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Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

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Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#211

Post by mike_d »

bjourne wrote: post #104

How come when we hear about this stuff it is always Israeli companies involved? Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula? Those who wrote this exploit are clearly "brilliant" and at least some of them are bound to be reading Hacker News. Is other countries' spyware firms just better at hiding their malware than Israel's is?

> How come when we hear about this stuff it is always Israeli companies involved?

Everyone seems to be focusing on the "always" in your statement, so i'll ignore that and give you a straight answer.

Strong investment in STEM education, after school programming and computer security programs, mandatory military service where they get a chance to evaluate everyone and funnel the smart technical folks in to Unit 8200, and heavy investment into security startups.

Israel also benefits from everyone else depending on their tools. Not only do they get to see the intelligence being collected by other countries and gain insights into their espionage operations, they also would be able to piggy back into any networks that were of particular interest.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#212

Post by yyyk »

baybal2 wrote: post #201
slavak wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Israeli government has absolutely no say in how any of this plays out, that is the entire point of an independent judiciary. The lawsuit and sanctions are decided by the courts based on existing laws and precedent, and for them Facebook's size or position in the Israeli market does not (and should not) hold any weight whatsoever. The most the legislative can do is amend the relevant laws to make what Facebook tri…

> The Israeli government has absolutely no say in how any of this plays out, that is the entire point of an independent judiciary. Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. IDF regularly intervenes in both, that's a very poorly held secret. Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations, but Israel…

>Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press.

Israel is the only country in the world where the judiciary appoints itself and a newspaper like "Ha'artez" can exist.

>Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations

That would make most of the West "not normal nations".

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#213

Post by strangeloopworm »

ThePadawan wrote: post #188
bjourne wrote: post #104

How come when we hear about this stuff it is always Israeli companies involved? Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula? Those who wrote this exploit are clearly "brilliant" and at least some of them are bound to be reading Hacker News. Is other countries' spyware firms just better at hiding their malware than Israel's is?

> Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula? ...Is ethis taught in any CS curriculum? It sure wasn't in mine (but to be fair, that was in Switzerland).

It was in mine, in the UK. As expected, it was viewed as just another requirement, and nobody took it seriously

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#214

Post by _kbh_ »

FreshFries wrote: post #156
_kbh_ wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source on the blue screening?. Usually code names are random but can be less random within a group of exploits/projects (such as eternalblue, eternalromance, eternalsyngery, eternalchampion)

Not OP, but just google Windows7 & eternalblue EDIT: I realise now that does not answer your question. Apologies.

I've blue screened plenty of computers with eternalblue in the past. I am just not convinced its where the name comes from, I feel like its just a happy accident.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#215

Post by baybal2 »

yyyk wrote: post #212
baybal2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Israeli government has absolutely no say in how any of this plays out, that is the entire point of an independent judiciary. Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. IDF regularly intervenes in both, that's a very poorly held secret. Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations, but Israel…

>Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. Israel is the only country in the world where the judiciary appoints itself and a newspaper like "Ha'artez" can exist. >Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations That would make most of the West "not normal nations".

> Israel is the only country in the world where the judiciary appoints itself

No.

Judges who serve on the Supreme Court, as well as the district and magistrate courts, are appointed by the Judicial Selection Committee, which consists of nine members: the Minister of Justice, another cabinet member, two Knesset members (in practice one is from the coalition and the other is from the opposition), two members of the Israel Bar Association, and the President of the Supreme Court and two other Supreme Court justices. The committee is chaired by the Minister of Justice. It can appoint judges to the magistrate and district courts by a majority vote, but appointing a Supreme Court judge requires a majority of at least 7 to 9 or two less than the number present at the meeting.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#216

Post by yyyk »

baybal2 wrote: post #215
yyyk wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. Israel is the only country in the world where the judiciary appoints itself and a newspaper like "Ha'artez" can exist. >Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations That would make most of the West "not normal nations".

> Israel is the only country in the world where the judiciary appoints itself No. Judges who serve on the Supreme Court, as well as the district and magistrate courts, are appointed by the Judicial Selection Committee, which consists of nine members: the Minister of Justice, another cabinet member, two Knesset members (in practice one is from the coalition and the other is from the opposition), two members of the Isr…

In short, Judges and people who are dependent on them have an absolute majority. They also have a direct veto power over any Supreme Court appointment (7 of 9 and they have 3 votes).

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#218

Post by quetzthecoatl »

yyyk wrote: post #212
baybal2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Israeli government has absolutely no say in how any of this plays out, that is the entire point of an independent judiciary. Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. IDF regularly intervenes in both, that's a very poorly held secret. Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations, but Israel…

>Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. Israel is the only country in the world where the judiciary appoints itself and a newspaper like "Ha'artez" can exist. >Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations That would make most of the West "not normal nations".

India too (which is actually unconstitutional, but somehow that's ignored and judges select their friends and kin as next gen judges)

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#219

Post by Stierlitz »

"The phones were compromised using an exploit chain that we call KISMET, which appears to involve an invisible zero-click exploit in iMessage"

Why aren't there a hardware switch on the phones that renders the OS read-only during normal use?

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#220

Post by ignoramous »

roddds wrote: post #209
ignoramous wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blokada isn't a serious security app. It leaks DNS connections over TCP (only handles UDP) and uses covert techniques to track users (generates a unique ID for every install and sends it tagged with the phone model every time one visits a blokada webpage from within the app). Yeah, no where close. Disclaimer: I work on privacy enhancing tech on Android.

As a user of Blokada myself I'd like to ask, is there any system-wide ad blocker for Android you would recommend?

Apart from usual suspects like AdGuard [0] and other anti-virus products:

Intra [1] with any adblocking DNS of your choice.

Nebulo: [2] A no-gimmicks alternative to DNS based blocking (their latest beta supports DNS over HTTP3 (QUIC)).

I use both: Intra has no DNS leaks but is IPv4 only right now and laced with analytics (the fork I developed/use is stripped off all analytics). Nebulo is lighter on RAM and battery and supports custom on-device blocklists (non PlayStore version).

[0] https://adguard.com/en/adguard-android/overview.html

[1] https://getintra.org/

[2] https://git.frostnerd.com/PublicAndroidApps/smokescreen#inst...

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