> I said multiple times that I exclusively run trusted apps on the phone. I use Qubes for untrusted staff. Do you understand that threat models can vary?
By that logic, you might as well just not have the killswitch at all. Everything is magically "trusted", right?
Yes, I do understand that threat models can vary. Please give an example of a threat model where it makes more sense to use a phone which cannot protect any private calls over a functioning phone that has real protection.
If you are going to say "oh, when you never talk on the phone at all" then you might as well just remove the mic. It's not hard.
As usual, there is nothing that GrapheneOS or Micay says regarding the Librem or Pinephone that is inaccurate. You are just saying stuff that doesn't even remotely make any sense. Perhaps you are being deliberately disingenuous. Perhaps you are just so blinded by an ideology that you cannot see that what you say is just nonsense. I wouldn't know.
> I choose to dispute false information. I don't care about any personalities.
> Their microphone kill switch also doesn't prevent audio recording
It doesn't prevent audio recording in the super paranoid "oh, the whole phone has been compromised" scenario because it is bypassable via the sensors.
In fact, it doesn't even protect the phone in normal operation, because apps with device=all can access the sensors without the whole phone being compromised.
It doesn't prevent audio recording with any normal usage either because the OS is incapable of protecting private conversations thanks to the PulseAudio socket. "Exploiting" this is significantly easier than any of the stuff involving the sensors.
And what good is the phone when 3 switches are off? You think that people buy a phone with a "mic killswitch" expects to have to turn off practically everything including internet to make sure that their mics aren't snooped on?
Does that really sound like a functioning "killswitch"?
On a long enough timeline he'll probably cite this comment chain as proof you were unable to respond to his concerns, like everyone else who's ever tried.
Oh he's already done that when I explained to him how stuff like PureBoot has circular logic and doesn't actually work on Qubes forum already.
Unfortunately he will just ignore every single counter argument ever made and blindly believe these companies because their marketing material has "freedom" and "FOSS" in it.
On Qubes forum, you had replies from far more knowledgeable people than me. You never could answer to them. You only talk about the lack of security of Pureboot and never showed the code breaking it. "Talk is cheap, show me the code".
I did reply to them plenty of times. Here you go doing the exact same thing again - ignoring 100% of what's being said, then claiming "no one can respond".
> You only talk about the lack of security of Pureboot and never showed the code breaking it.
If you think a piece of code is needed to understand why it's a joke, then I don't even understand what is wrong with you. LMAO. The whole thing is conceptually botched, and they pretty much admitted as much.
1. Boot block performs measurements of itself, its settings and everything down the chain for attestation.
2. There's nothing protecting the boot block.
3. A malicious boot block can lie about measurements.
4. If the goal is to defend against an attacker who tampers with the BIOS chip - then it fails at doing so miserably because an attacker can just use a boot block that lies about the measurements.
Seriously, what good is showing you the code if you don't even conceptually understand how the thing works?
You know, there is a famous saying: A farmer does not need to know how to lay eggs to know whether an egg is good or bad. In our case, the egg is already rotten from the get-go. This is not a "Ohhh something has such bad code I can attack it using XYZ method, wait and see!" situation. This is a situation where "Your logic doesn't even make any sense to begin with."
Perhaps, just perhaps, you can benefit from just spending 5 minutes thinking a bit about how the whole thing actually works at a very high level and read what I said above.
Thank you for your kind advice, but I prefer to trust a developer of Heads and many Qubes contributors instead of a loud Internet commenter criticizing everything and everyone.
The developer of Heads admitted that if someone tampers with the boot block and falsifies the measurements Heads cannot protect the device right on the Qubes forum. Why won't you listen to him then? Is he not trustworthy enough for you?
@TommyTran732, you are going to a great length to downplay everything about devices/companies promoting freedom, including Librem 5, Purism, and laptops with Heads. And you are promoting proprietary staff instead. This looks like trolling or astroturfing. For observers, here is the actual quote from the heads developer, not in the (incorrect) interpretation of TommyTran732:
As I pointed before @TommyTran732 and to anyone thinking compromising measured boot is trivial, I layed down the tooling for anyone wanting to further protection / prove measured boot not enough to understand and break it once and for all under WiP: introspection - replicate TPM PCRs measurements directly from measured content (TCPA/TPM Event log) by tlaurion · Pull Request #1568 · linuxboot/heads · GitHub
Just use it for the bad to faster the development of something good/better.
Yeah, why are you selectively reading? This is after he admitted what I said was true. His only contention is that he thinks it's hard to know what the PCR values should be to fake, so he calls that "security". You are being extra ordinarily disingenuous here.
