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @03:43PM (#35705636)
> the covert operating system (AMSS) has complete control over the hardware, microphone and camera. The Linux kernel and deGoogled /e/OS end-user operating system function as a slave on top of the hidden AMSS operating system

So they can also exfiltrate audio and video

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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by kevin_thibedeau on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @04:00PM (#35705895)
This is why Snowden removes the microphone from his phones.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by rolph on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @04:36PM (#35706405)
* * *
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by sizzle on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:02PM (#35706764)
What’s the privacy issue with accelerometer?
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by steve_adams_86 on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:28PM (#35706985)
> Drawing from existing literature, we found that accelerometer data alone may be sufficient to obtain information about a device holder's location, activities, health condition, body features, gender, age, personality traits, and emotional state. Acceleration signals can even be used to uniquely identify a person based on biometric movement patterns and to reconstruct sequences of text entered into a device, including passwords.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3309074.3309076

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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by cpv on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:28PM (#35706990)
There was a research in 2011 about using the accelerometer to log your keystrokes https://www.extremetech.com/internet/92946-a-wiggly-approach...
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by codebje on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:23PM (#35706937)
One I could think of is you could use accelerometer data to know if the phone is moving, and how: is it just being lifted and interacted with, is the user walking or running, are they in a car.

For a high profile target you might also be able to track their approximate location if you know their starting point and their acceleration profile - speed up, slow down, turns, time taken. Enough, at least, to execute an ambush.

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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by AlotOfReading on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @06:12PM (#35707429)
With enough data and a high SNR, you don't even need the starting point or the velocity profile. Just the turns and distances are enough in combination with a map to uniquely identify most journeys. The problem with applying that more globally is sensor drift.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by Veliladon on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:22PM (#35706933)
Because it can be used to roughly track location through 3D space. It's nowhere near as accurate as practically any other method but for "good enough" a lot of the time it'll do the job.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by jlund-molfese on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:11PM (#35706859)
Good for you. There are so many examples of cameras on internet-connected devices being used to blackmail people, and criminals are pretty creative, so they'll keep thinking of other nefarious things to do in the future.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by dtgriscom on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @09:10PM (#35708693)
Wait a minute: how does it function as a good ol' phone?
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by kevin_thibedeau on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @09:19PM (#35708736)
He attaches a USB microphone.
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Re:Smartphones with Qualcomm Chip Share Private Information ... by IYasha on Friday April 28, 2023 @01:30PM (#35744449)
Also, it doesn't have to be USB on devices with 3.5 4-pin jack.
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