News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Reverse engineering a Qualcomm baseband processor [pdf].

Re:Reverse engineering a Qualcomm baseband processor [pdf] by jordanthoms on Monday December 29, 2014 @11:26PM (#8813327)
So the usual view is that the capabilities we hear of the NSA having (keeping phone on even when it appears to be off, using GPS etc to locate the phone, transmitting microphone in the background, etc) is enabled in the baseband, when it receives coded requests from the network.

It'd be interesting if reverse engineering of the baseband could find those capabilities and see what's really possible and how it works.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Reverse engineering a Qualcomm baseband processor [pdf] by userbinator on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @02:49AM (#8813745)
Those capabilities are apparently standardised and documented; see these, for example:

http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/41033.htm

http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/42033.htm

http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/43033.htm

33.106, 33.107, and 33.108 on http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/status-report.htm also make for some... interesting reading.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Reverse engineering a Qualcomm baseband processor [pdf] by kristoffer on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @06:10AM (#8814122)
No. You are linking to lawful interception documents. That is not handled in the phone or base station but in the core network. You can not use it to track or listen to shut off devices.
[ Parent | on HN ]