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WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

arstechnica.com

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Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#141

Post by hashstring »

nicce wrote: post #125
hashstring wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Zero is not defensive. Infosec Twitter has both sides. I do agree with you that defense is a large part of the industry. My perspective is even that most organizations are looking for “defense” roles. The field is very wide (e.g., folks working on cryptography to sec ops).

It is defensive, but for the best guys out there, the carrot is on offensive side. You are not getting rewarded for doing perfectly secure systems, unless you work in very big company. It means that most of the average guys build defense, and then the best guys test them and pick the money when something is found. While we could prevent most issues if those best guys help on building the systems instead. But they hav…

I think that you might actually observe that finding attacks on systems is common, while developing a “perfectly secure system” is much harder to do, if not impossible.

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#142

Post by bradleyjg »

xxpor wrote: post #36
kristofferR wrote: post #30

Can anyone explain this case? Why would a US court have any jurisdiction over a foreign Israeli spyware vendor that has already been blacklisted by the US government? And why would Israel send their spyware source code to WhatsApp even if they lose the case?

Because the NSO group handles dollars. If they didn't respond, they'd lose by default, and the court could order any assets the US can get their hands on seized. If they're getting paid in NIS by countries outside of Israel, the currency conversion happens with dollars as the intermediary. There's the US's window.

It doesn’t matter that they use US dollars. It matters that they need to do business with entities and in countries that will cooperate with US law. The U.S. government is perfectly capable of putting in an intergovernmental request to seize euros, not too mention yachts.

Israel able to get away with being a frenemy to the West but there are limits.

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#144

Post by geraldhh »

jmkni wrote: post #115
klabb3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mention every platform for marketing because once the device is rooted, they can extract data from any app. That doesn’t mean the vulnerability was in the app mentioned, nor that it was the fault of an app at all. At the end of the day, it’s between platforms (specifically iOS and Apple) and these exploit devs/traders, afaiu. That’s why Apple hates them. For better or worse, putting a torch under Apple’s…

I guess that once the device is rooted, they can just take screenshots/record the screen without the user knowing, so the specifics of how any particular app works don't matter?

true, thou knowing the specifics of the app will allow for a more convenient and complete data extraction

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#145

Post by choxi »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #40
pvo50555 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

couldn't* care less

Much as it may pain you, “could care less” is an established idiom in American English that’s been in use for 70 years, and Webster’s dictionary has a whole page about it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/could-couldnt-care-l... , in which they say: > people who go through life expecting informal variant idioms in English to behave logically are setting themselves up for a lifetime of hurt.

Why do they do this instead of just maintaining the correct usage? The redefining of the word “literal” to mean “potentially not literal” really grinds my gears.

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#146

Post by [deleted] »

choxi wrote: post #145
libraryofbabel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much as it may pain you, “could care less” is an established idiom in American English that’s been in use for 70 years, and Webster’s dictionary has a whole page about it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/could-couldnt-care-l... , in which they say: > people who go through life expecting informal variant idioms in English to behave logically are setting themselves up for a lifetime of hurt.

Why do they do this instead of just maintaining the correct usage? The redefining of the word “literal” to mean “potentially not literal” really grinds my gears.

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#147

Post by tempodox »

Kwpolska wrote: post #108
tempodox wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are just pieces of paper I let you have one guess which entity gives those pieces of paper their value.

The US and most of the world may recognise those pieces of paper as worth some of their currency. This doesn't mean I can't recognise them as toilet paper.

You're free to make your toilet paper as expensive as you like, as long as you pay for it legally.

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#148

Post by mike31fr »

kristofferR wrote: post #30

Can anyone explain this case? Why would a US court have any jurisdiction over a foreign Israeli spyware vendor that has already been blacklisted by the US government? And why would Israel send their spyware source code to WhatsApp even if they lose the case?

This is called extraterritoriality.

Crazy stories happened here in France.

USA basically sent Alstom, a huge French company, to bankruptcy, then bought it for pennies, and then they tried to destroy Airbus. In both cases they used this right they gave themselves they call extraterritoriality.

The stories I mentioned are documented in this reportage: https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/093798-000-A/la-bataille-d-air...

The video used to be available on YouTube at the following url : https://youtu.be/Sa22eu1FWyo but it seems it was set to private. Annoying revelations?

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#149

Post by gessha »

forty wrote: post #116
omneity wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. "in" here as a prefix is not a negation thing but to _do_ something like "en" in "enhance" or "encapsulate". The word's actual latin root is "inflammare" which means to put something _in_ flames. The subject is the one doing the burning and it's transitive. Flammable on the hand comes from "flammare", which means for something to catch fire, and is intransitive instead, i.e. the subject is the one catching…

In French we don't have flammable, only _inflammable_ (meaning that it CAN catch fire). And the opposite is _ininflammable_ ^^ Something in flames is "enflammé" (there is the en- prefix ^^).

As I’ve followed the news for many years now, not many things in France are inflammable :D

Re: WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code

#150

Post by BeFlatXIII »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #40
pvo50555 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

couldn't* care less

Much as it may pain you, “could care less” is an established idiom in American English that’s been in use for 70 years, and Webster’s dictionary has a whole page about it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/could-couldnt-care-l... , in which they say: > people who go through life expecting informal variant idioms in English to behave logically are setting themselves up for a lifetime of hurt.

I enjoy deliberately misinterpreting the nonsense idioms to frustrate their users.
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