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posted by martyb on Tuesday March 26 2019, @09:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the remember-DIP-switches-and-jumpers? dept.

Like with our Librem laptops, our Librem 5 smartphone will also feature kill switches; but unlike the laptops it will have three kill switches, not just two:

        cameras and microphone
        WiFi and Bluetooth
        cellular baseband

Later in this post I’m going to describe an exciting new feature for our Librem 5 phone we are calling “Lockdown Mode” that extends our normal kill switches to provide even more security and privacy

[...]One big challenge when protecting your privacy on a phone is that, unlike an average laptop, a phone is full of more sensors and other hardware that could be used for tracking and spying. A lot of security research over the past decade has demonstrated just how much information can be derived by seemingly harmless sensors that are included on a phone.

[...]While we could add kill switches for every individual piece of hardware, having three kill switches already pushes the limits with respect to space on the phone, the complexity of the hardware and the overall user experience. So if you set the upper limit on kill switches to three, there are a number of different ways you can address the problem with these extra sensors including:

        Only disable those sensors with software
        Group sensors with one or more existing kill switches
        Lockdown Mode

We have thought through all of these different options, among others, and we decided that it was better to offer the option for extra security to those who really need it. We have selected a solution we are calling Lockdown Mode, that gives people who need this extra level of protection the option to turn all sensors off easily, without imposing extra complexity on an average user.

[...]To trigger Lockdown Mode, just switch all three kill switches off. When in Lockdown Mode, in addition to powering off the cameras, microphone, WiFi, Bluetooth and cellular baseband we also cut power to GNSS, IMU, and ambient light and proximity sensors. Lockdown Mode leaves you with a perfectly usable portable computer, just with all tracking sensors and other hardware disabled.

https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-hardware-kill-switches/


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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:41PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday March 26 2019, @02:41PM (#820099)

    >if...you trust the OS

    That's just it though - you can never completely trust the OS. Even if it's not malicious in any way, it's also basically guaranteed to not be perfect, and so malware will inevitably be able to bypass any software restrictions.

    As for seeing the evidence on an ammeter - assuming the hardware wasn't shut down when the CPU was idled, that's true. But how many people do you know who want to keep am ammeter in their pocket to keep a constant eye on the trustworthiness of their phone? After all, if it's been compromised by, say, an intelligence agency wanting to bug you, they're not necessarily going to be recording everything all the time - especially if they know you routinely audit your phone, they're only going to be listening when they think they're likely to hear something useful.

    It's not like you can just install the software you want, test it thoroughly, and then be confident that you're safe. Not so long as you're connected to the internet so that you could be hacked at any moment, and visit websites that might carry all manner of sandbox-escaping malware.

    It's an interesting idea though, and it should be fairly trivial to build completely independent hardware into the phone that can actually monitor the power state of at least the various external sensor modules and display their status on a line of LEDs - just glance at the back of your phone, and you can tell exactly which sensors are currently on.

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