Need a phone to be developed.

hellokitty6801  wrote:

Can a cell phone be developed WITHOUT having buetooth on it?

Sure, but it's quite difficult because most mobile application processors (SoCs) have Bluetooth already embedded within the silicon. You can disable by software, or you could perhaps build the OS without the necessary drivers, but as some paths are shared in hardware (e.g. antenna and matching components), you can't exactly "cut it out" easily. Perhaps choose an SoC without integrated wireless abilities if you;re concerned.

hellokitty6801  wrote:

Is it possibls to have a smart phone that can work and connect to the internet WITHOUT any access of bluetooth on it.

Sure, instead you'd probably connect via either a cable (e.g. Ethernet), Wi-Fi or mobile broadband (2G/3G/4G/5G). But I don't really see quite the point to it - while removing Bluetooth may remove one possible vector of attack or tracking, Wi-Fi can be practically equivalently dangerous. NFC could also be dangerous as well, with some demonstrated device take-overs due to OS bugs.

hellokitty6801  wrote:

Can a phone be developed that cant be remote accsess?

Most phones aren't developed with remote access in mind. In fact, tinkerers spend a lot of time working out exploits to try and gain remote access or privilege escalation on devices (e.g. root access). Most of the time, this happens due to vulnerabilities in software, or both hardware and software combined. Unless your phone does absolutely nothing, there's very little in the way to guarantee something cannot be remote accessed, especially if you want to have it participate in a network, send and receive datagrams, etc. Instead, modern security tries to approach this problem with a layered approach - the hardware works to try and trap execution in the wrong memory areas, the operating system tries to randomise memory layouts and enforce segmentation, the software traps exceptions, etc.

hellokitty6801  wrote:

And still work with any carrier?

Whether a phone works with a given carrier has nothing to do with whether it can be remote accessed, whether it has Bluetooth or not. It often has to do with the cellular radio itself, the signalling technology and the frequency bands in use. If they don't match, then the phone can't hear nor speak with the tower. If they match, then it should be workable because access technologies are standardised through the 3GPP consortium. That being said, one of the more dangerous aspects to a cell phone is the cellular radio itself, as it has a processor that runs the baseband firmware which is closed source, proprietary and often does contain various bugs, remote access capabilities for diagnostics, etc which can cause the phone to do things unintended by the user (e.g. allow for the phone's radio and SIM to be remotely reconfigured, perhaps encryption to be downgraded to a weaker form that an adversary can crack). The only way out of this is really to not have any cellular connection at all, as having a connection already allows you to be tracked by towers based on association to a given Cell ID, and the use of Stingray type devices which emanate a localised low-power cell tower to convince your device to connect to it.

- Gough

Awesome response Gough!