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Leaker reveals which Pixels are vulnerable to Cellebrite phone hacking

(arstechnica.com)
446 points akyuu | 2 comments | 30 Oct 25 23:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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derbOac ◴[30 Oct 25 23:39 UTC] No.45766747[source]▶
They couldn't answer the question most on my mind: "We’ve reached out to Google to inquire about why a custom ROM created by volunteers is more resistant to industrial phone hacking than the official Pixel OS. We’ll update this article if Google has anything to say."
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bigyabai ◴[30 Oct 25 23:43 UTC] No.45766778[source]▶
Short answer: Google is a business that can be compelled by the federal government in ways that nonprofits are resistant to. Ron Wyden identified one of these weaknesses in 2023: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
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GeekyBear ◴[31 Oct 25 21:14 UTC] No.45776776{3}[source]▶
No American company has a choice when the Feds want data stored on a company's server.

That doesn't stop Apple or any other company from designing devices that attempt to keep prying eyes out of the data stored on your device.

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bitwize ◴[31 Oct 25 21:24 UTC] No.45776872{4}[source]▶
The government has ways of twisting the arms of uncooperative people/organizations into providing all the backdoors they need. Everything from increased tax and regulatory scrutiny to "discovering" CSAM on executives' computers or phones.

The government does what it wants because it's the government. Mere laws generally don't stand in its way for long.

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1. GeekyBear ◴[31 Oct 25 21:30 UTC] No.45776928{5}[source]▶
The government certainly objected when Apple designed an implementation of encrypted cloud backups for iDevices.

That didn't stop Apple from eventually rolling out encrypted cloud backups anyway.

Apple also refused to insert a backdoor into iDevices when James Comey ordered them to do so. They took the FBI to court and forced them to back down.

Google is perfectly capable of fighting too, but their business model puts them at a huge disadvantage.

If you make your money spying on users to make ad sales more profitable, then you have no choice but to hand it over to any Federal, State or local agency that can convince a judge to issue a warrant.

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2. anonym29 ◴[01 Nov 25 09:07 UTC] No.45780257[source]▶
Security theater for marketing purposes. End users have no way of verifying that their cloud backups are encrypted, and Apple is the same company that complied with the NSA's illegal, unconstitutional conspiracy to conduct warrantless bulk surveillance on American citizens and lie about it to congress: PRISM.

Fortunately, no intelligence officials faced any consequences whatsoever for perjuring themselves to congress, or for engaging in a unconstitutional criminal conspiracy, so we can trust that the system of laws we've developed is working as intended and that this will never happen again.