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Comments: 495 +-   Apple Says iPhone Jailbreaking Could Hurt Cell Towers on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:03AM

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:03AM
from the think-of-the-towers dept.
cellphones
business
communications
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AHuxley writes "Apple suggests that the nation's cellphone networks could be open to 'potentially catastrophic' cyberattacks by iPhone-using hackers at home and abroad if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their wireless devices. The Copyright Office is currently considering a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to legalize the widespread practice of jailbreaking. Apple has responded to the request by saying that if the 'baseband processor' software — which enables a connection to cell phone towers — is exposed, then a user could crash the tower software, or use the Exclusive Chip Identification number to make calls anonymously. Apple also thinks its closed business model is what made the iPhone a success. The Vodafone scandal from a few years back showed how a network could be compromised, but that was from within. So, what do you think? Is Apple playing the 'evil genius' hacker card or can 'anyone' with a smartphone and a genius friend pop a US cell tower?"
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Submission: Apple: iPhone Jailbreaking Could Hurt Cell Towers by AHuxley (892839)
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  • Think of the towers (Score:5, Funny)

    by ColdWetDog (752185) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:05AM (#28866645) Homepage
    Those poor little cell phone towers. I'm glad somebody is thinking about them.

    • Re:Think of the towers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by YayaY (837729) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:23AM (#28866977) Homepage

      Security by obscurity does not get you very far. If the cell tower software is so fragile, it needs to be secured correctly.

      • Play the fear card (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Smegly (1607157) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:39AM (#28867243)
        Play the fear card whenever you want your political way...

      • Re:Think of the towers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:39AM (#28867263) Journal
        Worse, trusting the client is always an idiotic plan. Even if it isn't iSteve's precious baby, there will always be some phone(s) were the evil unauthorized users have access to the baseband(if nothing else, the people who design phones have to have the baseband interface specs, and I'm sure that sort of thing gets lost/dumpster dived/hacked/inside-jobbed from time to time). Solving cell tower security issues by trying to lock every handset would be like trying to make the internet safe by making Symantec Endpoint Security mandatory for all devices with public IPs.

        This is just Apple wrapping themselves in the "Security" blanket to get what they want. Should we expect a series of PSAs about how iPhone jailbreaking aids the terrorists?

      • Re:Think of the towers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TheSpoom (715771) * <slashdot@uberm0[ ]et ['0.n' in gap]> on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:48AM (#28867411) Homepage Journal

        If you were a giant company making shit-tons of money for lazy coding, would you pay for the security changes, or would you do the much cheaper and simpler option of passing legislation that makes breaking your crappy code illegal?

        Remember, they've already bought the congresspersons and senators needed.

        • Re:Think of the towers (Score:5, Informative)

          by gnick (1211984) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:43AM (#28867313) Homepage

          I'd imagine that the software is locked down well enough for the current environment. Playing devil's advocate, you could see how somebody who had found an exploit in the iPhone OS could make anonymous calls. Or potentially launch a DoS on a tower is they had a large army of compromised iPhones. And, while I don't know jack about cell-phone-tower-handshaking-protocol, perhaps you could initiate some kind of DoS by doing the equivalent of a SYN flood with a smaller group of phones.

          Apart from those possibilities, I don't see much danger.

        • Re:Think of the towers (Score:5, Insightful)

          by mini me (132455) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:52AM (#28867513)

          If the software is vulnerable, it is vulnerable with or without a jailbroken iPhone. Even confiscating every single iPhone in existence will not stop someone from taking advantage of the vulnerabilities, if they are so inclined.

          • Re:Think of the towers (Score:5, Insightful)

            by recoiledsnake (879048) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @01:04PM (#28870195)

            True, this is like MS claiming allowing unauthorized applications and devices on the internet would break the ISP's or Tier 1 provider's routers and then locking up all applications with a App store raking in 30% of the cost compulsorily.

            Also, from the response from Apple:

            Looking at the four statutory fair use
            factors,18 although the use per se of the modified iPhone bootloader and OS on an individual
            handset is of a personal nature, it is not a transformative use, and because a jailbroken OS is
            often used to play pirated content, the act of jailbreaking should be considered of a commercial
            nature since it facilitates obtaining applications without paying fees for the them.

            snip...

            In sum, the value of the OS software to the iPhone, and therefore to Apple, is that it
            enables the iPhone to function as a platform for the mobile computing experience that
            differentiates the iPhone from its many competitors. This, in turn, increases the value of Appleâ(TM)s
            iPhone copyrights and, again, overall consumer utility, making the iPhone a more attractive
            product to consumers.

            Huh? WTF? A jailbroken OS is often used to play pirated content? Apple keeps rejecting(censoring?) useful apps that developers and companies have spent lots of time and money on for silly reasons such as political content, duplication of functionality, mature content etc. The real reason is not piracy, it's because Apple wants to keep that 30% cut of all apps sold and control all the content while at the same time not angering AT&T with their approved Apps to keep the ~$17/month that Apple gets paid for each iPhone customer.

            Is this what Apple calls the platform for the mobile computing experience? And there are a bunch of people including Jobs calling the iPod touch the equivalent of a netbook. http://www.osnews.com/story/20424/Jobs_on_Cheap_Computers_Netbooks [osnews.com] http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/the-iphone-and-ipod-touch-apples-netbook.ars [arstechnica.com] Please, no thanks.Do not pervert the word computer to mean a walled garden. Call it a phone, gaming console, e-book reader etc. if you wish. This makes the evil MS look like defenders of freedom in shining armor. God forbid if a company like Apple won the PC wars back in the 80s instead of IBM/PC compatibles. *shudder*

  • Wow (Score:4, Insightful)

    by binarylarry (1338699) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:05AM (#28866647)

    Even Microsoft isn't this stupid... yet anyway.

    I've been avoiding Apple products due to their control issues, but this is just ridiculous.

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sakdoctor (1087155) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:18AM (#28866875) Homepage

      Why single out Apple products. The whole concept of a "smart phone" is ingsoc lies.

      A phone is the piece of tech that you can never really own. Many people accept this and take the "free" phone, and pay the high monthly rental.
      The built in obsolescence has got to be one of the worst in the industry.

      MP3 player, calendar, organiser, GPS, ebook reader, camera, bomb, those can all converge as much as they like. Just not with anything that needs a SIM card.

      • Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)

        by FrostDust (1009075) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @11:33AM (#28868365)

        A phone is the piece of tech that you can never really own. Many people accept this and take the "free" phone, and pay the high monthly rental.

        If people want a basic phone, and don't care about the fancy smartphone features, then why shouldn't they be able to pay less for a cheaper model? I do think they should give you a discount if you didn't have them subsidize the phone (use your own device, or pay full retail for the phone), as it does seem unfair that the person who got a $200 dollar subsidy, and is paying it off over two years, pays the same as someone who doesn't owe them that money.

        Also, you can easily "own" a phone. Many online retailers, even official manufacturer's websites (Motorola.com for example), as well as physical retail stores, let you buy a phone at full price, without having to sign a contract. When you do sign up for a plan, there's no term commitment or ETF, because you've already payed full price for the phone.

        In the US, the common plan for a mobile phone comes as a two-year contract. After that, you can cancel your service at any time, and they won't bug you to send the phone back or pay them back for it by paying the ETF.

        The built in obsolescence has got to be one of the worst in the industry.

        Are you expecting them to let you upgrade the RAM or something? Throw in some PCI slots?

        MP3 player, calendar, organiser, GPS, ebook reader, camera, bomb, those can all converge as much as they like. Just not with anything that needs a SIM card.

        My current smart phone (an HTC device) can do all that with the SIM card removed, no monthly fees or anything. Well, I haven't tried using it as a bomb, but I'd imagine that wouldn't need a SIM card either.

    • Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jpmorgan (517966) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:53AM (#28867535) Homepage
      What Apple is saying is wrong. Everybody with any knowledge of the system knows it's wrong; even if cell towers were susceptible, jailbreaking doesn't touch the baseband software on the phone. Yet they make the claim anyway, knowing it's false, presumably because they're hoping nobody involved in this process at the Copyright Office has the technical knowledge to know it's BS. Let's call this what it is: it's a lie.

      Shouldn't there be some sort of consequences for just lying in a process like this? I know in courts there is perjury, for lying under oath, but what legal consequences are there for lying in this kind of situation?

  • BS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jvillain (546827) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:06AM (#28866671)

    Ya bad people won't look for flaws in the system if only Apple can keep people tied to their contracts. I'm having a hard time seeing the logic.

  • This is worrying... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 91degrees (207121) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:07AM (#28866679) Journal
    We should ban the sale of iPhones with this potentially dangerous bug until Apple can fix it, either by providing unlocked iPhones, or without this being handled by the iHpone's locking mechanism.

    • Re:This is worrying... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cpotoso (606303) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:45AM (#28867365)
      Exactly my thoughts. If the iphone is so damn dangerous, then apple should be forced to recall all of them off the market. There can be no double standards here: if the device is bad for the networks then the device should not be approved. If the device is OK (and it certainly is) then stop bitching when people do what they want with the device they OWN.

  • hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aldousd666 (640240) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:07AM (#28866683) Journal
    Don't ALL cell phones, even that aren't iphones, especially those which have the capability to install software on them, have this same problem?

    This seems like the equivalent of saying 'If you are allowed to install software on your PC you might bring down your ISP's entire network."

    • Re:hmm... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Chrisq (894406) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:12AM (#28866765)
      Absolutely, If you have a PC with a 3G wireless card you should not be allowed to install any software.

    • Re:hmm... (Score:5, Informative)

      by BorgDrone (64343) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:14AM (#28866797) Homepage

      Don't ALL cell phones, even that aren't iphones, especially those which have the capability to install software on them, have this same problem?

      No, you're not able to access or change the baseband software. Also, jailbreaking the iPhone doesn't change the baseband AFAIK. Only the SIM-lock does require changing the baseband, which is a completely separate issue.

      • Re:hmm... (Score:5, Informative)

        by mrsteveman1 (1010381) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:43AM (#28867317) Homepage

        The hackers have already been granted an exception to unlock the phone, and ACTUALLY screw with the baseband, jailbreaking just takes away Apples control of the OS running on the main processor, and they don't like that. They are full of shit if this is their excuse, because as i said, unlocking is already legal.

  • If we outlaw cracking iPhones (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sys.stdout.write (1551563) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:08AM (#28866691)
    then only outlaws will own cracked iPhones!

    Seriously - if you're going to do an illegal activity (hacking) anyway, then making another activity (jailbreaking) illegal isn't going to deter you.

  • I suppose nobody's missed the obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dzym (544085) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:08AM (#28866693) Homepage Journal

    If somebody's going to try to "pop" a cell tower they're certainly not going to care if step 1 of the process was legal or not.

  • Makes you wonder (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Drakkenmensch (1255800) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:09AM (#28866707)
    If a jailbroken iPhone can potentially crash a cell tower but a regular run-of-the-mill cell phone cannot, it really makes me wonder what cool toys they've hidden in the jesus phone that makes it so life-threateningly dangerous that it needs to be encased in a kryptonite shield.

  • Ya, right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HeLLFiRe1151 (743468) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:09AM (#28866709)
    If a person is going to commit a felony "cyberattacks", why the hell would they worry about the legality of jailbreaking? It's like armed bank robbers worrying that they're fully automatic rifle isn't legal.

  • Assholes! (Score:5, Informative)

    by TJamieson (218336) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:09AM (#28866711)
    The Exclusive Chip Identifier? Aka the ECID [theiphonewiki.com]?

    That thing was added solely to make it harder to unlock the phone for other carriers!

  • The protect the baseband processor only (Score:5, Insightful)

    by noidentity (188756) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:10AM (#28866723)
    Instead of locking the whole thing down, just lock down the baseband processor. That way people who want to run their own apps can do so without having to jailbreak anything, and the baseband processor won't have any attention given to it. But of course this would still be a problem with AT&T, who provides the connectivity.

  • Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Drakin020 (980931) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:10AM (#28866729)

    If these towers could be brought down from a user who jailbroke his iPhone, then it would have happened already.

    No hacker is going to say "Oh well I guess I can't bring down this series of towers, ATT/Apple said it's not legal. Darn..."

    This is the lamest excuse I've heard yet...

  • Total crap (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Viol8 (599362) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:10AM (#28866733)

    It would be like saying that allowing PC/Mac programmers to use the IP sockets API will let them crash their local router.

    Give us a break Apple, you're coming across as more and more control freaks and foolish every week.

  • Yet another nonsensical response. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by getclear (1338437) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:10AM (#28866735)
    We all know the deal. If I wanted to compromise said cellular network, I could use the current published, freely, and openly available jailbreaking techniques. If they legalize jailbreaking of the phones, it is not going to legalize hacking cellphone towers, so the people that are going to do it are already trying. This is just a another preemptive strike by Apple. They are going to lose credibility, because too much press in a short ammount of time for a company can be just as bad as flying under the wire. I think it is time they slip back into the ether and keep quiet for a few weeks.

  • Other smartphones? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FTWinston (1332785) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:10AM (#28866739)
    There are other smartphones on the market, you know. And the rest of them aren't limited to apple's draconian app store submission process.

    Surely such a hacker could just use another smartphone platform? Seems like a last-ditch attempt to justify their control-freakery.

  • Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeffmeden (135043) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:11AM (#28866753) Homepage Journal
    In order for the towers to be protected, there must be a *law* against jailbreaking (a practice that is currently perfectly feasible, just questionably legal). Will the law, sensing a helpless tower is in danger, jump off the page and stop the evil hacker from using his jailbroken phone to expose flaws in the upstream hardware/software, and save the day?

    Even if this is true, legislation is clearly NOT the way to go here. Either they are giving away too many secrets just by having easily exploited hardware/software in consumers hands, or they are running woefully unprotected towers (or both). In any case, a law against it isn't going to do a whole lot except speed the prosecution of said 'evil hacker' who would already be breaking numerous laws anyway.

  • Protecting Profit Margins (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Foofoobar (318279) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:12AM (#28866761)
    Apples isn't so much worried about hacking as it's a possibility with any smartphone. It's worried more about it's profit margin with exclusive contracts; this allows them to take a percentage of the contracts rather while undercutting the price of their devices. If they were to lose this exclusivity, they would either have to raise the price of their devices again or accept that their profit margins have been cut... and that is the real thing they are arguing against.

  • This will save us! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Abraxis (180472) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:13AM (#28866777)

    Because it being illegal will stop those intent on using their phones for nefarious purposes FROM JAILBREAKING THEIR iPHONES? Sorta like how traffic laws will prevent robbers from double parking while pulling a bank heist (double parking the vehicle can speed the getaway!!).

  • To be, or not to be (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scout-247 (1127737) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:15AM (#28866805)
    The ability to make anonymous phone calls shouldn't be seen as such an evil.

  • Same Old Apple - 1980s Over Again (Score:4, Interesting)

    by abroadst (541007) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:20AM (#28866915)
    Apple doesn't learn. This very same strategy is what gave Microsoft such a big opening in the 80s. If Apple sticks to the closed system approach they will have higher price points in the short term, but long term will lose out to more open platforms like Android where the incentives for a more diverse network of partners will be greater. In the early 80s Apple outsold IBM and everybody else in PCs. They took their Apple II win and moved up-market with the Mac. Sure the technology and user experience were radically better than the competition, but they further closed down the platform to partners and end users. Pretty quickly the open platform, multi-vendor combination promoted by IBM, Microsoft, and Intel won the day - even though it didn't work as well.

  • hahahahaha (Score:5, Funny)

    by Culture20 (968837) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:39AM (#28867265)
    and hahahahahaha!
    Maybe if people put their jailbroken phones in trebuchets and fire them at cell towers...

  • Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tomz16 (992375) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:59AM (#28867645)
    This is IDIOTIC. How can any reasonable person possibly buy this argument.

    Anyone that wants to bring down a cell phone tower or cell network IS NOT GOING TO CARE whether or not it's LEGAL to screw with the cell radio baseband software. They are ALREADY attempting to do something much worse.

    Let's be honest here, the "security" aspect of this argument is a smokescreen. It's blatantly all about the profit!

    Furthermore, the cellular network should NOT be so fragile that a single rogue cell phone could take it down (AFAIK it is not). BUT if AT&T is truly insistent on making this argument, then I believe a full investigation by the FCC is mandated. The self-admitted fragile state of their network means that their stewardship of a public resource (radio spectrum) is being poorly managed and truly endangering national security.

  • Bad Apple, no biscuit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Thaelon (250687) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @11:04AM (#28867755)

    If a single cell phone using hacked firmware can crash a cell tower, then the tower needs fixed.

    This is nothing more than an attempt by Apple to retain control of and thus be able to profit more from their product to the detriment of their customers.

  • Bad phone design? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Andy Dodd (701) <atd7 AT cornell DOT edu> on Wednesday July 29 2009, @11:07AM (#28867825) Homepage

    WinMo phones have been open to app developers for years, I don't see them crashing cell towers.

    Similarly, people have been "cooking" custom OS image ROMs for WinMo phones for years, and I haven't heard of them crashing cell towers either.

    So either the iPhone has no way of crashing cell towers if arbitrary applications are run on it, or it has a severely deficient hardware/software architecture compared to Windows Mobile in terms of security.

  • Additional Research (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kozar_The_Malignant (738483) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @11:15AM (#28867993)
    Additional research by Apple Labs has shown that unlocked iPhones cause erectile dysfunction, global warming, birth defects, and leprosy. Protect yourself by purchasing a new, locked iPhone with a five year contract extension. It's the only way to be safe.

    • Re:Ignorance is bliss (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ivan256 (17499) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:12AM (#28866767)

      Apple is partially right. Their closed business model has lead to the success of the iPhone. (Happy now?)

      Seriously. The tight control on the user experience is what maintains the appeal of the device. For most people.

      However, where they're wrong is in thinking that they need to prevent jailbreaking in order to maintain this. The people jailbreaking their phones aren't in the majority who bought the phone for the slick and stylish integration. They're a harmless minority, and Apple should be grateful for the extra revenue that a little bit of hacking has brought in.

      Also, the part about being a risk to networks is nonsense.

    • Re:Ignorance is bliss (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ghostworks (991012) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:39AM (#28867267)
      They're not really playing to the ignorance of their base, as it's not their base that they're trying to convince. They're trying to convince the Copyright Office, which is almost as bad because they cannot be reasonably expected to understand the intricacies of cellular network technology. That burden lies with the network operators and the FCC. As for the question of whether jailbreaking is good policy from a copyright perspective, the Copyright Office shouldn't care much about potential network problems.

      Now from a technical perspective: AT&T is a GSM/EDGE/UTMS network. If the iPhone is supposed to work on their network, it conforms to those international, well-vetted standards. (An part of those standards is the use of a SIM card specifically so a user can separate the handset from the network.) There shouldn't be anything that an iPhone can do on their network that any other cell modem couldn't do. TFA isn't coming up for me, so I'm not sure what Apple's specific claims are, but I have a hard time imagining that AT&T gave them some unique, magic software key to a very well-defined tower structure.

    • Re:Ignorance is bliss (Score:4, Informative)

      by molnarcs (675885) <molnarcs&gmail,com> on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:48AM (#28867433) Homepage Journal

      As always, they're playing upon the ignorance of their userbase. I give it, say, 35 minutes before someone here posts why Apple is full of balderdash for saying this. I give it 5 minutes before some iTard rushes to their defense.

      Well, this is not exactly a technical explanation, but here we go... I live in Vietnam, where basically you can buy the latest and greatest of any brand (I own a HTC Touch HD), but the majority of cellphones are local brands (for example Bavapen) or clones of popular phones (mostly blackberries). I've just read a report on how they are done. Basically parts are imported from China, and assembled in mom & pop shops (Bavapen is a major brand, but you have dozens of smaller brands), loaded with whatever baseband processor software is available.

      Now the thing is, it's incredibly easy to set up shop and assemble your own phones. This part of the market seems to be completely unregulated. And yet, in this 85+ million market I never heard anything about dangers to cell towers. We have basically 3 major and 5-6 minor carriers, 99,99% of all phones are not locked to any of these, and a good chunk of the phones are loaded with software from who knows what sources. I would assume that the situation is very similar in the rest of SE Asia and China.

      Now I know this is not proof in itself, and I don't know for sure about the rest of Asia, but it is safe to assume that we have hundreds of millions of phones on the market with hundreds of different baseband processor software coming from shady sources, yet to my knowledge, there hasn't been in single attack on cell towers via software loaded on the phones themselves. And although this region is relatively stable, cyberattacks, just like elsewhere, are pretty common. I believe that if this could be done, it would have been done or tried already.

    • Re:Reluctantly agree (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sockatume (732728) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @10:58AM (#28867637) Homepage

      If Apple didn't have its hoop-jumping content-based approval process, and just approved apps based on technical safety, then there wouldn't be any need for people to hack their devices and consequently install unsecure, potentially dangerous software.

      • Re:Defective by design... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Verdatum (1257828) on Wednesday July 29 2009, @11:28AM (#28868277)
        As other comments point out, the lock is in place on the lower level, because the baseband operations are separate from what jailbreaking gives you. The problems are inherent to the GSM spec, and are maintained thanks to backwards compatibility requirements. Anyone with a transmitter of the appropriate frequency and a computer can cause the same havoc to a GSM provider. By Apple's argument, open source phones like openmoko should be outlawed. A cellular network could be set up with measure to enforce that only approved phones and applications may run, and that is the approach of CDMA (Verizon Wireless).
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