Replicant developers find and close Samsung Galaxy backdoor

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2023-03-17 19:30:12

This is a guest post by Replicant developer Paul Kocialkowski. The Free Software Foundation supports Replicant through its Working Together for Free Software fund. Your donations to Replicant support this important work.

Today's phones come with two separate processors: one is a general-purpose applications processor that runs the main operating system, e.g. Android; the other, known as the modem, baseband, or radio, is in charge of communications with the mobile telephony network. This processor always runs a proprietary operating system, and these systems are known to have backdoors that make it possible to remotely convert the modem into a remote spying device. The spying can involve activating the device's microphone, but it could also use the precise GPS location of the device and access the camera, as well as the user data stored on the phone. Moreover, modems are connected most of the time to the operator's network, making the backdoors nearly always accessible.

It is possible to build a device that isolates the modem from the rest of the phone, so it can't mess with the main processor or access other components such as the camera or the GPS. Very few devices offer such guarantees. In most devices, for all we know, the modem may have total control over the applications processor and the system, but that's nothing new.

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