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Apple alerts users in 92 nations to mercenary spyware attacks

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

#241

Post by Cyphase »

sneak wrote: post #137
jackson1442 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same behavior as SMS if you have enabled “Messages backup.” If backup is not enabled you will not have a copy of iMessages stored in iCloud (though all compatible and configured devices will still receive messages). This can be changed by opting in to the e2ee iCloud data service “Advanced Data Protection.”

Nope. Even opting into ADP, your iMessage conversations will still be backed up to Apple without e2ee - just from the non-ADP phones of all the people you iMessage with instead of your own phone. iMessages are backed up in duplicate - once on the sender and once on the receiver. You can only control e2ee for half of it, so your conversations are still under surveillance unless everyone you message with has also turne…

Is there any E2EE messaging service, or network protocol of any sort, that doesn't suffer from this? If an endpoint is compromised in whatever way, it doesn't matter how encrypted the data is in transit.

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

#242

Post by zarzavat »

__jonas wrote: post #217
plufz wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've lived in Germany and the UK, I guess I wrongly assumed it was like this everywhere in Europe. Might also be related to the social environment. I am noticing, the social circle I am currently in has now largely moved to Telegram, whereas in other places it's 100% WhatsApp.

Telegram itself seems like one big honeypot, if people are moving from WhatsApp to Telegram that’s quite a retrograde step.

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

#243

Post by saagarjha »

user_7832 wrote: post #221
saagarjha wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I believe it is relevant, at least till recently Apple developed a “blastdoor” to keep iMessage safer against such attacks. While other apps have been used in attacks (eg WhatsApp/Jeff Bezos iirc) iMessage seems to have more permissions than an average user app.

No it doesn’t. Blastdoor is a security mitigation that restricts what iMessage can do in a way that is denied to other third party apps.

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

#244

Post by JoshLone »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #140
josefresco wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"random college student" I think there's a misunderstanding on what constitutes a valid or ideal target for state sponsored (or "mercenary") attackers. Simply working at a research lab, industrial manufacturer, power station, tech company or knowing a certain professor can put you on a target list.

NSO was targeting something like 40k people just in mexico. It's entirely possible that this was an accidental targeting because they have a similar name or email to a target.

I found this email from Apple in my inbox too. At first I thought it was spam.

The only thing I can think why I could possibly be targeted is that I mentioned on a few Youtube channels about the clearly obvious IDF troll armies spamming the comments of any YT news stories which highlighted the atrocities (as well as mentioning when the troll armies seemed to stop their operations dramatically last week when the World Kitchen aid workers were killed and the news exploded around it).

Lockdown mode now enabled.

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

#245

Post by joe_guy »

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

> 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'm replying to someone who said the important factor is android is open sourced. I pointed out the relevant android program is not open sourced.

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

#246

Post by throwiforgtnlzy »

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?"

Don't worry, reality and time will find a way to make reality worse than anything a fiction writer could've conceived in the past. Even Brave New World seems quaint now.

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

#247

Post by godelski »

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?"

> "What a rosy picture! How can we realize this stunning vision of a future-to-be?"

The people who said

  Don't worry about doing it right, just do it fast, we'll fix it later
And it was never fixed. It seems we keep pushing to go faster and faster, and for cheaper. If you continually are cutting weight pretty soon you're gonna have to cut off your limbs. Any successful bureaucrat/manager who cut fat before you is not going to leave much fat left for you to cut. Besides, some fat is actually good.

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

#248

Post by tialaramex »

kibwen wrote: post #234
tialaramex wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, somebody will always decide what you wrote was a warning and they should fear it, even if you specifically intended a utopia, just as people insist on rooting for and even imitating the bad guys from stories because they misunderstood "cool" as "good". Example: Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. Som…

> Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. IIRC, after the couple prances away hand-in-hand into the sunset, the camera pulls back through the fourth wall to reveal the darkened server room in which their minds are being emulated, blinkenlights glittering in the darkness among the monotone drone of case fans, zooming…

> If the showrunners intended it to be unambiguously happy, I feel like they would have omitted that part...

I think this has the same direct purpose as my favourite modern Doctor Who scene but with different larger strategy. To tell the audience something explicitly, because it's not necessarily obvious and otherwise not everybody will have guessed. Often the Doctor understands what's going on and the audience are learning as they go, but in "The Girl In The Fireplace" the Doctor never actually knows why this spaceship chose this girl, in this time. The audience does at the end though, because we pull out to show the spaceship's name.

Both the women know exactly what we're shown at the end of San Junipero. That "Heaven is a place on Earth" in a very literal sense, but while it's explained somewhat, the details aren't mentioned because they'd be clunky as exposition - hence the explicit visualization of the data centre where they're running.

You aren't alone in finding this horrifying, but for Charlie Brooker, myself and a large number of people this is the best case scenario - and since Charlie wrote the show...

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

#249

Post by godelski »

kibwen wrote: post #234
tialaramex wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, somebody will always decide what you wrote was a warning and they should fear it, even if you specifically intended a utopia, just as people insist on rooting for and even imitating the bad guys from stories because they misunderstood "cool" as "good". Example: Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. Som…

> Some people think San Junipero, the one positive Black Mirror episode with an actual Happily Ever After romantic ending is a dystopian vision. IIRC, after the couple prances away hand-in-hand into the sunset, the camera pulls back through the fourth wall to reveal the darkened server room in which their minds are being emulated, blinkenlights glittering in the darkness among the monotone drone of case fans, zooming…

Not to mention that Black Mirror's entire agenda is near-Sci-Fi horror.

The episode is specifically about getting trapped in nostalgia, a non-existent past. Yes, love is found in this pursuit, but so it death. All the music in the show is about living in a box and forgetting about the real world. Other characters talk about forgetting they're in the simulation and they talk about how they live in a graveyard. There's that hole conversation with Greg about how the timelimit exists so people don't kill themselves to permanently leave the world behind and "live" in San Junipero forever.

And I'd expect of all people HN people (computer people) would understand that uploading into a simulated reality is not the same as you entering that reality. Remember, once "you" are data, you can be copied. Then who is the real you. If you can be uploaded without being killed in the process then certainly that entity is not "you," but rather a different entity who has all your memories and is not able to distinguish itself from you. But you are still experiencing your experiences and not their experiences, so you are different entities. It is just an AI double. The promise of an afterlife is no different than the promises of old. A story to help you move on, to help you find comfort in the end. But this story is just more tangible for those who are left. San Junipero is not much different from many of the other stories who approach this topic. Even the happier Upload is quite dystopian between the lines of being a rom-com. It is that happiness that is the dystopia itself, the lure of false promises. The poisoned desert so sweet and tempting it is impossible to not take a bite.

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

#250

Post by slim »

spxneo wrote: post #96

It's probably far worse with Android users that Google is not disclosing. I'm seriously considering changing to Apple after this. Not that its secure but that they are willing to go to this length to communicate it.

Google has been doing this for a long time. I received one of those emails circa 2010
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