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iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

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Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#101

Post by tialaramex »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #37
sneak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snapchat claims to be end to end encrypted, last I looked. Signal does not escrow endpoint keys in an iCloud Backup, so your first statement is incorrect.

This is false. Snapchat has "snaps" protected, but text messages and group messages are not end to end encrypted. Also, Signal putting your escrow keys in iCloud? I don't think you know what you are talking about. You can set iMessage to not put your keys in iCloud like I said above by turning off iCloud Backup which makes it fully End-to-End with your own key on your device, just like Signal. If you are worried abou…

Signal doesn't need keys for the messages you previously received. You received a message from Jim, it's received, done, no need to retain keys to decrypt the message from Jim.

You might be thinking, "But what about the next message from Jim?" but that message is encrypted with a new key so the previous key isn't useful, your Signal works out what that key will be and remembers it until it receives a message from Jim.

It's a ratchet, you can go forwards but you can't go backwards, if I didn't keep the message Jim sent me last week then even though you've got the encrypted message, and I've still got a working key to receive new messages, we can't work back to decrypt the old message.

You might also be thinking, "There must be a long term identity key so that I can tell Jim and Steve apart?". Indeed there is. But Signal doesn't use this to sign messages since that's a huge security mistake, instead this long term identity key is used to sign a part of the initial keys other parties will use to communicate with you.

This design deliberately means you can't prove to anybody else, who sent you anything or what they sent. Sure, you can tell people. You can dish the dirt to your spouse, your friends, the Secret Police, but you can't prove any of it cryptographically.

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#102

Post by certnlyuncertn »

jdavis703 wrote: post #57
xenocratus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it also depends on what kind of journalism they're doing, right? Not all report on criminal activity, or on investigating the government. It's kinda like threat-models, no need to be super secure if your work brings no risks to you, your organisation, or those you come in contact with.

Journalists from celebrity gossip reporters to foreign affairs correspondents needs to take security seriously. Even gossip journalists receive information from sources that ranges from information that would get the source fired or blacklisted to put in jail (e.g. LA sheriffs leaking celebrity photos).

How likely is it that people are exploiting zero days against reporters in any of those examples though. That's why threat models are different for different types of journalism.

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#103

Post by gjsman-1000 »

Closi wrote: post #91
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you say so. There is a degree of rational fear, rational expectation of being tracked. Your degree of fear though is irrational unless you are, in fact, a journalist in an authoritarian state. You are saying that you are so paranoid, you don't trust iMessage to be End-to-End Encrypted because it has zero-click exploits developed as part of a cyberweapon that is explicitly targeted against high-profile journal…

> Your degree of fear though is irrational unless you are, in fact, a journalist in an authoritarian state. You are putting words in OP's mouth. OP never said he was fearful, only that he didn't want to be tracked. Someone friendly could follow me around in real life and watch what I'm doing - and keep suggesting products to me based on getting to know me. I'm not going to be afraid but I am going to be freaking anno…

Not wanting to be tracked is fine.

I'm trying to say his game-plan for not being tracked is immensely flawed. He thinks a nation-state weapon could be used against him, so switch to a third-party messenger which doesn't do the same degree of sandboxing for security. What could go wrong?

If you are worried about a threat that is that niche, and will almost certainly be patched soon, you shouldn't be using any messenger, logically speaking.

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#104

Post by caymanjim »

sneak wrote: post #87
caymanjim wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not paranoia when it's true. While most people value the convenience of conventional phones calls and default messaging applications over true privacy, those who prefer privacy aren't being paranoid. Companies are monitoring communication to increase ad revenue; government are monitoring communication to catch criminals, enable industrial espionage, and suppress dissent. It's only paranoia if it's delusional. We…

> I disable location services except for things like Maps that actually need to know where I am Fun fact: having systemwide location services on, even if you don't enable it for any apps, means that your location is sent in realtime to Apple/Google at all times (via Wi-Fi triangulation data). It's not just passive GPS reception. If you want actual location privacy, you'll want to leave location services off systemwid…

This falls under "close enough" for me. Even with systemwide location off, cell providers and your ISP still know where you are; there's simply no way to stop them from knowing. If I fire up an app and Android gives me a popup saying it won't work with location off, then at least I know which apps are asking for it, and can enable the very few that I want to share that with because I get something out of it (like navigation).

