Apple sues NSO Group to curb the abuse of state-sponsored spyware

I know of several cases of reverse engineering of a bunch of hardware where the hardware is only available to a very limited subset of professionals. To gain access you either need to join that class and break the terms under which the devices are provided, get someone else to break the terms they agreed to or to steal a device (which for obvious reasons is at a somewhat different level than breach of terms and conditions). It is pretty clear that these restrictions exist to avoid reverse engineering of a - trivial - protection that makes making compatible products impossible, and which in turn protects a non-trivial revenue stream.

Apple is not really all that different. If they believe that suing to prevent reverse engineering is going to stop the bad guys they are delusional, I suspect that they are fully aware of this and are engaging in a very expensive bit of theater here: the NSO Group is not going to be overly impressed by this, whether they win or lose the case. If they lose they will be open to a damage claim, which in turn will have to be enforced through a court in a different country, if they win Apple will lose far more than just this case, they will lose the battle against everybody that wishes to engage in reverse engineering.

Another thing I suspect is that Apple is either very much concerned about the image/reputation damage, their supposedly highly secure platform/environment appears to be less secure than Apple wanted you to believe and a click-through EULA is not going to impress a law breaking entity, they probably should have anticipated that. And Apple may believe that other law breaking entities are going to stop doing their thing if they win this lawsuit, I'm a bit more pessimistic about that. Legal action is not a good way to recover from a technical failure, Apple needs to update their threat model and act accordingly.

I'm pretty sure you can reverse engineer most Apple things without ever signing their EULA. Maybe not those that require an iCloud account though.

Very noble of the US as well, no doubt. Mercenaries and weapon merchants have earned their reputations.

Good points - thank you!

Personally, generally I could not be more uninterested in the international legal politics behind this all. None of it is at all progressive, none of it speaks to what humanity can or could do. It's the most anodyne, boring, real world, un-possible way to take the discussion. It's mired in endless fun-house mirrors of shit-show politics that hasn't wont and can't figure out how to adapt. I can't think of a single nation that shows leadership, that has anything interesting or useful to say, any means of embracing humanity, of raising potential.

> Its that old adage, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter and some country's like Russia will point blank refuse extradition to the US as will other countries.

This is a great mentality, and I'd love to see more dynamic behind it. Alas. I see no nations espousing & helping the actual obvious Open Source & other progressive & pro-human, pro-enlightenment, anti-proprietary freedom fighters. I see no one standing up for more personal computing liberties. The international regime is hostile & un-comprehending of tech & it's possibilities, more interested in businesses & big tech than it is in trying to help good tech happen, which is the real oppression, the real struggle, one enacted via pervasive & harsh IP laws & seemingly ever-expanding copyright length. Sure, some nations celebrate punk-ish behavior & sticking it to the west, but I can think of precious few examples of nations actually helping the good. The recent AskHN about software/tech monastaries[1], & the complete worldwide lack of any answers whatsoever indicates to me that there is no real help or interest in the actual freedom fighters, anywhere in the world.

If you want to look at the law, I think today's example, of Russia telling 13 big tech companies they have to establish offices in Russia[2], is a near perfect example of how tech and law intersect. This is particularly menacing & threatening & scary, but it mirrors most of the relationship worldwide: aggressive, at ends, seeking constraint & control & dominance, no interest in growth or humans or improving the human-computer relationship. The law rarely serves the people, rarely amplifies possibility. It's here to insist that some antiquated self-obsessed notion of justice can be served, even when that justice so often only serves a fading out of touch law, or big vested interests, not the people.

Generally I consider myself extremely progressive & hopeful for what governance & governments can do and should do. And I think if government wanted to deploy tech to help the people, if it would stop allowing endless private control to reign, great things would happen (Ron Wyden for president, 2028). But right now trying to frame questions & challenges in terms of the law is not-great. The law affords deep & vast powers to it's vested interests & the ideas of law itself. Yet in your particular scenario, it also simultaneously jealously & vengefully guards actual access to it's means power, to the reigns of state-sponsored violence & enforcement. The question posed, about whether Apple could get access to this executive use of force, isn't particularly relevant to me, and I don't think it reflects on the widescale systematic bureaucratic control companies like Apple & the prevailing worldwide laws get to impose via EULAs against the people of humanity.

Some of the comments on Facebook getting the OK from federal US Court of Appeals to also try to sue the NSO Group[3] are somewhat in line with your questions & scenarios. The comments there talk to the ability to try to pursue legal action, but the inability to actually get the state/states to do anything about it. In some ways, this is an ideal case. It shows that a state that wanted to support freedom fighters, that wanted to support emancipatory, liberated, pro-personal computing, might be able to. There's just not a lot of good guys out there trying to help spring us free from the walled gardens we're locked in.

My apologies for not trying to take up the question better. I think there's interesting material here. But to me, these questions return us to a not-compelling legalistic mindset, a practical view, that isn't capable of adequately considering how entrapped humanity at large is by the corporation's abilities to write it's own rules, by the de-personalization & de-accessing of computing that the cloudification of the world has brought upon us, & consigned us into. Whether or not this tyranny has the power to cross international boundaries & come get us isn't a particularly interesting subproblem to me. Generally I feel like the world has conformed to the prevailing notions of corporate techno-sovereignty.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29309794 (12 comments)

[2] https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/moscow-says-13-foreig... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29320398 (7 comments)

[3] https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-can-pursue-malwa... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29323095 (15 comments)