Graphene OS for the win
How do they get it on the phone
Idk if there are laws around this in Canada, but mobile carriers can apparently install shit that you can’t fully uninstall, as soon as you put their SIM in there. I discovered that when my carrier installed their “app center” bs on my non-carrier locked phone.
Depends. Obviously when they say “secret spyware” that means it is, in fact, secret, and we don’t know which spyware they’re using, but as the article notes it could be Paragon Solutions.
They have a system called Graphite, but that primarily targets just instant messaging platforms. If the article is to be believed when it says it could activate your camera, that would signal to me it’s more likely something from NSO Group, like their Pegasus spyware that can also access your camera, GPS coordinates, and more.
All of these are going to be reliant on zero-day exploits, essentially exploits that aren’t known to anyone yet and are still unpatched. All exploits will be a little different, but when it comes to mobile spyware, we usually see them delivered either through texts, websites, or email.
Those attacks can either be someone just receiving the text (even if they don’t click on it, AKA a “zero click” attack), or maybe having to actually go to a particular website with the exploit baked in, or running an attachment from an email.
Joke’s on them, my phone runs GNU/Linux and has hardware kill switches for the mic/camera and for the cellular baseband which I use while at home, instead using Wi-Fi calling
What phone does that?
2 phones today ship today with that, the Purism Librem 5 and the PinePhone Pro.
In addition to an expected eventual 5G re-release of these models, the Liberux Nexx, and I suppose there will be a Brax 4 with it, given that their open slate tablet has them first.
I’d assume the Pinephone (Pro).
Or purism… if they still exist or ever shippef a phone. Havent followed them in a while
If you turn your phone off when being pulled over would it make any difference or does the spyware still do its thing?
More than likely yes. It disables biometrics and forces the use of a passcode if you have one enabled.
On Apple devices and Android devices go into lockdown mode when they are restarted.
Both of them will when left idle for a select period of time it will reboot. This is called Inactivity reboot. This basically forces the phone into lockdown mode.
These are new features that have been implemented on Apple and Android respectively fairly recently.
Apple phones also have the ability to wipe themselves away when left off for too long. You can do this with some versions of android but for the most part the one I know of is Graphene OS.
Good luck making that stand up in court. They may as well be handing out “get-out-of-jail-free” cards.
They don’t use it as admissible evidence, they use it to find out whether someone is worth pursuing in legitimate ways that are more time and effort intensive.
