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siljaline
I'm lovin' that double wide
Premium Member
join:2002-10-12
Montreal, QC

1 recommendation

siljaline

Premium Member

CIA sought to hack Apple iPhones from earliest days

CIA sought to hack Apple iPhones from earliest days: The Intercept
quote:
(Reuters) - CIA researchers have worked for nearly a decade to break the security protecting Apple (AAPL.O) phones and tablets, investigative news site The Intercept reported on Tuesday, citing documents obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The report cites top-secret U.S. documents that suggest U.S. government researchers had created a version of XCode, Apple's software application development tool, to create surveillance backdoors into programs distributed on Apple's App Store.
»www.reuters.com/article/ ··· 20150310

»firstlook.org/theinterce ··· secrets/

Blackbird
Built for Speed
Premium Member
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN

Blackbird

Premium Member

The inherent nature of intel gathering is that if there is an encryption method employed anywhere, all 3-letter agencies believe part of their charter is to attempt to break, penetrate, or otherwise compromise it. To not try to do so is to leave a stone unturned that could be somehow employed by the "other guys". Hence, attempts to break into or hack should come as no surprise.
Nanaki (banned)
aka novaflare. pull punches? Na
join:2002-01-24
Akron, OH

Nanaki (banned)

Member

Well im sure penetration testing is part of it. They will with out fail want to make damn sure any device they use is secure or can be secured. Then there is the fact that yest they want to be able to crack the encryption to spy on the end user of the device.

But with apple etc moving more and more to the cloud there wont be any need to crack device level encryption they will just hack the clouds of the various devices and servers. With 5g just a few years away at most even more will be flying away to the cloud. Im sure large portions of the phones operating systems will reside there. Apple loves the cloud they like to off load as much as is possible to it. That means apple will be the first to off load large portions of the os to the cloud. Things like settings icons small apps etc will be the first to fly on up to the cloud. This means contacts app and storage phone call logs phone app txting apps messages etc all on the cloud. Any and all text based items will be or are already on the cloud.

I think once we see 5g (towards the transition to 6g?) and at the latest 6g connections we will see smart phones become little more than terminal devices connecting to a os fully stored in the cloud.

Honestly most of what the nsa wants can be had with out ever tapping the device or snooping on the device it self.

camper
just visiting this planet
Premium Member
join:2010-03-21
Bethel, CT

1 recommendation

camper to siljaline

Premium Member

to siljaline
 
Some more commentary on this topic.

»freedom-to-tinker.com/bl ··· r-users/


In a recent article by Scahill and Begley, we learned that the CIA is interested in targeting Apple products. I largely agree with the quote from Steve Bellovin, that "spies gonna spy", so of course they're interested in targeting the platform that rides in the pockets of many of their intelligence collection targets. What could be a tastier platform for intelligence collection than a device with a microphone, cellular network connection, GPS, and a battery, which your targets willingly carry around in their pockets? Even better, your targets will spare you the trouble of recharging your spying device for you. Of course you target their iPhones! (And Androids. And Blackberries.)

To my mind, the real eyebrow raising moment was that the CIA is also allegedly targeting app developers through "whacking"; Apple's Xcode tool, presumably allowing all subsequent software shipped from the developer to the app store to contain some sort of malicious implant, which will then be distributed within that developer's app. Nothing has been disclosed about how widespread these attacks are (if ever used at all), what developers might have been targeted, or how the implants might function....