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

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

#351

Post by nier »

montblanc wrote: post #332
sneak wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refuse to hire them, like I do for Facebook, Microsoft, and Raytheon/Booz/etc staff. Blog about their names and the work they do and their employer, so anyone searching for them on Google knows that they are military-industrial complex scumbags.

Wait what? You don't hire people from Microsoft? Let's say I get Facebook (I don't really) but what's wrong with Microsoft? How about people who eat meat? Or vote for the other party - the one you don't like? Are you trying to hire people who are morally compatible with you on every single question? That's gonna be rough hiring. Even the weapons industry is a tough one. The knee jerk reaction says it's immoral to wor…

The thought of any military being advanced due to Microsoft’s help made me giggle.

My opinion is that the best you can do is to hire people with a similar set of core values and there’s nothing wrong with everybody having their own ethical scale that they act upon accordingly.

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

#352

Post by sneak »

nier wrote: post #351
montblanc wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? You don't hire people from Microsoft? Let's say I get Facebook (I don't really) but what's wrong with Microsoft? How about people who eat meat? Or vote for the other party - the one you don't like? Are you trying to hire people who are morally compatible with you on every single question? That's gonna be rough hiring. Even the weapons industry is a tough one. The knee jerk reaction says it's immoral to wor…

The thought of any military being advanced due to Microsoft’s help made me giggle. My opinion is that the best you can do is to hire people with a similar set of core values and there’s nothing wrong with everybody having their own ethical scale that they act upon accordingly.

The US military runs on Microsoft. The slides that Snowden leaked were PowerPoints.

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

#353

Post by monocasa »

LegitShady wrote: post #149
rodgerd wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSO have started threating to release dirt on Israeli politicians because they are unhappy that the Israeli government isn't covering for them.

source? My thought is if you tried this in israel the actual intelligence apparatus would have you picked up pretty quickly and in a dark hole for as long as they wanted.

They are part of the actual intelligence apparatus, or at least former. The execs are former members of Unit 8200, the Israeli SIGINT org. And companies like their's are where former IDF SIGINT officers go after service. And their company is a major piece of Israeli diplomacy; access to their software was one of the carrots Israel has been using to push gulf state away from Iran.

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

#354

Post by gigglesupstairs »

ksec wrote: post #133

I guess I am getting cynical. What is the context in which trigger Apple to sue them now , and not any time before? And what if NSO Group closed the branch in US? I assume you cant really do anything to an Israeli company. Because half of it reads a lot like a PR pieces to me. And Apple easily gets the marketing message response they wanted. They are fighting " State Sponsored " spyware. The privacy message they are…

They even went ahead and compared their platform’s security with android in the same piece. Like jeez, find a place and time to do that Apple.

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

#355

Post by gigglesupstairs »

cronix wrote: post #272

> to hold it accountable for the surveillance and targeting of Apple users. What exactly does that mean? Fine them? Get them to stop? Have them publicly say, "my bad?" I suspect the larger goal is to find out exactly how NSO is bypassing Apple's very expensive security and plugging it? Is that specific info the type of thing Apple can get their hands on (actual code, etc) for this type of trial?

Also, not sure but can case be made against Apple that they haven’t done any such litigation and shown heavy-handedness against jailbreaking community? At the very basic level, both Jailbreaking communities and NSO are using loopholes in iOS’s security to do whatever the hell they want to do with it.

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

#356

Post by jjcon »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #204
jjcon wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the many US government 3 letter agencies would love to have full read access to every single iPhone in the world They 100% already do

Baseless speculation is not useful here. Especially when it's toned as some kind of truth.

Baseless? Police even have access to tools like grayshift/graykey to unlock all but the newest iphones (which inevitably will be supported in time). That is what is known publicly because it is so ubiquitous, plenty of leaks suggest far more sophisticated tools among the FBI let alone agencies with a national security interest.

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

#357

Post by Zenbit_UX »

appleflaxen wrote: post #239
TillE wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nerds always want to interpret the law in some strict pedantic fashion, but in practice this is almost never how it works. Law is not applied stupidly or mechanically, you can't fashion yourself some ad hoc workaround unless you're extremely certain about what you're doing, preferably with a mountain of precedent behind you.

Your argument loses weight with the ad homonym attack.

Disagree. It was the cherry on top.

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

#358

Post by newbie789 »

montblanc wrote: post #335
napmo wrote: post #295

Let's see the big picture: It's not only about a spyware, but it's about a vast range of malicious tools used for targeting human right activists around the world, at first through spywares and other malicious software, but if they needed, physically harming them. It is actually part of the Israeli state-sponsored terrorism around the world. Other dictatorships like Saudi Arabia also use their tools. Brutally killing…

> It is actually part of the Israeli state-sponsored terrorism around the world Care to explain what you mean? When the U.S sells arms by the billions to despot regimes is it also a state-sponsored terrorism around the world? Or just when Israel sells a cyber app you call it that?

> When the U.S sells arms by the billions to despot regimes is it also a state-sponsored terrorism around the world?

Yeah

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

#359

Post by JasonFruit »

RegW wrote: post #259
FridayoLeary wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>0) The defendant's can be sued under California law because they accepted the EULA The Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendants because, on information and belief, they created more than one hundred Apple IDs to carry out their attacks and also agreed to Apple’s iCloud Terms and Conditions (“iCloud Terms”), including a mandatory and enforceable forum selection and exclusive jurisdiction clause that constitute…

> Judge: did you, NSO agree to the Terms and conditions by pressing "I Agree" > NSO representative: No, Your honor. IANAL, but the general understanding is: "Ignorance is not a defence". If your legal advisors did not flag this up then I think you are probably entitled to ask for your money back when Apple kicks your butt.

IAANAL, but the expression is, "Ignorance of the law is no defense." That differs from ignorance of the circumstances.

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

#360

Post by ayende »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #217
voxic11 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are just using the EULA as the basis for claiming jurisdiction. They are actually suing not to stop reverse engineering but rather to recover damages incurred by unlawful business practices. Basically their argument is that: 0) The defendant's can be sued under California law because they accepted the EULA. 1) California law makes businesses liable for damages incurred by their unlawful business practices. 2) Bu…

>0) The defendant's can be sued under California law because they accepted the EULA The Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendants because, on information and belief, they created more than one hundred Apple IDs to carry out their attacks and also agreed to Apple’s iCloud Terms and Conditions (“iCloud Terms”), including a mandatory and enforceable forum selection and exclusive jurisdiction clause that constitute…

I think that a much stronger argument here goes like this. A developer accepted those terms of services. That developer is not authorized to accept contracts / deals for the company as a whole.

The issue here is that a single employee (which may carry out an unauthorized action) is unlikely to create a binding contract for a company.

Otherwise, by the same token, NSO can create a EULA that says that a use of their software requires 100 millions USD / month cost. Get an Apple employee to agree to that (probably unknowingly) and sue Apple for that amount, since their employee "agreed" to that.

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