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

Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 301 posts

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#91

Post by Kbelicius »

freedomben wrote: post #85
pvg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment doesn't really say anything and the commenter is not saying they edited the comment to make it just non-substantive rather than non-substantive and inflammatory.

Excellent point. Thank you! I would hope people aren't using flags for low-value comments, but you make a great point that it could have been edited to remove something that was deserving of a flag.

Saw it while it was flagged. There were two sentences. They removed the second one. Cant remember the exact wording, it was a short one, but it was basically saying: "Israel bad".

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#92

Post by astrange »

sneak wrote: post #58
the_mar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity why would you have imessage turned off?

iMessage histories are backed up in the nightly automatic non-e2ee iCloud Backup, effectively backdooring iMessage’s “end to end encryption” by escrowing the plaintext to a not-endpoint. Apple can read approximately everyone’s iMessages out of their backups. It’s not private or secure, and claiming it is end to end encrypted is misleading almost to the point of being actually false.

That has nothing to do with turning it on or off since the same happens with SMS.

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#93

Post by astrange »

jsheard wrote: post #21
pksebben wrote: post #10

Between the Metaverse, "mercenary spyware", AI war targeting, and death drones, I keep wondering who it is that read Neuromancer and thought; "What a rosy picture! How can we realize this stunning vision of a future-to-be?"

Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538

The tech company is right since this appears to be a reference to the Total Perspective Vortex from Hitchhiker's Guide, which notably didn't do anything bad when it was turned on.

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#94

Post by pvg »

freedomben wrote: post #85
pvg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment doesn't really say anything and the commenter is not saying they edited the comment to make it just non-substantive rather than non-substantive and inflammatory.

Excellent point. Thank you! I would hope people aren't using flags for low-value comments, but you make a great point that it could have been edited to remove something that was deserving of a flag.

aren't using flags for low-value comments

They could, and if you ask me, they should. They gum up threads and often start meta discussions about exactly how low-value they are. Many are even explicitly listed in the guidelines - snark, tropes and memes, 'broke the back button', shallow putdowns, etc. Righteously flaggable, one and all.

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#95

Post by hu3 »

ziddoap wrote: post #86
resource_waste wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is more secure, especially in recent history. You can even see it in 0 day bounties. Don't pay attention to Samsung though, that company is probably the Apple equivalent of android.

> Android is more secure, especially in recent history. You can even see it in 0 day bounties. This needs citations, and more than just referencing 0-day bounties. 0-day bounties are an incredibly weak signal in regards to security posture.

Pricing, and for more than zero days here:

https://zerodium.com/program.html

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#97

Post by FpUser »

loceng wrote: post #44
miohtama wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple needs to work with authoritarian governments, or nobody is going to build our iPhones. I would guess it’s obvious for everyone who gets the message that they are political targets. However it is also important to call out abuse of power, like is in the case of India, Spain, Poland, where the governing party is spying the opposition in order to find ways to get rid of them.

As a bridge perhaps, and not all authoritarians are equal - of course, so being rational is fine - aligning with a less worse, less captured society is a reasonable stepping stone; and a maneuver can be to pit one tyrant against another, where India-China relations aren't good - however that could be useful to both tyrants towards manufacturing consent to send all of their young military aged men - who would be the s…

>"where this fascist government..."

I am not sure whether this counts as the success or the failure of the meds

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#98

Post by [deleted] »

hu3 wrote: post #95
ziddoap wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Android is more secure, especially in recent history. You can even see it in 0 day bounties. This needs citations, and more than just referencing 0-day bounties. 0-day bounties are an incredibly weak signal in regards to security posture.

Pricing, and for more than zero days here: https://zerodium.com/program.html

[deleted]

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#99

Post by gamepsys »

dragonwriter wrote: post #41
Lendal wrote: post #30

Pet peeve: This story alternates between "nations" and "countries" as if they were synonyms. A nation is a group of people sharing cultural, ethnic, and historical ties. There are many more nations than there are countries, especially within the US. A country has a political boundary, a flag and an anthem. It's one thing to use a word in the wrong way, because maybe you don't know the other word exists, and that's ok…

Pet peeve: Misguided pedantry Both “country” and “nation” have a wide variety of definitions, and several of them overlap. The definition you give for “nation” is a particular technical one used in certain contexts, but the word used for the way you define “country” in the context where that kind of technical definition is being used for “nation” is “state”, not “country”. (And even “state” may be used with additiona…

Pet peeve: Not enough pedantry with language use in publications.

Nation and country are not interchangeable. Words have meaning. Good journalist choose their words deliberately and have a deeper understand of language than the average person.

Re: Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

#100

Post by Etheryte »

neilv wrote: post #51

Is this spyware possible due to engineering flaws in Apple products?

Pretty much every computer virus, worm, etc ever has been due to engineering flaws in software products. All software ever made has bugs in it, including whatever you're using right now.
Post reply on HN