

IPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cell Phone Towers, Apple Claims - codemechanic
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/jailbreak/

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teilo
Cell phone tower infrastructure has always been a walled garden, with the
presumption that the carriers will always control the software and hardware
used to communicate with the network. This might arguably have been a valid
assumption when the cell system was engineered. It is certainly not a valid
assumption now.

Jailbreaking is a fact of life. What are they going to do? Make it illegal?
Let's assume they do. Does that make the network more secure? Did outlawing
SPAM decrease the amount of SPAM? Did criminalizing cyber-attacks even
decrease the number of said attacks?

To beg a legal remedy to circumvent the threat of cellular attacks in itself
means that Apple, or rather AT&T (who is, of course, behind this claim), has a
security methodology that is utterly broken, and absolutely _begging_ to be
exploited.

They might as well have hung a sign on the towers which said, "Hack Me. I'm
Easy".

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ori_b
So, fix the damn cellphone towers. If a jailbroken cellphone can crash them,
then surely a malicious person with a laptop and an antenna of the appropriate
type could also crash them.

~~~
slackenerny
But they would have to be experts in GSM signalling. And those experts tend to
have better things to do. Also, a laptop and a antenna would not suffice,
software-defined radio would be required and currently there is no SDR design
on market with sufficient performance.

If the unwashed masses suddenly gain access to such capabilities effortlessly
then it would be a concern. Presently it is not, because smart phones have GSM
subsystems carefully separated and ‘dumb’ phones have certain limitations
built in. Behaving graciously is assumed a mobile station's role in the GSM
system.

Recall the Nokia 1100 rumor eariler this year where underground allegedly
gained acces to frimware memory map of certain series of this phone and its
price skyrocketed on second hand market.

~~~
wmf
If a USRP can be a GSM cell tower, it can probably be a phone.
<http://openbts.sourceforge.net/>

~~~
slackenerny
It can't be a tower, at most a sort of bridge and barely at that. Harald
Welte's OpenBSC is more advanced <http://bs11-abis.gnumonks.org/trac/>. It is
built on Siemends industrial design and not USRP as the BTS.

~~~
wmf
It doesn't surprise me that OpenBSC is more advanced given that my
understanding is that the Siemens hardware does a lot of the hard work.
OpenBTS is more impressive (and more customizable for evil) since it has to do
everything in software.

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epall
So preventing the legalization of one activity will prevent already-possible
illegal activity? If I want to jailbreak my iPhone for illegal purposes, what
does it matter whether that process is legal?

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mquander
The idea that anyone would take Apple's argument seriously illustrates the
growing gap between people who understand what computers are and people who
don't.

It's easy for us to say "well, obviously that makes no sense, because you
could do the same thing with an Android phone or a laptop" because we
understand a computer to be a universal machine, but the people making the law
usually understand computers as no more than a glorified wrench or hammer,
capable of doing some particular subset of Useful Things.

~~~
billswift
There has ALWAYS been a "gap between people who understand what computers are
and people who don't"; the growing problem is people who THINK they understand
computers because they use them, but don't really have a clue beyond what to
button to click to get their email.

------
ErrantX
_a local or international hacker could potentially initiate commands (such as
a denial of service attack) that could crash the tower software, rendering the
tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data_

Far be it for me to comment (as I have no experience in the software) but does
that not seem like something of a MAJOR flaw in the tower software?

~~~
noelchurchill
Yes and no. When the software was written for these towers, they weren't
taking into account phones such as the iphone. Compared with the phones
available just a few years ago, the iphone is a relative supercomputer. So I'd
say if anything, its more of a lack of foresight rather than a flaw. Who, save
for Steve Jobs, saw the iphone coming a few years ago with the force that is
has.

~~~
slackenerny
It hasn't to do with the kind of phone and if it has more power or not. Years
back I saw a quite detailed document on how to modify certain areas of memory
in low-end Siemens phone so it would agree too cooperate on exhausting
timeslices form unsuspecting BTS. BTS's trust mobile stations by design.

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TrevorJ
Then why isn't android or any other open platform a threat?

~~~
jf
Perhaps T-Mobile has an infrastructure isn't as insecure and fragile as
AT&T's.

~~~
jonknee
Android phones work fine on AT&T.

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dtf
It's official: jailbreaking aids terrorists and drug dealers. But I was
surprised not to hear about it also aiding child-pornographers. Were Apple's
lawyers having a slow day?

~~~
wmf
Come on, everybody knows the infocalypse has _four_ horsemen; you forgot about
the money launderers:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyps...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse)

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codemechanic
Really getting tired of Apple man... Compared to AAPL MSFT seems benevolent

~~~
DannoHung
You run a lot of custom apps on your Zune? Gotten around the shared music
deletion issue yet?

~~~
wvenable
I run a lot of custom apps on my WinMo phone. In fact, my entire phone
experience has been customized (of course, it's terrible to begin with).

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taranfx
Apple's claims are fake. Here is what you should know
<http://www.taranfx.com/blog/?p=1499> <http://www.taranfx.com/blog/?p=1499>

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sound2man
Rotten Apple.

