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The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

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Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#71

Post by ripb »

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…

>The war on terror, like all the metaphorical wars, is really a civil war. It needs to stop now.

There's too much money at stake for those at the top for this to be stopped. Lucrative contracts for all their buddies whether it's in consultancy or providing military hardware and software.

I mean the fact that congress keep ordering tanks the military themselves have proclaimed loudly that they neither want nor need should be setting off alarm bells everywhere, and yet it seems to just get brushed over.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#72

Post by ethbro »

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…

> 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 capability.

Just like the intelligence gleaned from breaking German WWII encryption was limited?

If information can be non-invasively extracted, then there is only an operational limit on use. And isn't knowing mass information just as wrong as acting on mass information?

Unless it's a computationally-expensive attack (which are getting more infeasible now that key sizes aren't technically as limited), you run into the encryption problem: either everything being encrypted is okay, or nothing being encrypted is okay.

That's the nature of secrecy.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#73

Post by iak8god »

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…

I'm strongly opposed to sweeping surveillance, but not even a little bit torn on this story. I'm glad it's now public knowledge, but this is exactly the sort of thing our intelligence agencies should be doing.

Edit to expand on "should be doing": at the very least, they ought to explore such vulnerabilities as a defensive measure since their counterparts in every other State are clearly doing the same thing whenever they have the capability.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#74

Post by zerohm »

littletimmy wrote: post #24

I don't buy it. I really don't. We know about the incredibly close ties between silicon valley and the military. We know that the US government collects anything and everything, and that US corporations are complicit (or made to be complicit) in the act. It is most likely that Greenwald was leaked these documents to create a facade of government-corporate animosity to revive trust in US corporations, all the while th…

The Federal Government can make tech firms hand over any data they request. However, they can't stop tech firms from designing their products so that the tech firm never sees your personal data.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#75

Post by ripb »

Zelphyr wrote: post #64

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…

>Will you join me?

I wonder how many people are genuinely afraid of raising their own profile in such a way. I'm not American, but I would certainly be partaking in any political action against the actions being discussed here.

Although as it is, I'm very hesitant to even level criticism at the CIA on HN. I'm by no means an important person, but from what we've learned I don't even want to register on the radar of these entities.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#77

Post by Zelphyr »

ripb wrote: post #75
Zelphyr wrote: post #64

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…

>Will you join me? I wonder how many people are genuinely afraid of raising their own profile in such a way. I'm not American, but I would certainly be partaking in any political action against the actions being discussed here. Although as it is, I'm very hesitant to even level criticism at the CIA on HN. I'm by no means an important person, but from what we've learned I don't even want to register on the radar of th…

Well, look at it this way; the politicians raise money so they can campaign to us, the citizens. So obviously our voice still matters. We're just not using it.

Thankfully, for the most part, its not dangerous (yet) to exercise our right to contact our representatives.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#78

Post by jkestner »

Intermernet wrote: post #44
a3n wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No comment" from Cook would be an interesting standoff. If he were prosecuted for it, that would confirm something NSL-like. But would it be worth it to a CEO to go to jail for a few years for a principle?

That of course, depends on the strength of said CEO's principles. This would be, of course, one of the hardest tests of professional principles you could imagine a CEO going through. I personally think Mr Cook would be a good candidate for passing this test, as he seems to have a track record for standing up for what he believes in. I also have a feeling that the US government would think twice before taking on the A…

It's a little discomforting that we're hoping that corporations, presumably guided by a profit motive, will defend us against the government formed for the people (though more heavily influenced by other corporations). Even if Apple is trustworthy for a company, I'm not going to enjoy the future in which we pick our favorite companies to enact policy.

Now, this is obviously happening to Google, et al, as well, so a joint action by the captains of industry — an appeal to the public more than the court — will be more effective.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#79

Post by olifante »

Zelphyr wrote: post #64

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…

It is abundantly clear that the deep state will not accept losing these tools. Even if by some miracle someone was elected with a strong mandate to eliminate privacy abuses, the deep state would lie and obfuscate as much as needed to maintain and expand its total surveillance capabilities. We have to accept that the cat is not going back into the box, and that we now need to focus on finding adequate defenses, both technical and social.

Re: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets

#80

Post by jkestner »

Zelphyr wrote: post #64

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…

Our outrage tanks are being emptied by Internet arguments. Just as Apple's got both ResearchKit and Apple Pay on soda machines, perhaps it could create ActivismKit to balance out the distractions they (and every smartphone maker) enable.
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