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Someone tried to desolder the microphones and the camera on a Pixel phone?

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Sep 21, 2019

Phone security has been something I've struggled with for a long time. I once spoke with @VICE's @ShaneSmith30 about how it's possible to physically remove internal microphones and cameras from a phone, but even that only mitigates a portion of the threat. youtube.com/watch?v=ucRWyG

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It was a Nexus 5x in the video, which was actually quite easy relative to newer phones, which are much more difficult to open. I've looked at the motherboards of a couple different gens of Pixel, and if you can get into the phone without breaking the glass, it should be possible.

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Thank you for the clarification. I’ll try on my Pixel 3 and post the result on Twitter.

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Note there are actual 3 microphones (see the Pixel 3 section): support.google.com/pixelphone/ans Accelerometers / gyroscopes are also effectively microphones though. The OS limits polling rate to 100-200 Hz but the hardware is usually capable of a lot more and do decent sound recording.

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Thank you for the link Daniel. Is it plan for GrapheneOS to support the upcoming Pixel 4?

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Yes, eventually, along with other devices. Have been putting some work into better support for development only generic and emulator builds too. The final Pie-based release can be built for the generic targets and works in the emulator. Those targets aren't secure but are useful.

8:06 PM · Sep 21, 2019Twitter Web App

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Ideally, the project would have resources to have custom variants of generic smartphone hardware produced. It's not a lot to ask to get a fairly standard Snapdragon SoC device meeting basic security standards with various changes to match Pixel security and then add some frills.

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That would also put the project control over the signing keys flashed into the fuses for verifying the firmware, allowing hardening of lower-level components than it can currently reach. Would also control the secure element and trusted execution environment which would be nice.

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Which other devices eventually will you support ?