British firms working for the UK’s military or intelligence services are advising staff not to connect their mobile phones to Chinese-made electric cars over fears that Beijing could steal sensitive national security data.
Executives at two of the nation’s leading defence giants have told The i Paper that the entire sector is taking a “cautious” and “belt and braces” approach to the possibility of the Chinese state spying on staff via the country’s electric vehicles (EVs).
The security clampdown within the UK’s highly secretive defence sector follows revelations from The i Paper that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has banned cars relying on Chinese technology from sensitive military sites across the country. In some cases, the MoD has asked staff to park their EVs at least two miles from their workplace.
[…]
The latest disclosure of security worries relating to Chinese EVs could also raise concern among some EV buyers, who are increasingly turning to brands like BYD because of their affordability and longer range.
The role of Chinese companies and equipment in critical infrastructure was brought sharply into focus after the government was recently forced to take control of British Steel from its Chinese owner, Jingye Group, to prevent it from closing blast furnaces at the country’s last virgin steelmaking site.
It is understood that the UK’s leading military production groups, including BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, and Raytheon, as well as US defence giant Lockheed Martin and French defence and cyber security firm Thales, are among those firms that have taken precautions against the potential for Chinese EVs to spy on their staff.
[…]
Why would this only be the case for electric cars?
I assume because those are the only type of Chinese cars being imported into Europe?
Yes, many cars build in China by western companies are imported but I’d assume the threat level of those is a lot lower than vehicles build in China by Chinese companies.
But the phones. … The phones are also made in China and many are designed by Chinese companies
Obviously only electric cars have transmitters in them. Gas cars get their system updates from a pump 🙄
/Hopefullyobviouslysarcasm
Europe slowly is finally embrasing war mentally again. I dont like it. But thats the reality. We have to have this mentally. There are the big empires that want to snap us out
Well all the phones are made in China too, so…
There’s some phone that’s made in Germany that I remember. It is not competitive, but it exists.
kagis
Gigaset.
https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/
Smartphones Made in Germany
Gigaset is the only company in the world that produces smartphones in Germany. That is a statement. And only consistent, because we have been manufacturing modern telecommunications solutions at the Bocholt production site for seven decades now.
kagis more
Apparently also Hungary:
https://mobilityarena.com/european-cell-phone-brands/
List Of Smartphones That Are Made In Europe
Gigaset, the German phone maker, produces their cordless phones, smartphones, and smart home systems in Germany, making it one of the few cell phone brands that still manufacture on the old continent.
In September 2023, HMD Global began to manufacture the Nokia XR21 in Europe, specifically in Hungary. That is it. I am aware of only two European cell phone brands that do any manufacturing in Europe today in 2023.
I don’t think that we make any phones in the US any more.
https://usamadeproducts.biz/electronics-cell-phones.html
There hasn’t been a truly USA made phone since the mid-2000’s when ever increasing demand and competition resulted in most phone companies shifting production off-shore to Taiwan, and now China, Vietnam and India.
They do list the Liberty Phone, which is an extremely expensive, low-end phone ($2k, 4GB RAM) with some major components manufactured in the US and assembled in the US.
Gigaset is bankrupt though. 🫤
From Western chips, depending on brand. IIRC Xiaomi phones are already banned for government officials and contractors.
But who’s to say they aren’t adding something a little extra to the firmware on those chips
Probably the NSA. They’d get really touchy if the latest batch of iPhones had unauthorized modifications, and definitely are checking.
Are the chips made in China or Taiwan? Taiwan could of course also add extra features, but it is unlikely that they share it with China.
Western chips of any significance are made in Taiwan or even closer to home. The West is actually very particular about this for exactly this reason, and also just to stop China from getting too powerful.
We all need to learn to use charging cables for charging, and data cables for data connections, and not use these general purpose cables anymore. Maybe not today, but sooner or later there will be some widespread malware that teaches us the hard way.
Your phone should be configured to only allow charging and no data transfer by default. This is not a hardware issue and can be solved by just training employees properly.
Depends how paranoid you want to be, what if there’s an exploit that allows the bypass of the USB connection mode?
Yeah thats a valid concern
Thanks. It never occurred to me to do that. I rarely connect my phone to anything other than a wall socket anyway, but just in case…
Took me a few minutes to find the setting. It turned out I needed to have developer mode enabled to change it on Android, so it’s probably not something that a lot of people are aware of.
It turned out I needed to have developer mode enabled
Thats fucked wtf?? Im on CalyxOS so idk whats normal but do normal android roms not have this exposed to the user without manual intervention? What company is your phone from if i might ask?
On my Pixel if I plug into a usb data connection it defaults to charge and gives me a notification that lets me switch USB mode. Think this flow has been standard for a while, also seen it on Samsung devices.
Might be there’s some other option under developer options.
Problem is that with USB-C, every time you plug a device to charge, it’s negotiating voltage and amperage with the charger via the data lines.
5V2A is all you need. Simply wait for the phone to charge or carry additional batteries if you need more power
maybe we need cable with a switch on them?
Remember the physical switch on floppy disks that enable or disable writing?
Good times.
I recently had to copy old photos from floppy disks that my dad has lying around. 3 images per disk, lol.
I rememeber downloading a little 20-second audio clip of some interesting radio traffic, and I think it took about 15 minutes to download.
Phones need way more physical switches on them.
One for camera (maybe for mic, not sure how that would work out with the “phone” aspect for any of those deviants who still use their phones for voice calls), one for GPS. Maybe we could add one for USB data, next to the port. Actually even better for the camera would be a little slidey plastic cover like the old SGI webcams. One for a kill-switch that stops all battery power so it’s not pinging towers while it’s “off”.
IDK, it seems kind of silly that the solution to this particular problem is not hardened phones for defense personnel of which no ability to transfer data over the cable whatsoever would be a fairly good early step (one among many). There are lots more malicious chargers in the world other than Chinese vehicles. In general phones are just a nightmare.
The mic switch could be implemented as a combined accept call, record and enable mic button.
So you would only have to hit one button to accept a call and activate the mic.Yeah. That’s the way. Maybe one physical switch for “answer call and enable mic” and one for “enable camera and open camera app”. And, if for some reason you want to, you can exit the camera app with it still turned on, but the normal recommended process is to flip it back closed when you’re done which takes you back to the home screen. (And, if being in the “wrong” position when you want it, if you exited the “wrong” way the last time, serves as a gentle reminder to be better about your data security.) I like it.
Your post got me thinking. For hardening, they could issue a special adapter which site between your phone and the cable connector, which blocks any data pins.
You’re onto something
USB condoms are a thing. I should get one in USB-C; mine only do A.
Guess where those cables will be made.
Doesn’t it charge when you connect it via USB for Google car play, or does this work via Bluetooth?
Also the car might be the bigger issue here because it already has a computer and knows if you park at some government agency or military facilities between 9 and 5 etc. VW already did that.
What guarantees you that your cheap Chinese-made charge-only cable does not actually contain some malware injection in the hardware (connectors or cable rim) :p
It’s possible, but it would be harder.
Do cables actually have logic circuits on them??
Depends on the type of cable but some do - all but the lowest of the bottom end of USB-C cables for example will have some sort of chip in them to negotiate charging rate, and those that support fancier things like Thunderbolt will have a more complicated chip.
If you’re setting out to install more potentially nefarious things on a cable it’s definitely possible to make them fit in - see this cable sold for pen testing for example.
Use wireless charging. Can’t connect to what isn’t there.