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#105

Post by andrewzah »

swiley wrote: post #28
3pt14159 wrote: post #12

I dated a journalist once. She used some random free app for phone calls because recording calls isn't built into iOS and she needed to record calls. I suggested a small device for her to plug her headphones through, but she declined. I'm sure there's a few journalists out there that take cybersecurity seriously, but I'd wager the vast majority are pretty trivially monitored.

Apple really doesn't help them. the marketing (lying) that iOS is secure is pretty intense.

Perfectly secure computers are an oxymoron. They don’t exist.

iOS is the least worst mobile option and it’s ridiculous to say Apple is lying about security if any exploits are found, ever.

If you look at e.g. how messaging works in iOS 14 [0] you’ll see that they do in fact work on making secure systems. But parsing and memory safety are hard. Like, really hard. The fact that NSO found exploits doesn’t mean Apple is doing anything, but Apple is clearly making it more and more difficult to find and abuse such exploits.

For the average person that isn’t being specifically targeted by sophisticated malware from companies funded by -governments-, iOS is pretty damn secure. Dealing with being attacked is a different threat model.

[0]: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-look-at-ime...

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#106

Post by gjsman-1000 »

Dah00n wrote: post #93
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Snapchat has "snaps" protected, but text messages and group messages are not end to end encrypted. Also, Signal putting your escrow keys in iCloud? I don't think you know what you are talking about. You can set iMessage to not put your keys in iCloud like I said above by turning off iCloud Backup which makes it fully End-to-End with your own key on your device, just like Signal. If you are worried abou…

>You can set iMessage to not put your keys in iCloud like I said above by turning off iCloud Backup which makes it fully End-to-End "Fully" smells like a weasel word here. Either it is E2EE or it isn't. iMesssage isn't by default from what you are saying and if it requires the other end to also turn off icloud backup before it is E2EE then I'd go as far as stating that it is a completely useless attempt to be E2EE. I…

It's not a weasel word.

The messages are fully end-to-end encrypted, we know that, the EFF has stated as such. However, iCloud Backup means copies of your messages that arrived after the end-to-end process are backed up online. For most people who buy iPhones, having their messages not be permanently lost if their phone is stolen is a fair trade. If you don't want copies of your messages backed up after they arrived through the end-to-end encryption process, then turn it off.

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#107

Post by slivanes »

nemothekid wrote: post #96
swiley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple really doesn't help them. the marketing (lying) that iOS is secure is pretty intense.

> the marketing (lying) that iOS is secure is pretty intense. I don't see how it's lying. If you are going to consider that iOS is not secure because they got owned by a couple 0 days, then by that definition there isn't a secure piece of software on the planet.

iOS exploits are paying less than Android - http://zerodium.com/program.html.

Based on supply and demand it would appear that iOS is less secure right?

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#108

Post by gjsman-1000 »

tialaramex wrote: post #101
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Snapchat has "snaps" protected, but text messages and group messages are not end to end encrypted. Also, Signal putting your escrow keys in iCloud? I don't think you know what you are talking about. You can set iMessage to not put your keys in iCloud like I said above by turning off iCloud Backup which makes it fully End-to-End with your own key on your device, just like Signal. If you are worried abou…

Signal doesn't need keys for the messages you previously received. You received a message from Jim, it's received, done, no need to retain keys to decrypt the message from Jim. You might be thinking, "But what about the next message from Jim?" but that message is encrypted with a new key so the previous key isn't useful, your Signal works out what that key will be and remembers it until it receives a message from Jim…

You are trying to say that iMessage does not have forward secrecy.

That's true, and is a perfectly legitimate reason to use Signal.

I'm saying that the OP was dissing iMessage because of the Pegasus zero-click exploit, and was saying that switching to Signal gives zero guarantees of protecting you from that, because it likely has it's own zero-click exploits, especially because it doesn't attempt to sandbox unlike iMessage does with the flawed BlastDoor.

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#109

Post by Ar-Curunir »

wolverine876 wrote: post #54

> However, it is unlikely that Pegasus will be a problem for the vast majority of iPhone users. While the tool is used as intended against criminals by governments, the attacks against innocent people are seemingly against those who could be critics to a regime, including journalists and human rights activists. Attacks against the freedom of others and critics of government are a much larger threat to ordinary people…

One isn’t necessarily a larger threat than the other; both are horrible

Re: iMessage, Apple Music used by NSO Pegasus to attack journalist iPhones

#110

Post by Ar-Curunir »

comodore_ wrote: post #82

there are apparently 50k names in that list, last I've checked they confirmed ~180 journalists are among them. spying on journalists is atrocious, but who are the other 49.800?

Opposition Politicians, activists, critics, etc
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