> The goal of Heads is to bring reasonably trustworthy firmware on reasonably open platforms to boot reasonably secure OS, enforcing best effort user controlled atteststion, compartmentalization and prevention. Never is it written anywhere that the firmware is tampering resistant or tampering proof: we lack open source implementation in hardware to have root of trust in hardware. Heads is best approach on what is available, the anchor of trust being in the bootblock, not in hardware. The chain of trust lies there. Of course an evil maid could craft a firmware that would lie about its measurements in the bootblock, raminit, romstage and the payload. But as today, no PoC has even been made public, showing it being actoinnable, and by nature of TPM extend operations is nothing easy to realize, while possible.
I am just gonna highlight the critical part here one more time, since I sent you the same thing before and you didn't read:
> *Of course an evil maid could craft a firmware that would lie about its measurements in the bootblock, raminit, romstage and the payload.*
Yeah, I wouldn't call heads "best approach on what is available" and I do think Boot Guard is better, but at least he is honest about the actual mechanism and the very obvious attack vector.
Qubes team never criticized Purism laptops for their lack of security. At least I didn't see that. They criticized other things, which may be important for some and less important for others. The phone is off-topic on the Qubes forum, so its security was never thoroughly discussed.
Everything Micay said in that linked thread was and remains correct. You again fail to address what was incorrect in his comment. Going on to later ask people "what is correct about it?" is rhetorically disingenuous at best.
But as you consistently slide any adjacent topic you can into a discussion about the Librem 5 (no matter how tortured a segue), let's go with that and revisit it.
I looked at your puri.sm link, and it mostly served to lower my estimation of the Librem 5's kill switch system. You can't disable the sensors in a trustworthy way without disengaging every kill switch at the same time, entering it into their Lockdown Mode. At that point it's just a still insufficiently air-gapped, highly underpowered Linux device which remains poorly secured against other side-channel attacks. The speaker which, by everything I could find, is still functional, the OS remains poorly secured against software attacks, it lacks proper hardware security, and so on.
It fails in terms of human factors, too. Joe Consumer thinks flipping off the mic switch prevents audio recording, but it doesn't in multiple regards. Even putting it into Lockdown Mode doesn't disable the speaker, which can be used to record audio despite your insistence that the device is fully secured when all switches off. Speakers can also be used to exfil data over short distances, demonstrated to work through walls.
Poor misinformed Joe Consumer is also still left with the same issues the other commenter has already identified in terms of the difficulty of securing any Linux computer.
But that's okay, because you only run trusted software. Until one of those trusted pieces of software include a compromised library, which happens often. You are, at that point, relying on the OS and its relationship to its hardware, which, flawed switch system aside, is highly insufficient. The device offers very little protection at that point. You know all this because you run Qubes OS, but hand-wave that away by appealing to trusted software as soon as the Librem 5 becomes the subject.
If I was modeling threats around protecting sensitive files on the device, not falling victim to attacks that could record audio and/or exfil data or otherwise leak, I'd still go with GrapheneOS on a Pixel 8 or later.
The Librem 5 wins for anyone who just wants a phone which runs Linux (which is a great thing and I wish we had more options which did that), but the security theater of that device is just goofy from top to bottom, as are its more vocal and less reasoned supporters. If one's threat model is, one sometimes wants to be able to turn off all radios and sensors, leaving the speaker functioning, with an otherwise poorly secured device, then, great. It's the device for you. But it's a threat model which will be practically beneficial to very few people, if any.
If your holy grail is having the radios off without other hardware or software considerations, great, you've found the phone for you. It's a brilliantly marketed device for well meaning but poorly informed people with underdeveloped threat models, and, I guess, for someone in your situation who's happy to make all of the above compromises to be able to physically disconnect radios.
Do you always enter Lockdown Mode before typing anything sensitive, due to the attack vector they highlighted about deriving typed data via sensor data? ('No, because I only run trusted software.' See above.) You literally can't disable the sensors without disabling all radios. They acknowledge that sensors are an attack vector worth addressing, yet don't put sensors on a discrete circuit. Like I said, great marketing. Otherwise pretty goofy.
Would I complain if the upcoming Motorola GrapheneOS phone had physical hardware switches? Sure, I'd take an additional layer of containment if all of the fundamentals are addressed properly.
But your argument is like bolting the world's best seat belts onto a motorcycle, and never missing an opportunity to tell the world about your belts, wonderful though they truly are.
Not entirely sure if the chip they are using (WM8962) can be reconfigured as a mic or not... it probably can't. But yes, the speaker is still active even when the mic is toggle off.
Everything else is pretty much the argument though - who buys a phone with a microphone killswitch so good that for it to actually function you must also flip the other killswitches to kill both wifi and cellular connection? A microphone killswitch so impeccable that in order for you to not be snooped on you also have to give up texting and browsing the internet. Truely impressive stuff.
Man, if this entirely thread of people calling out how ridiculous the implementation is and the killswitch not actually working in practice isn't enough to convince you, nothing ever will.
