5 ms·

I got a one plus, and now i'm wondering... But let's be honest, iphones and android parts are manufactured in china. There are most probably a lot of spying ha

I got a one plus, and now i'm wondering... But let's be honest, iphones and android parts are manufactured in china. There are most probably a lot of spying hardware we don't know about that call the mother land.

freehunter 8y ago
Do you think Apple blindly trusts the hardware that comes from their factories? I have no evidence either way, but I would be very surprised if their hardware experts in the US didn't tear down and verify the parts that get shipped to them, like they did with the SuperMicro motherboards. The idea that there is a lot of spying hardware in an iPhone that Apple doesn't know about is an extraordinary claim.
- bordercases 8y ago
  > I have no evidence either way Should you blindly trust Apple's process?
  - freehunter 8y ago
    If someone is going to accuse a company of having third party spy chips in their phones, they'd better be ready to prove it. Especially if that company is known for their insanely strict (not very strict, actually insane) supply chain management and have been known to put suppliers into bankruptcy for not meeting the company's supply needs exactly (GTAT sapphire). Especially a company very recently in the news for having picked apart every chip on a server motherboard to find out if any of those chips were not in the BOM. I don't have to blindly trust anything to know the burden of that proof is on the person making that claim. If you're going to accuse that company of mismanaging their supply chain and compromising the security of their users and their products while crowing publicly otherwise, you'd better come with some evidence.
    - bordercases 8y ago
      Assume innocence over guilt, assume guilt over innocence; false positives or false negatives. Where burden of proof stands depends on the kind of error you're attempting to minimize. In this case I don't think it's warranted to try and minimize the rate of error of accidentally not trusting even if you have had some trust before. It's because security is a hard, induction-based problem. You counter it with vigilance in the long-run. Ignoring local rumors with high potential impact adds up. Additionally unless you truly believe you can't be impacted by privacy theft or think your actions are so petty that they would never be useful to analyze by a bad actor; or, you additionally have Apple stock or some equivalent stake, I don't know why you wouldn't be willing to distrust vehemently. To me it seems like accidentally being wrong about Apple is not worse than any of those things.
      - sametmax 8y ago
        Assume innocence over guilt is for individuals. For huge entities, the sane approach is to doubt them and request continuous never ending proof they are well behaving. Currently the opposite is happening.
      - freehunter 8y ago
        Alright then, I can play that game too. Apple Watches collect and process your DNA and the US Army uses it to create waves of genetic clone soldiers. It must be true, because some random person said it on the Internet. If you want to assume Apple is doing awful things based on laughably improbable rumors with absolutely no proof, you must believe this is true. Every soldier is actually a genetic clone of an Apple Watch wearer, and you must explicitly accept this as true because I said it's true. I don't have to prove it's right, and you can't prove it's wrong, which by your logic means it must be true with no exceptions. Unless you truly believe you can't be impacted by DNA theft or your genes are so petty that they would never be useful to the US Army, or you own Apple stock or some other stake, you must believe that Apple is creating an army of clones that will replace you and integrate into society as sleeper agents until the revolution is upon us. You see how ridiculous that sounds? That is your argument.
  - late2part 8y ago
    Ever wonder why the keypad lights up to show you which keys are pressed? Ever wonder why the security model is weakened to a central trust which can reset all device passwords from central Apple command? Ever wonder why folks are encouraged to trade security (convenience)? Remember when Edward Snowden put his hoodie over his computer before he typed in his password?
- hnmonkey 8y ago
  Also, this person's argument is basically... we have proof that Huawei spies on behalf of the Chinese government/military but that's not as bad as a hypothetical where 2 major American corporations who spend tons of money on security do no due diligence to protect their hardware from security breaches from the exact same Chinese government/military. It's an absurd argument conflating a fact with a guess.
- hatersgonnahate 8y ago
  Hardware experts disassembled every single phone and put them back. Good luck with that(oh! It brings manufacturing back to US. MAGA!)
- sametmax 8y ago
  I wrote code used to design hardware semi-automatically. The size and complexity of the tinest chip make it impossible to check the finished hardware perfectly. But even if you somehow managed to check it once, nothing proves it's going to be unchanged for years and years you order it. Now add on top of that you have so many of them in one devices, and there are so many devices, and suddenly you can see how many wooden horses cross the border avec seconds.

