Friday, March 27, 2020

This is our life now.



It must be the first time they have sent out a push alert because everyone is freaking out. I live in the suburbs, but what difference does it make now. They are also converting the Santa Clara Convention Center into extra beds.

Santa Clara is the heart of Silicon Valley. It's where all the chip companies are.

2 comments:

  1. Capital of Texas RefugeeFriday, March 27, 2020 5:17:00 PM

    And this is why I hacked my phones to turn that shit off.

    Yes, I know what's going on, probably even better than the people who would be sending me those kinds of alerts.

    For instance, did you know there's a fuckload of US military aircraft in the air over Florida? The US Navy's getting in some flying time and there are also some cargo planes obviously being sent out to run delivery errands.

    The Russians finally went home in the North Sea, although the RAF's only standing down some of the way in case they choose to fuck around again.

    Also, people of AmBev: what's your executive jet doing flying into Palm Beach International?

    Are you AmBev people going to be sharing a quarantine with the Trumps?

    It'll be fun at least -- I bet you've brought lots of beer. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Capital of Texas RefugeeSunday, March 29, 2020 2:38:00 AM

    There's one phone I have that is technically a phone that isn't a phone.

    I modified the baseband software load for the mobile network side of the phone so the software wouldn't load. The phone sees that it's a phone with a corrupted radio access network baseband module.

    It's now a popular type of mobile phone with zero ability to connect to the mobile network, which means I turned it into a phone-shaped tablet that still self-identifies as a phone.

    This also turns off firmware over-the-air updates because the phone won't even recognize a SIM card, so it's not possible to sneak covert surveillance updates on to it that way.

    There's a bit of software out there that refuses to run if you aren't running it on something that's identifiable as a phone, and yet I don't want that phone connecting to a mobile network for any reason, even just to run that stuff.

    I can get calls on that phone just fine ...

    ... just as long as it's connected to Wi-Fi.

    Voice over IP's nice like that.

    Part of why this was done: there's no way to send stuff to it to try to hijack the phone because it doesn't present a working interface to do that.

    So those hijacks that were working on some Bitcoin traders won't work on it.

    It acts like there isn't a Phone app installed because Nova Launcher lets me hide it, along with all of the other phone-related stuff.

    But why it was really done: this phone had to work in a much higher threat environment than most people are used to.

    The mobile operators in one country in particular like trying to sneak shit on to your phone via over-the-air updates, and the phone's operating system provider is a willing accomplice to a lot of that.

    Most executives visiting that country aren't savvy enough to have someone hack their phones, and so the advice they receive instead is to travel there with a burner that they can afford to destroy after the trip.

    ReplyDelete