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

201–210 of 301 posts

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

#201

Post by sangnoir »

pulisse wrote: post #168
t-sauer wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a college student be an interesting target simply for being a college student in an interesting field? If they work at an interesting company or something like that I would understand, but the knowledge that is accessible in colleges is not some super secret stuff or am I missing something?

The conversation here is focussing on industrial espionage, but that's only one use case for this kind of active measure. An association with an opposition political party could easily get one on a surveillance list.

Yep, imagine an international postgrad student from an NSO client-state who criticizes their home country's leadership online, or is perceived to be a political activist is likely to be targeted by their own government for additional on-device monitoring via spyware. This could provide a springboard into monitoring other groups the victim may be a member of.

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

#202

Post by jayrot »

PeterisP wrote: post #190
ajross wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DMCA, in the US. Other statutes in other markets. Hacking computers is pretty prima facie criminal everywhere. It's true that there are inter-jurisdictional edge cases (cracking an iPhone in India via an attack from Israel probably isn't illegal in the USA,etc...) which allows NSO to operate more freely than we'd like. But no one seriously claims this is legal activity anywhere in particular, just that we can't c…

The point I'm hearing in the parent post is more like that many of the state actors using such attacks against domestic targets actually may be legally allowed to do so, if they have passed laws which permit their own security services to use such software on their residents' phones. Even in USA that likely could be legal with an appropriate court warrant, and many other countries have more permissive constitutions.

> Even in USA that likely could be legal with an appropriate court warrant

Can you expand upon this? I'm not particularly familiar but it doesn't seem right. Obviously LEO agencies are allowed to subpoena private information, but can they legally use exploits with a warrant? Are there recorded examples of this?

[Based on your reference to warrants, I guess I'm excluding the NSA or other supposed state-level spy agencies that supposedly secretively deploy such tactics]

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

#203

Post by EasyMark »

r00fus wrote: post #194
mardifoufs wrote: post #191

How can Pegasus and NSO still be allowed to exist? I know they are an Israeli corporation, but even then has there been action against them from the Israeli government? This is basically rogue state behavior

[flagged]

[flagged]

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

#204

Post by jayrot »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #70
Dalewyn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I have to point to something when I say I doubt manufacturing will ever come back to the west, I point to the fact we can't manufacture the simplest of things ourselves anymore. Thanks Delta Airlines, whose metal nametags are literally just cut sheets of aluminum with some paint on them and are still Made in China. Someone seriously wants to tell me we can manufacture bleeding edge tech when we can't even cut an…

That's just weird. the US is definitely a lower cost country than Norway yet my youngest son works for a company here in Norway that does quite a lot of business making metal and plastic tags of various kinds with text engraved, printed, or laser cut. As far as I know most of the machinery is made in Europe, mostly Germany, again generally higher cost than the US. So I find it difficult to believe that it can't be do…

The metal nametags is a very poor example of the point being attempted since I would venture a guess that there are 1000s of companies or shops in the US that can make metal nametags.

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

#205

Post by spxneo »

realusername wrote: post #178
joe_guy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not believe the android Messages application is open source. I believe AOSP contains something very barebones. It has been a lot of years, am I incorrect?

The big difference here is the Message app on Android is just a normal app whereas imessage is bundled deep in the OS with tons of private apis

that is so bizarre that something so essential requires deep integration with the OS, of course that is going to open a can of worms.

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

#206

Post by plufz »

__jonas wrote: post #150
the_mar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm in Europe, I haven't encountered anyone in my life who has used iMessage (everyone uses WhatsApp, now also Telegram/Signal), so I don't really have a use for it, when I wanted to try the weird AR emoji / heartbeat reaction message things with my partner we noticed we both had iMessage turned off, I guess it's like a setting that maybe we skipped during the phone setup? Not sure if it's on by default for some peop…

Where in Europe is that? Surprising to me (Swedish).

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

#207

Post by saagarjha »

realusername wrote: post #178
joe_guy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not believe the android Messages application is open source. I believe AOSP contains something very barebones. It has been a lot of years, am I incorrect?

The big difference here is the Message app on Android is just a normal app whereas imessage is bundled deep in the OS with tons of private apis

I don’t understand why people keep bringing this up when it has no functional relevance to how secure it is

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

#208

Post by r00fus »

EasyMark wrote: post #203
r00fus wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Yeah the issue with "Netanyahu is the problem" is that most of the Knesset is full of even worse folks. And the Israelis who elect them.

The country is drunk with US money and arms and hasn't had to really consider rational approaches to anything since big daddy US always funds them regardless of their actions.

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

#210

Post by alfalfasprout »

bee_rider wrote: post #8

There’s a reddit thread by somebody who got one of these: https://old.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1c10jai/i_have_rece... The interesting thing IMO is they claim to just be some random college student. Which seems believable because if they were a real secret squirrel I guess they wouldn’t ask reddit about it, haha. I wonder if the hackers are targeting people based on phone numbers or something. (I could imagine a c…

It's fairly common practice to test out exploits on victims that aren't the actual target first.
Post reply on HN