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WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

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Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#241
post #126
post #112

The title has been modified. WhatsApp voice calls used to inject Israeli spyware on phones

Sure, we take out the baity parts of titles because they produce lousier discussion. This is standard HN moderation: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19906729 for more explanation.

Cursory Google searches seem to indicate that the same policy isn't applied for Chinese or Russian cyber threats. You also didn't remove the country name in other recent news, despite the production of even lousier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19638357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19634570 The moderation is inconsistent.

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#242
post #12
post #7

All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. But apparently also by Israeli developers with their government's blessing and open endorsement. That's some very shady stuff. Before someone says something about government surveillance of fiber cables. Yes, that is also bad, but exploiting vulnerabilities to install spyware on peoples phones... It crosses yet another line…

They managed to destroy Iranian nuclear centrifuges using a very sophisticated attack. Read up on Stuxnet. Also, as an Israeli, I can 100% confirm that Israelis have absolutely no issues with crossing any kind of boundary. The fact that others think that such a thing as "boundaries" exist only serves as an advantage.

> Also, as an Israeli, I can 100% confirm that Israelis have absolutely no issues with crossing any kind of boundary. The fact that others think that such a thing as "boundaries" exist only serves as an advantage.

Maybe as an Israeli you can see the hypocrisy in stating that there are no boundaries when, if it wasn't for a large part of the world deciding that in fact there ARE boundaries that should not be crossed, the Nuremberg trials would never have been held and Israel would not exist at all.

But you go ahead and ignore your own history.

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not clear whether you consider this a good thing or a disgrace?

As another israeli - certainly a good thing. For a nation in our position, in a deeply hostile region, where a major military defeat is certain to be genocide, doing everything possible for national defence is the only way possible to survive. Stuxnet in particular is something that I'm extremely proud of.

So when you say that stating there are no boundaries is a good thing for Israel, would you have held that same view in the 1930's and 1940's when most of Europe was busy trying to resist another organisation that also did not believe in boundaries?

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say this as your country is invading and occupying land that doesn’t belong to them and murdering innocents to drive them out. Yeah, nice way to be proud.

very hard to think of any country that has NOT done this. History shows that people and their countries do bad things.

This is a childish excuse.

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#245
WhatsApp belongs to Facebook

Some of the largest data breaches in the last few years related to facebook

and yet

They continue do whatever they want

GDPR made no difference at all... Only hurt the small-medium business

FB, Google, Aamazon just keep doing whatever they want, protected by army of lawyers

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#246
For better or worse, we are living in a world that is going through a great consolidation of wealth and power. Israel is a major beneficiary of the fiscal consolidation that we see happening around the world. Currently, there are more multimillionaire households in Israel per capita than the United States, Britain, Canada, Sweden and even Denmark! As a United States citizen, it saddens me that our country is heavily focused on equipping and supporting a foreign entity that has been known to violate international laws and break their own agreements with the Palestinians (Oslo Accords) (Illegal Settlements in Internationally Contested Land). There is a long legacy of broken promises on behalf of Israel. Their reputation in the international community is bad for a reason, it is indeed an apartheid state and has been since its inception in 1948.

As humans, I believe that we have a moral obligation to ensure that a basic level of quality of life can be enjoyed for ourselves. If we are fortunate enough to be blessed with an abundance of resources, then our obligation to ensure a basic level of quality of life can be attained for our neighbors as well.

We see this natural progression very clearly in America and other countries. When an individual grew up in an impoverished neighborhood and eventually becomes a celebrity, they invariably elect to give back to the community, supporting their neighborhood and hoping to help others achieve a basic level of quality of life that we all as humans are entitled to. The responsibility that we have as humans to help others has and always will be held by the individual or country that is doing better off in terms of resources, knowledge, experience or financial variables.

A change must happen for the betterment of humankind. It is not the Palestinians fault that they were subjected to a full-scale military invasion in 1948 followed by 70 years of humiliation and severely degrading living conditions. The Palestinians in Gaza are unable to travel by Land, Air or Sea, their basic human right of freedom of movement has been restricted. The living conditions are wretched as a result of many restrictions imposed by Israel. The United Nations has deemed Gaza uninhabitable due to poor drinking water and lack of electricity. Currently, the annual income per capita in Gaza is $1,826.

It's my understanding that anything is allowed by some, as mentioned previously in this thread – boundaries are drawn with the intention of breaking them - these boundaries are both physical and abstract ones. I am sure that the intention would be to go much further than simply crossing boundaries but to rewrite the entire playbook.

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the interpretation of all of the international community except for the US and Israel. The UN has repeatedly voted to recognize this, often being blocked by the US. There is no real controversy on this. Edit: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci... The entire UN Security Council officially recognized this, with even the US not using their veto power (they abstained).

I'm well aware of UN position on Israel, I just don't understand how anyone who knows how this organization operates can pretend it represents "international community" or has any moral authority.

You characterize it as a superficial institutional opinion rather than the judgment of the vast majority of humanity.

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#250
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaining control of WhatsApp gains access to any API accessible to WhatsApp. Incompetent reporting may be at fault. On Android, WhatsApp seeks a wide array of permission-controlled APIs. It does so on iOS as well. Once granted, the app has access to any data available through access-allowed APIs. App code goes through an audit process to ensure that the app isn’t using accessible APIs inappropriately, and doesn’t perm…

Very interested to know what this means in practice, particularly for iOS. AFAIK, there's no permissions which allow you to read SMS messages, take screenshots (unless jailbroken), access photos in the background, access the camera in the background etc etc Does this just spy on the users Whatsapp activity, or spy on the user in a broader way? How could the API's whatsapp does have access to be abused?

> How could the APIs .. be abused?

The app is infected, calls a 0-day using an illegal parameter that’s normally rejected by app store filters, and gains a permanent beachhead in your Android system services list.

> access photos in the background

Unclear. Apps can show thumbnail galleries of your photos within their native UI, so it may well be possible for them to continue directly to reading photos.

> access the camera in the background

Unclear. Does FaceTime continue transmitting video when the phone screen is turned off? Is it possible to capture stills or video when the screen is off on a jailbroken phone?

> or spy on the user in a broader way

Android WhatsApp seeks permission to read your SMSes, so that would be almost certainly correct as well there.

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