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Leaker reveals which Pixels are vulnerable to Cellebrite phone hacking

(arstechnica.com)
446 points akyuu | 1 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[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{3}[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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gleenn ◴[31 Oct 25 21:30 UTC] No.45776920{4}[source]▶
I think this is a very negative idea to promote: that laws should can be subverted. Everyone should believe that laws work and when they don't we should work to fix that, not assume that it can never be fixed.
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1. underlipton ◴[31 Oct 25 23:17 UTC] No.45777775{5}[source]▶
I think it's healthy to imagine how authorities might abuse power and under what impetus, in order to head off those abuses. Laws have been subverted in the past, so it's rational to assume that they might be subverted in the future. This is actually a cornerstone of any effort to fix issues.