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The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

forbes.com

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Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#51

Post by zachrose »

auctiontheory wrote: post #10
supergauntlet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really any phone is exploited. When you've got a baseband with direct hardware access that the carrier can connect to there isn't really anything short of fully open hardware that is gonna save you.

If (as claimed) the NSA has hacked the major BIOS/firmware as well as encryption, is there such as thing as "fully open hardware" and would it help?

To my knowledge no, there is not. If there was, it would also require approval from the network operator. And if you believe that the network operators are aligned with the intelligence community anyways, you would never expect that approval to happen.

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#52

Post by alan_cx »

marveller wrote: post #2

Humm... I was going to buy the new iPhone, this changed my mind. Maybe I should just get a feature phone instead.

Oh just buy whatever you want, for whatever reasons you used to make up to justify an overpriced trinket which people think boosts their social standing because it pretty, and overpriced. Just know its not secure and act accordingly. Use it to build up a nice pure profile. When you want to rob banks, build your nuke, or whatever, dont use it.

Or, have lots of trying to bait the spies. Call it art or something. Look up lots of terror stuff, like you are writing a book. Back, I dunno, 1000 years ago, when I first heard the oh so mad notion of echelon, I added an invisible signature to my email containing every naughty key word I could think of. Idea being to some how annoy the spooks. Yeah, childish and pointless, but it amused me.

Hmmm, maybe half a year of banging my head against a brick wall has had an effect after all.

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#53

Post by [deleted] »

guelo wrote: post #45
wyager wrote: post #11

This is from a very old version of iOS (2007). We don't know if this is still true. Regardless, I can say for a fact that there are exploits for all cell phone platforms. iOS exploits are by far the hardest to find. An iOS remote execution 0day will easily fetch $250k. I've seen one go for $600k. For an Android remote exec 0day, you're looking at closer to $50k. Even if the NSA doesn't have these on hand, they can ce…

Seriously? Apple fanboys feel the need to try to defend Apple by saying that their competitors are worse? Wake the fuck up! This isn't about Apple. It's about an out of control military that's spying on all of us and threatening our way of life and our livelihoods.

[deleted]

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#54

Post by IvyMike »

allochthon wrote: post #12

Honestly, I don't really care. The NSA can read whatever they want of mine. I've heard the arguments about how you should care, even if you don't have anything to hide. And I find them persuasive on one level and simultaneously unengaging on another. By contrast, the parallels to fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and living in a turnkey fascist state are most unpersuasive. The one argument against what I've written that…

Imagine the abuses of J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon, except amplified with today's tech.

"It always seemed like President Nixon's campaign was one step ahead of us, almost as if they were reading our email...but nobody ever broke into our hotel suite or anything so it's all just speculation."

Edit: brainfart as pointed out by jeremyswank.

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#55

Post by alan_cx »

samstave wrote: post #14

So here is a complete anecdotal suspicion: I have had the iPhone since the first day of release. I have gone through 16 physical devices over that period (due to me breaking them a lot and going through several employers where I had never purchased my own phone since (well before) it was released). I am currently, for the first time in a long time, on my own personal device; an iPhone 4. I upgraded it to iOS7 when it…

Dunno if you are right or wrong. Its just sad that people now think like this. That little device of joy, which has now become almost essential, is now a source of stress, worry, and suspicion.

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#56

Post by rdtsc »

Ha, I wonder what this will do to acceptance of Apple products inside DoD's (well govt in general). Many agencies and military branches love them some new cool toys and have been pushing for their inclusion. Now revealing that Apple security can so seemingly easily be compromised, will they still allow or advise use of Apple products on government's own networks?

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#57

Post by katcooke »

wyager wrote: post #11

This is from a very old version of iOS (2007). We don't know if this is still true. Regardless, I can say for a fact that there are exploits for all cell phone platforms. iOS exploits are by far the hardest to find. An iOS remote execution 0day will easily fetch $250k. I've seen one go for $600k. For an Android remote exec 0day, you're looking at closer to $50k. Even if the NSA doesn't have these on hand, they can ce…

>Regardless, I can say for a fact that there are exploits for all cell phone platforms. iOS exploits are by far the hardest to find

Harder to find than for Windows Phone?

Given the 100% success they get with the iPhone, my guess is that they hijacked one of Apple's remote control mechanisms, e.g. we do know that Apple has the ability to uninstall apps from any iPhone, perhaps there's a way to install too.

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#58

Post by ewoodrich »

samstave wrote: post #50
jbergstroem wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete bogus - but lets play: If you were the NSA; why would you even hint to the user that you were taking screenshots? Its not like the blink animation is tucked away from software control.

That wasnt my point: irrespective of any "nefarious interest" in said screen shots; IS the iOS device actually capturing every single screen change via a screenshot? As I understood it - there were certain apps that were captured in the past. This was so that when the app loaded it had the previous state shown as quickly as possible, and it would then refresh. My point was I am noticing this flashing screen cap anim…

The screenshots that are used for transition animations do not make the dimming "screenshot" effect that occurs when pressing the Menu and Power button. That invisibly occurs immediately prior to an animation, to produce a less computationally intensive 2D effect.

The iPhone 4 runs iOS 7 terribly and more likely you are seeing some graphics stuttering from the (albeit limited on that device) new iOS 7 fade/transition animations.

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#59

Post by coolnow »

samstave wrote: post #50
jbergstroem wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete bogus - but lets play: If you were the NSA; why would you even hint to the user that you were taking screenshots? Its not like the blink animation is tucked away from software control.

That wasnt my point: irrespective of any "nefarious interest" in said screen shots; IS the iOS device actually capturing every single screen change via a screenshot? As I understood it - there were certain apps that were captured in the past. This was so that when the app loaded it had the previous state shown as quickly as possible, and it would then refresh. My point was I am noticing this flashing screen cap anim…

If you were the NSA, would you be taking screenshots just as the target was /switching/ apps, instead of taking them while they're using it? Oh, he's opened Mail, take a screenshot of Mail's splash screen while it's loading, now don't do anything. Oh, he's done using the app, quick, take a screenshot of his empty inbox before the app switches to Candy Crush.

Not to mention that the screen flash while a screenshot is being taken is a usability feature and is there to help us know when a screenshot has been successfully taken. I know there are tweaks on Cydia that allow screen recordings, so why are the NSA messing about taking screenshots of some unimportant (no offense, i mean it in a national security sense) guy?

tl;dr your iPhone 4 is struggling with iOS 7 and probably has some redraw problems, most likely no one is taking screenshots of you while you're switching apps.

Re: The NSA Reportedly Has Total Access To The Apple iPhone

#60

Post by ifix »

allochthon wrote: post #12

Honestly, I don't really care. The NSA can read whatever they want of mine. I've heard the arguments about how you should care, even if you don't have anything to hide. And I find them persuasive on one level and simultaneously unengaging on another. By contrast, the parallels to fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and living in a turnkey fascist state are most unpersuasive. The one argument against what I've written that…

And "allochton" is your real name?
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