I don't even feel like arguing against the absurdity of your arguments anymore. This is my last attempt at dumping it down a notch:
A "microphone killswitch" is supposed to protect the user against having their convos being snooped on when it's toggled and still be able to use the phone in a meaningful manner. A "microphone killswitch" that doesn't really function on its own and requires turning the entire device into a brick is non-fuctional for all practical purposes.
I might as well just invent a "microphone killswitch" that requires people to pull out the battery to make sure that they are not snooped on at that point.
> A "microphone killswitch" is supposed to protect the user against having their convos being snooped on when it's toggled and still be able to use the phone in a meaningful manner
LOL, it's hard to imagine a more ridiculous and self-contradicting statement than this.
1. It's just physically impossible to defend from tracking, when the phone has networking connections on. Not even on all-mighty GrapheneOS.
2. I am using a phone with the kill switches off in a meaningful manner all the time. It is a full computer running a desktop OS and can run any apps, including listening to music from a microSD card, reading saved text/pdf files, showing presentations with original LibreOffice, programming in any language with standard tools, and so on.
3. Even though the phone in the lockdown mode (with all three kill switches off) has no connections, if I'm ever in emergency and need some help, I can turn the phone functionality back on and call for the help I need. Obviously, privacy in such case would be secondary after health.
4. Unlike for GrapheneOS, there is no way to hack my kill switches for any money. I can be 100% certain that they work as intended, even if a state actor is against me. Yes, everything else might be compromised in such case but not the tracking and listening to me when I need true location and microphone privacy.
> It's just physically impossible to defend from tracking, when the phone has networking connections on. Not even on all-mighty GrapheneOS.
I can use GrapheneOS with the global mic toggled off and sensors toggled off/denied to apps. I can still text, browse the internet, and check my emails while talking to my friends. I can go about my day, receive notifications, be a productive member of society while being reasonably sure that no apps on my phone is snooping on my convos.
This is what most people expect of a "microphone killswitch". Unfortunately, the hardware killswitches on the Librem cannot provide even remotely the same level of assurances as even a software killswitch.
The Librem 5 is either fully offline or something can snoop on the convos while internet is on. How is that a sensible implementation?
> I am using a phone with the kill switches off in a meaningful manner all the time. It is a full computer running a desktop OS and can run any apps, including listening to music from a microSD card, reading saved text/pdf files, showing presentations with original LibreOffice, programming in any language with standard tools, and so on.
Yeah, I am sure this is what a sane person expects a functioning phone with a "microphone killswitch" to be - an offline pocket sized computer instead of a device for communication 99% of the time.
> Even though the phone in the lockdown mode (with all three kill switches off) has no connections, if I'm ever in emergency and need some help, I can turn the phone functionality back on and call for the help I need. Obviously, privacy in such case would be secondary after health.
Yes, I am sure the purpose of the phone is to make a call instead of being used for texting/receiving notifications when you are out and about.
> Unlike for GrapheneOS, there is no way to hack my kill switches for any money. I can be 100% certain that they work as intended, even if a state actor is against me. Yes, everything else might be compromised in such case but not the tracking and listening to me when I need true location and microphone privacy.
Ever considered that maybe, just maybe, a valid use case for most people is not necessarily to hide their location from the carriers 24/7 but to not have their private conversation snooped on?
Or perhaps, another valid use case that some people might want is the ability to be connected to the internet via Wifi while not having their location tracked by the carrier or their private conversations snooped on? I can give you another detailed explanation as to how standard Android has a location toggle that works while your desktop-Linux-in-a-phone can easily have the location tracked when Wifi is on (and without an OS compromise) if you'd like ;)
>> Their microphone kill switch also doesn't prevent audio recording
More dangerous advice. The microphone kill switch prevents audio recording via the mic, not via the sensors or speaker. A Librem 5 user needing to secure against audio attacks would need to switch all kill switches off, not just the mic one (by Librem 5's own estimation), but would still be vulnerable to the speaker.
The effect of your participation in threads about projects you claim to care about is harmful. Please do better.
Librem 5 speakers cannot be used for recording, according to the developers. Yes, all kill switches protect you from the sensors.
This is indeed a misunderstanding, again. Reliable protection is possible - this is all I wanted to say. Not everybody means "all sensors" when they say "microphone". I took the phrase literally.
By that logic, you might as well just not have the killswitch at all. Everything is magically "trusted", right?
Yes, I do understand that threat models can vary. Please give an example of a threat model where it makes more sense to use a phone which cannot protect any private calls over a functioning phone that has real protection.
If you are going to say "oh, when you never talk on the phone at all" then you might as well just remove the mic. It's not hard.
As usual, there is nothing that GrapheneOS or Micay says regarding the Librem or Pinephone that is inaccurate. You are just saying stuff that doesn't even remotely make any sense. Perhaps you are being deliberately disingenuous. Perhaps you are just so blinded by an ideology that you cannot see that what you say is just nonsense. I wouldn't know.
> I choose to dispute false information. I don't care about any personalities.
Doesn't seem to be what you are doing here.