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U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#301

Post by apayan »

mjamil wrote: post #189

Is anyone working on a microkernel design for privacy-sensitive devices (like phones) that would prevent outright this class of kernel-level arbitrary code execution exploits? We're stuck with iOS and Android for the foreseeable future, but is there hope that we'll get this right some day? Actually, would a microkernel design even be sufficient? Given that hackers exploit deserialization, memory safety, and variable…

I'm not aware of any microkernels for phones (I'm not sure that would help either), but Android has been sandboxing more and more processing [1] and started using some Rust at the system level [2] ever since the stagefright bug [3].

1: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/queue-hard...

2: https://security.googleblog.com/2021/04/rust-in-android-plat...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagefright_(bug)

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#302

Post by darwingr »

keewee7 wrote: post #225
KennyBlanken wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying that Israeli spying on the US is some fringe "shadow government" sub-group of the Israeli government is strange given a long, long history of high profile Israeli spying incidents against the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Franklin_espionage_sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Ami_Kadish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer…

The USS Liberty incident happened 52 years ago. >because they didn't like that we were watching them That is the American conspiracy theorist interpretation of the incident that (understandably) also gained traction among a few of the survivors. The Israelis disagree. It was most likely a case of mistaken identity. Just like friendly fire incidents. Friendly fire incidents happen all the time, including between US fo…

The Liberty was also very far from where the Americans had told the Israelis where it would be. Finding the ship there was unexpected and calls to confirm its identity were not being answered.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#303

Post by Spooky23 »

btheshoe wrote: post #293
Spooky23 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics is a funny business. I have spent alot of time dealing with political people ranging from staffers to actual officials. Many are very well meaning public servants, others careerists, some are… insane on various scales. Politics is a business with uncertain outcomes where “friends” are important and personal stakes are high. From a blackmail perspective, you have people like the bartender turned member of con…

AOC is an obvious puppet?

Not quite. Different educational dynamic. Polarizing figure for sure, but whomped an old school political machine candidate.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#304

Post by tschwimmer »

maltalex wrote: post #46

I don't understand the focus on NSO in these stories. If U.S State Department personnel in Uganda were shot from an M-16, would the headline mention "an American arms manufacturer"? No, because it's ridiculous. For better or worse, NSO's product is a weapon. How is it any different from an M-16? Where is the outrage towards the people who used this weapon against the State Department?

Perhaps you are unaware of the nature of global arms control and how much work goes in to prevent scenarios exactly like this.

Small arms proliferation is much harder to control, but yes there has been extensive reporting on Operation Fast and Furious where US gun sellers were allowed to sell to Mexican cartels under ATF supervision. [0] Those guns were used against both US and Mexican citizens, including fatally against 1 US Border Patrol Agent in 2010.

Looking farther back, during the Falklands war in the early 80s there was much controversy over the Exocet anti-ship missile, which was manufactured and sold by France. When these missiles were successfully used against British warships near the Falklands, Britian successfully lobbied for France to stop selling them to the Argentinians.[1]

So yes, it's actually very common to put the responsibility of how their products are used on arms manufacturers. It's a good thing and it keeps the world safer.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17256975

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#305

Post by catlikesshrimp »

markus_zhang wrote: post #236
cwkoss wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect if we lived in the sort of society that would execute the head of the NSA for treason or something similar when the Snowden revelations came out, it would have societally beneficial chilling effect on intelligence organization brazenness. Unfortunately, it seems intelligence is mostly immune from liability, and lack of consequences lets the rot fester.

Once the system is setup who is in control is going to be irrelevant. I believe the best approach is to educate the citizens so that 1) They follow scientific methods; 2) They are more resistant to advertisement/propaganda; 3) They are keen to corruption and willing to protest.

"1) They follow scientific methods. 2) They are more resistant to advertisement/propaganda; 3) They are keen to corruption and willing to protest."

You are asking way too much of people. "Normal" people can't fulfill any of those 3 requests. Not that they don't want to (most don't), or that they aren't taught to (this is conflicting through life)

They can't. #1 and #2 sound like something an autist would tend to do.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#307

Post by BoardsOfCanada »

markus_zhang wrote: post #212
KennyBlanken wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying that Israeli spying on the US is some fringe "shadow government" sub-group of the Israeli government is strange given a long, long history of high profile Israeli spying incidents against the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Franklin_espionage_sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Ami_Kadish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer…

By saying "shadow government" I mean groups within the US government that has connection to say NOS. Again I don't have concrete proofs so I could be 100% wrong. But reading world history especially cold war history makes me be sceptical to certain things.

Hilarious that anyone thought you were talking about an Israeli shadow government.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#308

Post by [deleted] »

vorpalhex wrote: post #270
Eelongate wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, America could drop Hellfire R9X sword missiles through the cars of every NSO employee. In practice, would American politicians have the nerve to go to war with NSO, when NSO probably infected all their phones years ago? How much dirt do they have on American politicians?

So you think because NSO breached a few state department phones that they have the deep dirt on every sitting congress member?

[deleted]

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#309

Post by eightails »

mjamil wrote: post #189

Is anyone working on a microkernel design for privacy-sensitive devices (like phones) that would prevent outright this class of kernel-level arbitrary code execution exploits? We're stuck with iOS and Android for the foreseeable future, but is there hope that we'll get this right some day? Actually, would a microkernel design even be sufficient? Given that hackers exploit deserialization, memory safety, and variable…

Though currently Android-based, grapheneos is planning to move towards a microkernel + virtualisation model eventually. I'd imagine this is several years away at least, though.

https://grapheneos.org/faq#roadmap

There's also sel4, a security focused version of the l4 microkernel which is apparently one of the only formally verified kernels.

https://sel4.systems/About/

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#310

Post by BoardsOfCanada »

literallyaduck wrote: post #294
linschn wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe stop funding them, for a start? Congressional oversight used to be a thing. Snowden showed the NSA lied to congress. No heads rolled.

Why would heads roll? Congress has blocked inquiries into their split loyalty as far as them having multiple citizenship in other countries. If you were McDonald's board of directors would you allow someone to be on both the McDonald's board and Wendy's? Congress isn't personally harmed by a surveillance state unless you consider they may all be being blackmailed but that is another conversation. In fact mass surveil…

Context: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/07/spyi-m07.html
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