freehunter 8y ago

Do you think Apple blindly trusts the hardware that comes from their factories? I have no evidence either way, but I would be very surprised if their hardware experts in the US didn't tear down and verify the parts that get shipped to them, like they did with the SuperMicro motherboards. The idea that there is a lot of spying hardware in an iPhone that Apple doesn't know about is an extraordinary claim.

bordercases 8y ago
> I have no evidence either way Should you blindly trust Apple's process?
- freehunter 8y ago
  If someone is going to accuse a company of having third party spy chips in their phones, they'd better be ready to prove it. Especially if that company is known for their insanely strict (not very strict, actually insane) supply chain management and have been known to put suppliers into bankruptcy for not meeting the company's supply needs exactly (GTAT sapphire). Especially a company very recently in the news for having picked apart every chip on a server motherboard to find out if any of those chips were not in the BOM. I don't have to blindly trust anything to know the burden of that proof is on the person making that claim. If you're going to accuse that company of mismanaging their supply chain and compromising the security of their users and their products while crowing publicly otherwise, you'd better come with some evidence.
  - bordercases 8y ago
    Assume innocence over guilt, assume guilt over innocence; false positives or false negatives. Where burden of proof stands depends on the kind of error you're attempting to minimize. In this case I don't think it's warranted to try and minimize the rate of error of accidentally not trusting even if you have had some trust before. It's because security is a hard, induction-based problem. You counter it with vigilance in the long-run. Ignoring local rumors with high potential impact adds up. Additionally unless you truly believe you can't be impacted by privacy theft or think your actions are so petty that they would never be useful to analyze by a bad actor; or, you additionally have Apple stock or some equivalent stake, I don't know why you wouldn't be willing to distrust vehemently. To me it seems like accidentally being wrong about Apple is not worse than any of those things.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      Assume innocence over guilt is for individuals. For huge entities, the sane approach is to doubt them and request continuous never ending proof they are well behaving. Currently the opposite is happening.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      Alright then, I can play that game too. Apple Watches collect and process your DNA and the US Army uses it to create waves of genetic clone soldiers. It must be true, because some random person said it on the Internet. If you want to assume Apple is doing awful things based on laughably improbable rumors with absolutely no proof, you must believe this is true. Every soldier is actually a genetic clone of an Apple Watch wearer, and you must explicitly accept this as true because I said it's true. I don't have to prove it's right, and you can't prove it's wrong, which by your logic means it must be true with no exceptions. Unless you truly believe you can't be impacted by DNA theft or your genes are so petty that they would never be useful to the US Army, or you own Apple stock or some other stake, you must believe that Apple is creating an army of clones that will replace you and integrate into society as sleeper agents until the revolution is upon us. You see how ridiculous that sounds? That is your argument.
- late2part 8y ago
  Ever wonder why the keypad lights up to show you which keys are pressed? Ever wonder why the security model is weakened to a central trust which can reset all device passwords from central Apple command? Ever wonder why folks are encouraged to trade security (convenience)? Remember when Edward Snowden put his hoodie over his computer before he typed in his password?
hnmonkey 8y ago
Also, this person's argument is basically... we have proof that Huawei spies on behalf of the Chinese government/military but that's not as bad as a hypothetical where 2 major American corporations who spend tons of money on security do no due diligence to protect their hardware from security breaches from the exact same Chinese government/military. It's an absurd argument conflating a fact with a guess.
hatersgonnahate 8y ago
Hardware experts disassembled every single phone and put them back. Good luck with that(oh! It brings manufacturing back to US. MAGA!)
sametmax 8y ago
I wrote code used to design hardware semi-automatically. The size and complexity of the tinest chip make it impossible to check the finished hardware perfectly. But even if you somehow managed to check it once, nothing proves it's going to be unchanged for years and years you order it. Now add on top of that you have so many of them in one devices, and there are so many devices, and suddenly you can see how many wooden horses cross the border avec seconds.