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This seems to be a fake story that the Turkish secret service is making up to obfuscate the fact that they had listening devices planted within the consulate of

by jnaina 8y ago

This seems to be a fake story that the Turkish secret service is making up to obfuscate the fact that they had listening devices planted within the consulate office. The Apple watch can't possibly sync with his iPhone being carried by his fiancee who was probably out of the usual Bluetooth range (30 to 50 ft), there are no LTE support for Apple Watch in Turkey, and highly doubtful that there were public wifi that he could have used.

_vn5r 8y ago
Wouldn’t the Apple Watch just fallback to whatever connectivity it can get? 3G, Edge, etc.
- Dwolb 8y ago
  What’s the chip in the Apple Watch? Most of the new low power LTE devices have 2G fallback
- speg 8y ago
  No carrier in Turkey supports the Apple watch.
spoondan 8y ago
I agree it’s likely the office is bugged. But a pocket WiFi device the watch has previously connected to is a perfectly plausible way for him to have had Internet access.
- bredren 8y ago
  Wouldn’t that type of device have been taken off him at first search?
cpymchn 8y ago
Can't you roam within your region with Watch 4? If he was using Watch 4 with LTE and if he bought it, activated it, and paired it to a sim in a European country with LTE support.. the LTE would still work when he left that country to go to Turkey. No? Khashoggi lived in Virginia so this is still unlikely but I think it is more possible than you make it sound.
- scoggs 8y ago
  I'm not saying this is a definite thing but he's also a journalist of a notable and large publication who is doing international news stories abroad in the Middle East. Would he not be a person interested in tech and savvy ways of obtaining data / recordings / photos / video? I'm not saying that this is something we should believe inherently but something about how sensitive things can be with sources and obtaining the types of datas he'd be interested in while working on the types of stories that got him into the position of fearing for his life turns on a light, for me, that would indicate he was the type of person interested in making his devices capable of doing as much as possible for him. I, like others, am not completely knowledgeable about the Apple Watch nor it's ultimate capabilities so I'll defer to the experts but I'd assume there has to be some way to broadcast it to a device within a few 100 yards? I could also see it being obfuscation as OP mentioned since it seems those reporting officially on the story from Turkey have been quick to cite evidence without showing any proof. It's very interesting all around and I've got my eyes peeled on this story.
  - beenBoutIT 8y ago
    Assuming he had WiFi, does anyone know if this SOS feature works in Turkey? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206983 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206983
- martin_bech 8y ago
  No, you cant LTE roam with watch 4. Thats the reason I bought the regular watch 4.
  - bredren 8y ago
    Same w my pal in Ireland.
- scoggs 8y ago
  Also of note (this is not confirmed, just something I read elsewhere online provided by an Apple aficionado): ---------- "While Apple does not currently explicitly list Turkey as a supported country, many users report being able to use their watch while roaming in non-supported countries. Turkey’s carriers use the 900, 1800 and 2600 MHz LTE bands and the 2100 MHz UTMS band. All of these bands work with the Apple Watch 3 models A1889 and A1891. If roaming works on their iPhone, it would likely work on their watch unless Apple has explicitly disabled the watch itself from doing so (I’ve seen no indication they do this, and user reports to the contrary in fact). LTE is LTE after all and doesn’t care what your device is provided it conforms with the standard. Another possibility is that Khashoggi simply made a phone call from the watch which was recorded by the other party. This removes the dependency on a data connection altogether. What makes more sense here? That Turkey has decided to effectively admit to widespread bugging of the SA embassy (and likely all embassies for that matter)? Or that they were provided a copy of audio by Khashoggi’s fiancée? It’s far from certain, but ruling out the most likely scenario based on a support article alone seems hasty." ---------- Food for thought.
thanatos_dem 8y ago
If he has signed into hotel WiFi and his fiancée was within range of that, the phone and watch would remained connected over the WiFi network. WRT claims that they used his fingerprint to unlock the watch, that isn’t supported, but if it were within range of a paired phone and put on a wrist, it would unlock when the phone is unlocked, potentially via Touch ID. Edit: If I were to speculate (which is all any of us can do) I would guess that the latter is how they got access to the watch, and he and his fiancé had a family iCloud account, which the files automatically uploaded to via his phone.
- bredren 8y ago
  Unless I’m missing a setting, the watch doesn’t unlock without a pin. It locks when it loses contact with the wrist. Also, are you suggesting WiFi from the hotel covered not only the front of but the depths of the embassy?
  - thanatos_dem 8y ago
    The setting is in the Watch app. It’s Passcode > Unlock with iPhone. It used to be pretty hit or miss, but with the new OSes it’s worked really consistently. And I’m not really suggesting anything about the WiFi. I know remarkably little about the network infrastructure in foreign hotels and embassies. Just that there are mechanism in iOS that could feasibly make this possible, rather than immediately jumping to a Turkish surveillance cover up. You know, Occam’s razor and all that jazz.
browsercoin 8y ago
i thought it was an open secret these embassies and other state sanctioned properties on foreign lands are pretty much fronts for HUMINT and SIGINT.
- severino 8y ago
  It looks like SIGKILL too, now.
Markoff 8y ago
it could be synced when they were taking issue his body passing around fiancee waiting for him, that would he distance within Bluetooth reach also do they even need cloud, can't be content of watch synced over Bluetooth? if she had access to his phone (which would make sense to not keep phone locked from her) it would make this theory plausible though of course bugging embassy it's much more realistic and simpler

by jnaina 8y ago

_vn5r 8y ago

Wouldn’t the Apple Watch just fallback to whatever connectivity it can get? 3G, Edge, etc.

