91–100 of 118 posts
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The American revolution was started because citizens did not want the government in their homes.
I don't think that's historically accurate. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the battle cry of the revolution "no taxation without representation"? It wasn't about privacy, it was about wanting to be more than just a backwater colony.
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> One would hope that they were trying to gain access to someone else's devices, as opposed to turning the guns towards their own citizens and economy. Apple devices are sold all over the world, so there's no way of gaining access to the enemy's devices without that method also being applicable to everyone else. Actually using them on everyone else is a different matter.
"the enemy's devices" Which enemy?
How is pen testing of iPhones stealing Apple's secrets? Does Apple know these holes are there and they're keeping them secret? I'll grant you that if the CIA broke into Apple and stole keys, that would stealing along with breaking and entering or the cybercrime equivalent. But that's not what the article says.
Did you read the article? The CIA -- in addition to pentesting -- is trying to exfiltrate GID keys of Apple devices. That is quite literally, trying to steal Apple's secrets -- not checking which systems have vulnerabilities.
They really didn't. There were cryptophones, such as Cryptophone, doing secure messaging and stuff before Apple. Julian Assange used one IIRC. High-assurance security did stuff like Sectera Edge with some side-channel shielding, too. Then, there were companies like OK Labs building minimal, trusted, computing bases into phones with stuff like Android sandboxed in user-mode. Sensitive stuff ran outside. Then, Apple got into the game. They could still copy some of these techniques for improved security on top of what they're doing already.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080408152145/http://www.gdc4s....
https://web.archive.org/web/20110219075132/http://www.ok-lab...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO > COINTELPRO (1956–1971) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette... > The letter does not specify precisely what action it is urg…
How about in the last 50 years
Our precedent is J Edgar Hoover. This nobody running an organization with limited power used surveillance to get dirt on lots of politicians and other powerful people. Their surveillance capabilities were extremely limited. He still managed to get enough which, combined with his media skills, got control of enough of Congress to massively increase his power. He kept at that for a long time. The FBI remains one of the most powerful, well-funded agencies in America.
So, here was my speculation around the time of 9/11. I was going by capabilities Bamford wrote about. I said they probably just ask NSA to use its existing capabilities to watch more people. It will be a black program (SAP or USAP). That means most of Congress won't legally know about it. The USAP's might just take a handful of them (committee heads). Then, with all that data collection, they could literally just have one team of people doing nothing but collecting data on Congress and maybe some Justices. Maybe just the committee members that hold them accountable plus their political opponents. It's not a lot of people or conversations to watch. They'd probably find evidence of bribery by lobbyists, prostitution, etc really fast. They see way more than Hoover did. Hell, they can even bootstrap by spying on those that set their budget first, getting a big increase, and then using a slice of that to target more of Congress.
The people running those organizations are already amoral, rule breakers who see everything as a means to an end. What are the odds that a power monger at top of spy agency would try what Hoover did? And what are those odds if they have widespread surveillance, total secrecy and mostly legal immunity? I'd peg it somewhere close to 100% that it will happen unless we block such surveillance projects. America, in fear, voted for more or didn't resist it. So, it will happen. The expanded access with, per Snowden leaks, sharing with over a dozen agencies will increase the number of abuses. Hell, folks were even looking at their girlfriends with Snowden himself stealing about everything. Think folks hunting for blackmail data couldn't or wouldn't collecting their own dirt with nobody noticing?
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If I thought CIA/NSA hacking was truly white-hat to increase the security of Apple devices, then I would agree. However, 3DES seems to be one of the last times that actual info-sec as opposed to spying (on local citizens) with questionable legal standing (in the US) was the purpose. Sadly, the omniscient and incorruptable rep of the NSA/CIA and associated TLA have been significantly tarnished by Snowden and the curre…
Apple products are used globally, so even if they do restrict their spying efforts externally, the ability to hack Apple products is aligned with those efforts. They should also absolutely be looking for vulnerabilities in Huawei products. They should be looking for them in any product with significant market share. But there's no reason to think they can't do both. All that aside: Theres a social credit system with…
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Poison you?
How much does a clandestine international assassination cost? Why would anyone bother?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvi... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal