Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 477 posts

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

#411

Post by mkl »

Barrin92 wrote: post #84
fragmede wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it great? The lawsuit is Apple trying to enforce the iCloud EULA to stop reverse engineering. While NSO Group created hacking tools, and then did some questionable things with them, do we really want those inane licenses no one reads, and everyone scrolls down to hit [agree]; do we really want them to legally binding? Put another way, if it was someone HN liked , would we still say this is actually good? Because c…

> do we really want those inane licenses no one reads, and everyone scrolls down to hit [agree]; do we really want them to legally binding? for commercial interactions in particular between two businesses? Yes, absolutely. How else are two entities supposed to come to legally binding terms without a contract? I'm all for a little bit of lenience when an end user didn't read the terms but you think NSO group doesn't h…

> but you think NSO group doesn't have a lawyer and just scrolls down and clicks accept?

Yes! They don't seem like people who think through or care about the consequences of their actions.

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

#412

Post by giorgioz »

ramijames wrote: post #350

As an Israeli, NSO is deeply embarassing. I do not understand why this is allowed to continue.

Thank you for sharing. Even though I'm not Israelian and Jewish and I speak for someone else country I support your idea and provide these arguments in favor:

Yes I also believe that financing NSO goes against the founding principles of Israel. NSO Pegasus was used by the Hungarian secret service to spy on journalists. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/18/viktor-orban-us...

Orban, the prime minister of Hungary is turning more authoritarian by the day.

Hungary displayed plenty of antisemitism well before the Nazi German occupation in 1944: https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibit...

I'm not an Israelian and I'm not Jewish but if I was I would most certainly be even more opposed to sell cyber weapons to authoritian governments, especially the ones whose authoritarians regimes of the past contributed to the holocaust.

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

#413

Post by salawat »

kmonsen wrote: post #193
ethbr0 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense?

In the sense that new laws are really difficult to do in the age of polarization. So instead the executive branch issues orders and the judiciary interprets laws in creative ways.

Actually, it's worse. The legislature creates executive Agencies to create Administrative Law, thus freeing them of any responsibility besides budget, political theater, and insider trading.

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

#414

Post by phatfish »

evgen wrote: post #409
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nerds always want the law to be consistent. Lawyers are Machiavellian professionals trained in getting it to say "heads I win tails you lose" for their clients, and often succeed. That doesn't mean the nerds are wrong to want what they want.

No, it is just that most nerds are too ignorant to understand how law works and its purpose and mechanisms. They expect it to be some sort of API spec that can be mechanically manipulated. Their own efforts at such intellectual mechanics are nothing but a trail of tears and failure, with bug after bug making a mockery of any claim they have about the benefits of such a system. Law has had millennia to work out the ki…

The is also why the Crypto-bro dream of having "smart" contracts manage the entire global financial system is insane.

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

#415

Post by salawat »

freejazz wrote: post #81
udev wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple knows since at least 2016 of NSO activities on their devices and servers, while selling this image of privacy competence. This long period of inaction, from 2016 to now is unacceptable.

It's as if you don't get the point about legal standing. Apple can only take action now because of a court deciding that Facebook's TOS forum clause is actually binding. If they filed the case prior to such a holding, it'd have been dismissed.

>If they filed the case prior to such a holding, it'd have been dismissed.

...Or when Facebook eventually followed up, you'd be making the excuse Facebook was justified in waiting for Apple to test the waters? Somebody has to move first.

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

#417

Post by danaris »

rektide wrote: post #305
danaris wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, as I understand it, this case is not about a EULA on the iPhones themselves, but rather on Apple's services . They agreed to the EULA on the services, then, in part, abused their access to those services to hack into other people's iPhones.

The fact that the modern world exists in an corporate-owned, proprietary cloud, versus the era of personal computers & personally-owned systems, is greatly greatly greatly confusing. I don't fully well know how to handle this great confusion. But ultimately, the trend of all rights being reserved by the megacorp is, ultimately, a vulgar anti-human anathema which we must shake off. Humanity must be allowed to pick up…

I mean, broadly speaking, I agree, but do you really think that "state-sponsored hacking group that provides the ability to break into people's phones to the worst regimes the world has to offer" is the use case you want to be enabling here...?

If I'm understanding correctly, this wasn't a case of "they agreed to the iCloud EULA because you have to have iCloud to use an iPhone". You don't, in fact. Yes, some services will be unavailable, and...it might occasionally bug you about it? (Not sure about the last, as I do have iCloud) No; they agreed to the iCloud EULA because they were trying to take advantage of unpatched iMessage bugs to break into other people's phones.

I fully agree that the scope of EULAs today is terribly overbroad, but I do not believe that making a legally-binding agreement not to abuse the service to harm other people or steal their data is an inappropriate use of them.

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

#418

Post by Grustaf »

ballenf wrote: post #318
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…

Apple will have the IP addresses of every “I agree” click. Maybe some of them are traceable to NSO.

How would they even be able to sign in without clicking "I agree"?

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

#419

Post by notyourday »

montblanc wrote: post #337
notyourday wrote: post #188

Apple simply needs to exercise its right to deplatform everyone who works for NSO. Oh and deplatform all government wonks of government of Israel as it is allowing NSO Group to operate. Life in 2021 is very difficult without a smartphone. In fact it is so difficult that if working for NSO comes with "no smartphone forever" sticker NSO won't be able to find people to work for it.

It would be quite a blow if the 5% of Israeli government who use IPhones (IPhones aren't really popular outside the U.S) suddenly have to switch to Android. As an extreme measure I suggest blocking their itunes accounts. And no more Macbooks! Settle for some cheaper superior hardware elsewhere!

People with money, who tend to be people with power, use Apple devices.

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

#420

Post by ericmay »

ayende wrote: post #360
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…

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 so…

Wouldn’t hold up. Otherwise you can just create fall guys/gals and never deal with fallout. There are certainly some circumstances like corporations aren’t held liable for murder of some employee, but if the employee was doing it on the factory floor they absolutely could get sued for it. Unfortunately it’s not clear cut, but generally if you’re doing something on or with company property, during work duty hours (these hours are always stated on corporate handbooks even for startups), and/or it’s during course of business you can and will get held liable for the employee’s actions.

The $100mm example you have would just get thrown out in court because it would be deemed unreasonable, even if Apple was ultimately responsible and the employee was acting as a representative of the company or on behalf of the company. Otherwise why can’t I just get a buddy to set up some random service and then have (let’s say I work at Apple) me sign a contract saying that Apple will give all of its corporate property and money to this contract for the rate of $5/month so this random service can “manage it” or something? Whoops guess Apple agreed to that!

Post reply on HN