1. P(someone wants to run their own firmware)

2. P(someone wants to run their own firmware) * P(this person is malicious) * P(this person implants this firmware on someone else’s computer)

3. The firmware doesn’t install itself

Yeah I think 2 and 3 is vastly less likely and strictly lower than 1.

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mikestew an hour ago | parent | next [-]

As an embedded programmer in my former life, the number of customers that had the capability of running their own firmware, let alone the number that actually would, rapidly approaches zero. Like it or not, what customers bought was an appliance, not a general purpose computer.

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the__alchemist 9 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I encourage you to re-evaluate this. How many devices do you (or have you) own which have have a microcontroller? (This includes all your appliances, your clocks, and many things you own which use electricity.) How many of these have you reflashed with custom firmware?

Imagine any of your friends, family, or colleagues. (Including some non-programmers/hackers/embedded-engineers) What would their answers be?

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itsdesmond an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This guy thinks that if you rephrase an argument but put some symbols around it you’ve refuted it statistically.

P(robably not)

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samlinnfer an hour ago | parent [-]

The argument is that P(customer wants to run their own firmware) cancels out and 2,3 are just the raw probability of you on the receiving end of an evil maid attack. If you think this is a high probability, a locked bootloader won’t save you.

	▲	FabHK 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Very neat, but 1) is not really P(customer wants to run their own firmware), but P(customer wants to run their own firmware on their own device). So, the first term in 1) and 2) are NOT the same, and it is quite conceivable that the probability of 2) is indeed higher than the one in 1) (which your pseudo-statistical argument aimed to refute, unsuccessfully).

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philistine 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As if the monetary gain of 2 and 3 never entered the picture. Malicious actors want 2 and 3 to make money off you! No one can make reasonable amounts of money off 1.

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gjsman-1000 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

On Android, according to the Coalition Against Stalkerware, there are over 1 million victims of deliberately placed spyware on an unlocked device by a malicious user close to the victim every year.

#2 is WAY more likely than #1. And that's on Android which still has some protections even with a sideloaded APK (deeply nested, but still detectable if you look at the right settings panels).

As for #3; the point is that it's a virus. You start with a webkit bug, you get into kernel from there (sometimes happens); but this time, instead of a software update fixing it, your device is owned forever. Literally cannot be trusted again without a full DFU wipe.

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samlinnfer 2 hours ago | parent [-]

And where are the stats for people running their own firmware and are not running stalkerware for comparison? You don’t need firmware access to install malware on Android, so how many of stalkerware victims actually would have been saved by a locked bootloader?

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gjsman-1000 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The entirety of GrapheneOS is about 200K downloads per update. Malicious use therefore is roughly 5-1.

> You don’t need firmware access to install malware on Android, so how many of stalkerware victims actually would have been saved by a locked bootloader?

With a locked bootloader, the underlying OS is intact, meaning that the privileges of the spyware (if you look in the right settings panel) can easily be detected, revoked, and removed. If the OS could be tampered with, you bet your wallet the spyware would immediately patch the settings system, and the OS as a whole, to hide all traces.

	▲	samlinnfer an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Assuming that we accept your premise that the most popular custom firmware for Android is stalkerware (I don’t). This is of course, a firmware level malware, which of course acts as a rootkit and is fully undetectable. How did the coalition against stalkerware, pray tell, manage to detect such an undetectable firmware level rootkit on over 1 million Android devices?
	▲	kuschku 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		LineageOS alone has around 4 million active users. So malicious use is at most 1:4, not 5:1.

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lazide an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Clearly you’ve never met my ex’s (or a past employer). Not even being sarcastic this time.