[spam] [personal] information on the Unihertz Titan, a mobile phone

[grarpamp]

On 12/29/21, Steven Schear <schear.steve at gmail.com> wrote:
> Although hardware IMEI may be difficult to change, GrapheneOS (and perhaps
> others) have a way of intercepting system service calls which enable users
> to supply the values.

Consider that similar to ethernet/wifi HW mac addresses...
Except for a hands-on check, it wouldn't strictly have to be a power
cycle permanent IMEI change (some ethernet/wifi HW can be hard
reprogrammed like that with software tools), but if it's not power cycle
permanent then it must never listen to nor transmit on the original IMEI,
all listen and especially transmit must not happen until the radio (interface)
is soft configured with the new IMEI and brought up.
Soft config can therein be a problem because, similar to ethernet/wifi
which has wake-on-lan AMT and other top secret insecure always on
side channel management features, IMEI baseband has been said
to be similarly listening, and perhaps transmitting in reply, all the
time too. In that case the window between hands-on power up and
soft config would be a problem. Also, other than "regulatory"
requirements, "airplane mode" may similarly be always-listening-to-reply
baseband suspect. People would have to investigate all that.


And without crowdfunding and starting up
#OpenFabs , #OpenHW , #OpenAudit
which is the better way forward, and which you can now easily
startup via the global crypto crowd (over 2.5T mktcap, go
spend 0.5%, ending secret closed HW better than hodling),
you're just not ever going to know what's inside.