Dwolb 8y ago
What’s the chip in the Apple Watch? Most of the new low power LTE devices have 2G fallback
speg 8y ago
No carrier in Turkey supports the Apple watch.

spoondan 8y ago

I agree it’s likely the office is bugged. But a pocket WiFi device the watch has previously connected to is a perfectly plausible way for him to have had Internet access.

bredren 8y ago
Wouldn’t that type of device have been taken off him at first search?

cpymchn 8y ago

Can't you roam within your region with Watch 4? If he was using Watch 4 with LTE and if he bought it, activated it, and paired it to a sim in a European country with LTE support.. the LTE would still work when he left that country to go to Turkey. No? Khashoggi lived in Virginia so this is still unlikely but I think it is more possible than you make it sound.

scoggs 8y ago
I'm not saying this is a definite thing but he's also a journalist of a notable and large publication who is doing international news stories abroad in the Middle East. Would he not be a person interested in tech and savvy ways of obtaining data / recordings / photos / video? I'm not saying that this is something we should believe inherently but something about how sensitive things can be with sources and obtaining the types of datas he'd be interested in while working on the types of stories that got him into the position of fearing for his life turns on a light, for me, that would indicate he was the type of person interested in making his devices capable of doing as much as possible for him. I, like others, am not completely knowledgeable about the Apple Watch nor it's ultimate capabilities so I'll defer to the experts but I'd assume there has to be some way to broadcast it to a device within a few 100 yards? I could also see it being obfuscation as OP mentioned since it seems those reporting officially on the story from Turkey have been quick to cite evidence without showing any proof. It's very interesting all around and I've got my eyes peeled on this story.
- beenBoutIT 8y ago
  Assuming he had WiFi, does anyone know if this SOS feature works in Turkey? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206983 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206983
martin_bech 8y ago
No, you cant LTE roam with watch 4. Thats the reason I bought the regular watch 4.
- bredren 8y ago
  Same w my pal in Ireland.
scoggs 8y ago
Also of note (this is not confirmed, just something I read elsewhere online provided by an Apple aficionado): ---------- "While Apple does not currently explicitly list Turkey as a supported country, many users report being able to use their watch while roaming in non-supported countries. Turkey’s carriers use the 900, 1800 and 2600 MHz LTE bands and the 2100 MHz UTMS band. All of these bands work with the Apple Watch 3 models A1889 and A1891. If roaming works on their iPhone, it would likely work on their watch unless Apple has explicitly disabled the watch itself from doing so (I’ve seen no indication they do this, and user reports to the contrary in fact). LTE is LTE after all and doesn’t care what your device is provided it conforms with the standard. Another possibility is that Khashoggi simply made a phone call from the watch which was recorded by the other party. This removes the dependency on a data connection altogether. What makes more sense here? That Turkey has decided to effectively admit to widespread bugging of the SA embassy (and likely all embassies for that matter)? Or that they were provided a copy of audio by Khashoggi’s fiancée? It’s far from certain, but ruling out the most likely scenario based on a support article alone seems hasty." ---------- Food for thought.

thanatos_dem 8y ago

If he has signed into hotel WiFi and his fiancée was within range of that, the phone and watch would remained connected over the WiFi network. WRT claims that they used his fingerprint to unlock the watch, that isn’t supported, but if it were within range of a paired phone and put on a wrist, it would unlock when the phone is unlocked, potentially via Touch ID. Edit: If I were to speculate (which is all any of us can do) I would guess that the latter is how they got access to the watch, and he and his fiancé had a family iCloud account, which the files automatically uploaded to via his phone.

bredren 8y ago
Unless I’m missing a setting, the watch doesn’t unlock without a pin. It locks when it loses contact with the wrist. Also, are you suggesting WiFi from the hotel covered not only the front of but the depths of the embassy?
- thanatos_dem 8y ago
  The setting is in the Watch app. It’s Passcode > Unlock with iPhone. It used to be pretty hit or miss, but with the new OSes it’s worked really consistently. And I’m not really suggesting anything about the WiFi. I know remarkably little about the network infrastructure in foreign hotels and embassies. Just that there are mechanism in iOS that could feasibly make this possible, rather than immediately jumping to a Turkish surveillance cover up. You know, Occam’s razor and all that jazz.

browsercoin 8y ago

i thought it was an open secret these embassies and other state sanctioned properties on foreign lands are pretty much fronts for HUMINT and SIGINT.

severino 8y ago
It looks like SIGKILL too, now.

Markoff 8y ago

it could be synced when they were taking issue his body passing around fiancee waiting for him, that would he distance within Bluetooth reach also do they even need cloud, can't be content of watch synced over Bluetooth? if she had access to his phone (which would make sense to not keep phone locked from her) it would make this theory plausible though of course bugging embassy it's much more realistic and simpler