[Community] Next generation OpenPhoenux devices

[Bob Ham]

On 2013-03-18 13:12, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> Am 18.03.2013 um 12:56 schrieb Sven Dyroff:
>
>> Hello Nikolaus,
>>
>>> GSM/UMTS has an open driver ("HSO") and otherwise uses AT
>> commands, i.e. everything free and open.
>>
>> What about the closed firmware within the modem?
>
> Yes, it is closed. But why do you expect that it can be open(ed)?.


   http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/verizon-rigmaiden-aircard/


Note that this article describes only one known scenario where a 
modem's operation is altered surreptitiously.

I am very concerned that I do not have access to the firmware running 
on my phone's modem.  I'm not concerned because I have imagined one 
hypothetical scenario in which bad things could possibly be done.  I'm 
concerned because I have no idea what *is* happening in the modem.  I'm 
concerned because I know the only real limit to the abuse that can be 
done using the modem is the hardware capabilities.  The limit is not 
what the government says, or what the police force says, or what the 
mobile network says, or what I would like to imagine.

If I don't have control of the binaries running on my phone's modem, 
through access to the source code, then the modem is wide open for 
abuse.


The modem is a computer.  I am a user.  I want to be free to use my 
computer however I see fit, and to secure it.

I don't want to go outside the boundaries of the law with respect to 
radio telephony, in the same way that I have no desire to crack banks 
using my desktop computer.  I just want to be free.


-- 
Bob Ham <rah at settrans.net>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }