164

New vulnerability in SMS messaging could expose smartphone users' location to hackers, researcher says (arxiv.org)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by 0x815@feddit.de to c/technology@beehaw.org

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Evangelos Bitsikas, who is pursuing a PhD in cybersecurity at the Northwestern University in the US, applied a new machine-learning program to data gleaned from the SMS system of mobile devices.

Receiving an SMS inevitably generates Delivery Reports whose reception bestows a timing attack vector at the sender. Bitsikas developed an ML model enabling the SMS sender to determine the recipient's location with a 96% accuracy for locations across different countries, the researcher says in a study.

The basic idea is that a hacker would send multiple text messages to the target phone, and the timing of each automated delivery reply creates a fingerprint of the target's location. These fingerprints have ever been there but weren't a problem until Bitsikas' group used ML to develop an algorithm capable of reading them. They can be fed into the machine-learning model, which then responds with the predicted location.

According to the researcher, it doesn't matter whether or not the communication is encrypted.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] arcrust@lemmy.ml 19 points 11 months ago

I blame apple for this. They are using imessage and the green bubbles as marketing to get people to buy their hardware. So it's either you talk to people with iPhones or you use sms.

Meanwhile Google has been trying to get apple to use RCS for years. I would be curious if RCS and iMessage are susceptible. I didn't see anything about them when I glanced through your link.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 12 points 11 months ago

Google's version of RCS involves sending everything through their own servers. Apple even considering that would be a massive violation of their user's expectation of privacy.

[-] rambaroo@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The carriers refused to do it one their own so Google had to provide the servers themselves. Apple could do the same, but we all know they won't and never will. If it wasn't this excuse it would be another one.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

Apple doing their own wouldn't result in any of the benefits people want. The open spec doesn't support shit.

It's not a good standard. It's not a mediocre standard. It's complete fucking horseshit that only works with Google's proprietary implementation.

Apple supporting RCS would be a massive betrayal of their customers. It's not remotely redeemable.

[-] tiredOfFascists@reddthat.com 7 points 11 months ago

Oh great, so then when will apple be releasing their open standard for secure and feature rich texting?

...waits decades....

Oh yeah that's right, doing so would prevent them from pretending that things jUsT wOrKiNg is only something an apple product is capable of because any other product is obviously garbage.

We all know the reason apple often avoids standards is purely for profit. They do it knowing it is bad for their users. So let's not pretend that privacy is all they care about. At least google attempted a standard. And yes Google sucks ass. But I have more respect for a company that believes in standards than one whose business model only works because they strategically avoid them

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

I'm not sure what point you think you're making.

The RCS people have experience with is no more open than iMessage. It's not even sort of better at anything.

Supporting RCS is not acceptable. It's a massive privacy issue.

[-] tiredOfFascists@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago

Google attempted an open standard, carriers refused. Apple actively refuses to participate or help. Not sure why so many apple simps can't ever acknowledge that standards are important. It's likely if you look around you at any given moment, you'll dozens of vital everyday products that are cheap or possible due to standards. The rest of computing is built heavily on standards. Standards === modern society. Yet apple can do no wrong if they explicitly dodge standards for profit.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

No, Google did not. They want control.

Apple supporting any standard Google has significant weight in forming is an inexcusable "fuck you" to every one of their customers. This isn't defending Apple because they're Apple. It's "I would be completely apeshit at Apple if they did anything as fucking disgusting as supporting Google's fucking trash protocol."

It's fucking terrible. I'm fine with an actual formal standard Google has an identical (much less than half) stake to Apple with. It's literally impossible for anything else to be forgivable under any circumstance.

[-] tiredOfFascists@reddthat.com 2 points 11 months ago

You're ignoring the part where Google tried and carriers and apple refused.. That's not some irrelevant detail

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Because it's not even sort of based reality.

Google never at any point had any interest in not having control.

Google fronting a "standard", by itself, makes it unacceptable. Everything they touch they hijack to take data that isn't theirs.

[-] tiredOfFascists@reddthat.com 1 points 11 months ago

Again, point me to apple's attempts to implement or help create a texting standard. Unless you'd like to instead say that standards are not an extremely important part of human society. Because unless you believe that, their actions are indefensible and that's a separate issue from how fucked up Google is.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

A standard controlled by Google is many times worse than a standard not existing.

An actual acceptable standard must come from an impartial third party. Apple should absolutely not be proposing one either.

[-] tiredOfFascists@reddthat.com 2 points 11 months ago

I'll take this as an upfront admission that apple is not only opposed to standards but actively avoidant of them when it is profitable, rather than the deflection it was meant to be.

You seem knowledgeable enough to know that standards are usually contributed to by corporations and that this has many many times not ruined them. The whole web is built on this fact. But unfortunately your zealotry blinds you to what your priorities ought to be, standards for everyone's benefit.