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'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

reuters.com

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Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#101

Post by empath75 »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #20

TL;DR: the US attitude ... *It’s fine to spy on human rights activists with all the powers of government as long as they’re not American* ... really gets to the heart of how the US treats the rest of the world. The US is the biggest terror threat in the world today. Its pains are self inflicted and it's enemies created by their very own foreign policy.

To be clear, it's not a moral problem if the UAE spies on Americans. It's perhaps a diplomatic problem. The problem here is Americans using American secrets to spy on Americans for a foreign country.

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#102

Post by graeme »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #43
sctb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

with respect, as a non US citizen this whole article to me is deeply offensive. I/we are being targeted simply because we are second class citizens on the web. Good enough to have our data extracted by US corps but our rights are trampled on. This is the essence of it yet you're accusing me of flame-baiting? Please reflect for a minute on how just this is to anyone who has never (and will never) step/ped foot in the…

It's flamebait because it's not a new critique, and it's tangential to the article. So it's likely to attract people trying to rebut your critique, but neither your argument not the rebuttal would add anything new.

If there was a thread about someone discussing us spying methods and policies against non-us citizens, your comment would not be flamebait. See the difference?

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#103

Post by sockopen »

isostatic wrote: post #95
_mitch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote is attributed to a former NSA employee. Something being "like Christmas" is a popular American phrase that doesn't indicate one's religion.

Christmas has very little to do with religion, it's a cultural holiday across the world.

"Christmas is an annual festival, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#104

Post by ryanlol »

abrichr wrote: post #76
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody credible believes for a second that Apple was involved, for whatever it’s worth.

Could you please provide some sources?

Wouldn’t it be far more useful for you to provide someone credible making such a claim?

If he was wrong this claim would be so trivial to refute that sources seem entirely pointless.

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#105

Post by sctb »

FakeComments wrote: post #53
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with respect, as a non US citizen this whole article to me is deeply offensive. I/we are being targeted simply because we are second class citizens on the web. Good enough to have our data extracted by US corps but our rights are trampled on. This is the essence of it yet you're accusing me of flame-baiting? Please reflect for a minute on how just this is to anyone who has never (and will never) step/ped foot in the…

Accusations of flamebait and similar on HN are a form of censorship, to prevent the community from having to confront difficult issues and “keep the peace” — not legitimate regulation of tone.

No, it's just to keep this site from becoming boring. Difficult issues are most welcome—just say something substantive that we can learn from.

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#106

Post by techntoke »

FakeComments wrote: post #55
techntoke wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon everyone, be part of the solution like this person says. The intelligence agencies will never abuse their power. You can trust them. /s

That’s a deep straw man of what I said, to the point of being non-constructive mocking. You’re just being dishonest to claim I suggested trusting the spy agencies. Rather, I pointed out that they have a real mission, and they’re going to spend effort accomplishing it. But their mission isn’t to own every device — it’s to own a select few, probably on the order of hundreds or thousands a year. So, if we create a mecha…

My suggestion is to make phones secure by default, and if you need to track someone then use a network of cameras in public areas.

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#107

Post by andrepd »

bawana wrote: post #62
zaroth wrote: post #13

Whether or not this hack was developed with the help of Apple (a “backdoor”) or by a third-party exploit, this is exactly what a “golden key” looks like after it gets in the wild. An espionage tool developed by a major world power proliferates to totalitarian regimes, aided and operated by ex-NSA agents on the payroll, to compromise human rights activists and the political opposition. If ever there was proof that our…

Isn't the UAE muslim? Why Christmas? or is it because UAE dollars bought Christian mercenaries? We are still in the middle ages and the crusades are still raging. Time to get rid of money - or at least build walls that prevent money from crossing borders as well as criminals. We are not worthy of the the technologic advances that a few geniuses have bestowed on us.

There's an awful lot of stuff going on in that comment :p Didn't really understand what the focus was.

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#108

Post by andrepd »

zaroth wrote: post #87
FakeComments wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones who are capable of compelling the phone company to obey over political pressure from other sources. This is a strict improvement over the current situation, where the answer is “anyone who has money”.

Are you forgetting that time that the spy agency collected call records on millions of Americans through a secret court? [1] As the other commenter points out, this only adds an attack vector and does not do anything to eliminate any. The same incentives exist on all sides to find exploits regardless of an additional “legal” channel to crack the encryption. Particularly because your political enemies use the same dev…

De-AMPified link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-reco...

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#109

Post by DGAP »

No one read the other Reuters article on this - it may have been criminal for NSA employees to participate in this, at the very least it was highly discouraged. If anything this is a good argument to pay IC employees on the GS payscale better so they're less likely to take jobs with other countries.

Re: 'Karma': A hack used by the UAE to break into iPhones of foes

#110

Post by YayamiOmate »

cryptonector wrote: post #77
pizza wrote: post #12

If the US government gives itself the right to install backdoors / exploit vulnerable software (as opposed to notifying companies about vulnerabilities) then I feel pretty uncomfortable about ex-government hackers just becoming freelance mercenaries using knowledge they may have gleaned from those ops once they move onto their next gig. I can't think of a great solution to this problem.

You can make it illegal for ex-NSA employees to use their knowledge of exploits learned while on the NSA payroll. It may well already be the case for all I know.

And how do you enforce it?

Hmm. Wait. Was that sarcasm?

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