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

The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

firstlook.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 138 posts

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#61

Post by sseveran »

higherpurpose wrote: post #26
SagelyGuru wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is certainly in the interests of the government and its spying agencies for the big monopolies to be successful. It must be a comforting thought to them to know that if they bug just Apple and Microsoft, at a stroke they have over 90% of the population under effective surveillance.

It's a shame Apple became so cooperative with the government recently. They agreed to "share cyberthreat info" which could mean zero-days, and maybe much more, which we know how the government will want to use first (hint: not for security). My guess is Tim Cook agreed for the same reason Microsoft agreed to do the same thing long ago, and now again with the new program - to get government contracts, such as the one…

I believe Microsoft was one of the few companies to challenge the NSA in the early 2000s. If I recall correctly Ballmer thought that the NSLs would eventually become public and Microsoft needed to be on the right side of history by challenging them.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#62

Post by smokeyj »

exelius wrote: post #55
p01926 wrote: post #15

How much longer can this continue? We have American agencies attacking American companies "because terrorism". It's been 13 years since our trauma, maybe now's the time to remove the razor blade from our wrists, look ourselves in the mirror and just carry on. Bad stuff is always going to be in our future — stuff that will increasingly appear preventable between the Internet and a lot of hindsight — but our current so…

I'm actually somewhat torn on this. While I'm against mass surveillance, I think that targeted surveillance can be a good thing. By nature of it being targeted, it is expensive to use on more people than necessary. The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capabilit…

A universe neatly compartmentalized into good guys and bad guys. How wonderfully simplistic. Let's just hope the good guys always wear capes so the government knows who to hire.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#63

Post by svachalek »

exelius wrote: post #55
p01926 wrote: post #15

How much longer can this continue? We have American agencies attacking American companies "because terrorism". It's been 13 years since our trauma, maybe now's the time to remove the razor blade from our wrists, look ourselves in the mirror and just carry on. Bad stuff is always going to be in our future — stuff that will increasingly appear preventable between the Internet and a lot of hindsight — but our current so…

I'm actually somewhat torn on this. While I'm against mass surveillance, I think that targeted surveillance can be a good thing. By nature of it being targeted, it is expensive to use on more people than necessary. The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capabilit…

There are lots of targeted surveillance techniques that don't involve massive federal agencies working to eliminate all possible privacy protections just in case they need to make it easy to spy on anyone, anytime.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#64

Post by Zelphyr »

As many have noted, this does need to stop but it won't. And the problem lies squarely with you and me.

Try this experiment: Ask a group of 5-10 people around you to raise their hands if they've been pissed off at any branch or level of their government. Then ask them to keep their hands up if they've contacted their representatives about that issue. Finally, ask them if the method of contact they used was the phone or written (not email) letter.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that not a single hand will be in the air.

You and I are the problem because we don't hold our representatives accountable. We really only pay attention (and marginal attention at that) during election time by buying into the campaign bullshit. At best we sign an online petition but the politicians barely care about that. They know that its easy even for the most apathetic to click a button. Sure, in cases like net neutrality it can get their attention but I'll submit that what really got their attention was the number of phone calls they were getting.

Yes, I specifically am to blame because I haven't called or written my representatives. That's going to stop. We need to be on the horn with these people frequently. Weekly. When they're in town we need to be in their faces. They said, "If you see something, say something." Well, I see corruption and I'm going to point right at them and tell them. Will you join me?

EDIT: I should add that we need to be contacting them when we approve of the work they're doing. They need data. Most of the feedback they receive is negative (and for good reason) but without positive feedback they're left searching and unfortunately the guys who claim to have the answers are the lobbyists. But remember, there are around 15,000 lobbyists in Washington D.C. but 131,144,000 voters voted in the 2012 Presidential election. I like our chances, if only we get involved.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#65

Post by angersock »

chrisbennet wrote: post #22

It's interesting to see Ken Thompson's hypothetical compromised compiler being used for real. http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

Hah, yeah.

The first bit of the article is very big about compromising XCode, and I couldn't help but think that Lockheed basically just got the .gov to pay them to "rediscover" Reflections on Trusting Trust.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#66

Post by angersock »

p01926 wrote: post #15

How much longer can this continue? We have American agencies attacking American companies "because terrorism". It's been 13 years since our trauma, maybe now's the time to remove the razor blade from our wrists, look ourselves in the mirror and just carry on. Bad stuff is always going to be in our future — stuff that will increasingly appear preventable between the Internet and a lot of hindsight — but our current so…

I never thought I'd say this, but...

Enough with the hand-wringing. Enough with the "somebody needs to do sooooomething!". Just stop. Staaaaahp.

How long has our industry been spying on users? How much money have we made aggressively mining their data? And now, now, "These People Have Gone Too Far!"?

Please.

Everyone's got the tools. Everyone's got the knowhow, either themselves or online. Write code or quit bitching.

EDIT:

To the slightly different point given by poster: we have the power to broadcast this message of fearlessness to the populace at large, because we own their media. How hard a social media campaign would it be to overcome the fear and paranoia the .gov and mainstream media use?

Also, note that that same fearless attitude is directly contradicted by very popular social movements right now in certain consumer gaming industries. You're liable to end up with very strange bedfellows and enemies.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#67

Post by gohrt »

prawn wrote: post #42
belorn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unofficially, politicians has surrendered the "because terrorism" excuse for a while now, as they simply want access to everyones private information in order to see where the problem are going to be. Having the data helps plan and run successful elections, makes it easier to plan ahead, and gives them power over any department which doesn't has similar access. Imagine being in a political party while private intelli…

I don't think they want that. They take this course because "this was preventable!" is very politically disruptive. None of them want to be the guy who voted against mandatory data retention only to play host to an attack on home soil months later. It's sad, but that's the reality.

The history of government spying, at least as far back as J Edgar Hoover, as been about spying on members of the opposition, not about ass-covering. ass-covering is just the current halfway-excuse.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#68

Post by [deleted] »

arethuza wrote: post #60
exelius wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real spies don't work for money; they work for/against an ideology. Money would actually be a tip-off that they're a spy; if you have high level security clearance, your bank accounts are monitored. The NSA/CIA/FBI almost certainly do have moles working within the major tech companies. As do the intelligence agencies of China, Russia, the UK, France, Germany and Israel.

Aldrich Ames worked for money - he got over $4 million from the Soviets and betrayed a huge number of Western spies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames

[deleted]

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#69

Post by tedunangst »

arethuza wrote: post #60
exelius wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real spies don't work for money; they work for/against an ideology. Money would actually be a tip-off that they're a spy; if you have high level security clearance, your bank accounts are monitored. The NSA/CIA/FBI almost certainly do have moles working within the major tech companies. As do the intelligence agencies of China, Russia, the UK, France, Germany and Israel.

Aldrich Ames worked for money - he got over $4 million from the Soviets and betrayed a huge number of Western spies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames

Obviously not a real spy!

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#70

Post by tedunangst »

Intermernet wrote: post #21
IBM wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9176630

You may have posted the wrong link there. It seems to be a link to @okasaki's comment, which doesn't seem to pertain to the issue you mentioned, and contains no links of it's own. I assume copypasta error? I'd still appreciate it if you have any links, as I'm trying to map out the various accusations and counter-accusations in the Snowden case. It's a good study in information warfare :-)

"this might be part of a PR campaign coordinated between the US govt and US tech companies" sounds like it pertains to the topic of people suspecting this to be PR, no?
Post reply on HN