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submitted 1 week ago by cypherpunks@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 49 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

reminder the modem firmware we use on our phones is exploitable and most likely backdoored, and in some cases it has memory access to the rest of the device. israeli espionage companies can do it and sell their capabilities to law enforcement. (this somewhat applies to pcs with ME and PSP too, btw)

meaning they can target you regardless of what software you use. maybe not as easily or automated i guess, but always keep it in mind with their tech.

[-] chillpanzee@lemmy.ml 10 points 6 days ago

True, but they don't even need 0days or software exploits to breach the systems. The data is harvested legally and sold to whoever wants to pay for it. Insane amounts of data about everything you do is made commercially available by phone platforms, tech companies, apps, banks, email providers, retail establishments, cell phone carriers, governments, and of course their continual data breaches.

Anybody can target you too, it doesn't have to be espionage outfits or state sponsored threat actors. It's just for sale.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

my key point is that they can rely on these exploits/backdoors if you are resistant in using the commercial data harvesting software, and they need to find you for some reason.

apparently a good percentage of pixel users are on graphene and fdroid, for example.

[-] magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 6 days ago

True, its just more work and not going to be used for dragnet surveillance.

[-] OpFARv30@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago
[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

graphene doesn't replace the modem firmware. i don't think modem firmware can be replaced on most phones.

[-] OpFARv30@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 days ago

Is the baseband isolated?

Yes, the baseband is isolated on all of the officially supported devices.

And

The mobile Atheros Wi-Fi driver/firmware is primarily a SoftMAC implementation with the vast majority of the complexity in the driver rather than the firmware. The fully functional driver is massive and the firmware is quite small.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago

that's actually pretty nice. i didn't know pixels did that.

this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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