6 ms·

After chiding Apple on privacy, Germany says it uses Pegasus spyware

51 points by miles 5y ago

kevingadd 5y ago
I feel like it shouldn't be surprising that law enforcement and spy agencies would have a different view on privacy vs that of regulatory agencies and customer advocates... Similarly, a public defender and a prosecutor will have very different views on significant issues even if they both happen to get paid via tax dollars.
mqus 5y ago
"Germany says" nothing. The BKA (~FBI) dealt with Pegasus and the digital comittee chairman (legislative, not even part of the executive branch) critizised Apple. So, in summary: Two people contradict each other. So what? Isn't this normal? I feel this headline is just clickbait to make up a connection to apple while painting the criticism as hypocritical.
q1w2 5y ago
Treating "Germany" as one monolithic entity that can thereby be accused of hypocrisy, is a childish oversimplification. Nations are composed of myriads of groups, people, interests - some support gov't surveillance, and some who don't. In this case, Bundestag's Digital Agenda committee chairman, declared Apple to be on a "dangerous path", whereas the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) purchased access to NSO Group's Pegasus spyware. It is no more surprising to see these two units taking opposite positions than if we were to learn that Donald Trump and Joe Biden had opposite views on some topic. The title and conclusion of this article is uninteresting.
- halfdan 5y ago
  It's already ignoring the fact that Apple is a privately held US company and Germany a sovereign nation. Those are just fundamentally different things.
webmobdev 5y ago
Apple (& BigTech) make money from lax privacy laws. When governments are not abusing the same weak privacy laws while using such spywares, they are generally working to protect national interests. (Usually when a government spies on you, for whatever reason, they follow due process of the law). There's a lot of difference in being spied on by a corporate vs government. When abusive, it's a different kind of exploitation. But the solution to both is the same - strong privacy laws.
- mcphage 5y ago
  How does Apple make money from lax privacy laws?
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    When privacy laws are weak in a country, Apple can collect more user data without their consent. The more data they have on a user, the better they can monetise it.
    - mcphage 5y ago
      Monetize it how, though? Like how exactly does Apple make that money?
      - webmobdev 5y ago
        Google just paid Apple $15 billion to be the default search engine on ios platform. Let's assume that lax privacy laws of a particular country allow data sharing between Google and Apple, and they've negotiated a data sharing agreement in their contract. This means Apple can now have access to all search queries of any user who uses the Google search engine. Let's also assume that Apple has access to the users browsing history (they do if you enable Safari / iCloud tabs with iCloud) and weak privacy laws allow them to use this data however they want. With just a user's browsing history and search data, Apple can get a lot of insights into the user's personal and professional interests. Once it builds these kind of profiles, they can now use it in various ways: - Show you ads in apps / websites based on your interests. (Apple has an advertising network). - Promote paid apps that match your interest to tempt you to pay for it. (Apple has an App store). - Increase the price of apps that Apple thinks you may be interested in, based on your personal data. (Apple gets a percentage from every paid app). and so on ... there is a lot of other ways to exploit such user data - e.g. Apple uses the credit card data user provide it get the user's financial credit score. They collate this data, along with other data points, to price their products ("hey, we have a lot of rich users, let's price our product higher" or "some of our users our from middle income group - let's ask AT&T to create a financial package so that they can buy our costly phones and pay in installment"). Heck, with Apple Pay, I won't even be surprised if they even know everything you buy from them.
jonplackett 5y ago
So wait, if all western governments have this (I doubt it's just germany) and are using it, and it works as advertised, then aren't the politicians worried about all being hacked themselves by each other's governments? Isn't there one sane operator who would like to instead report these zero days and then have a (more) secure device them self?
- ben_w 5y ago
  I’ve heard it claimed that governments consider spying on allies to be normal, even useful. Makes it easier to know what political doors are open and which are closed. No idea how true that really is, but it’s at least a more optimistic and hopeful view of things than the idea each government is supremely arrogant and thinks its own defence team can hold back everyone else’s offensive teams, which is closer to my own personal expectation of what’s going on.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- CobrastanJorji 5y ago
  Bruce Schneier's written a few times on the subject of what the NSA should do, when coming across a powerful exploit. This can be a surprisingly complex calculus when you're thinking solely strategically and not specifically about privacy or ethics as goals in of themselves. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/should-hackers-fix-cybersecurity-holes-or-exploit-them/371197/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/shoul... In this article, Schneier suggests that if the US and China have an iPhone exploit, and exploits are very rare, then the US should disclose and patch it because it's likely that China has the same exploit. But if exploits are not very rare, then the US should not disclose the one it knows because China probably knows a different one, so the US would lose its capability to spy on China but China would still be able to spy on the US. His conclusion, though, is different, and argues for erring on the side of patching bugs.
  - dogma1138 5y ago

51 points by miles 5y ago

I feel like it shouldn't be surprising that law enforcement and spy agencies would have a different view on privacy vs that of regulatory agencies and customer advocates... Similarly, a public defender and a prosecutor will have very different views on significant issues even if they both happen to get paid via tax dollars.

mqus 5y ago

"Germany says" nothing. The BKA (~FBI) dealt with Pegasus and the digital comittee chairman (legislative, not even part of the executive branch) critizised Apple. So, in summary: Two people contradict each other. So what? Isn't this normal? I feel this headline is just clickbait to make up a connection to apple while painting the criticism as hypocritical.

q1w2 5y ago

Treating "Germany" as one monolithic entity that can thereby be accused of hypocrisy, is a childish oversimplification. Nations are composed of myriads of groups, people, interests - some support gov't surveillance, and some who don't. In this case, Bundestag's Digital Agenda committee chairman, declared Apple to be on a "dangerous path", whereas the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) purchased access to NSO Group's Pegasus spyware. It is no more surprising to see these two units taking opposite positions than if we were to learn that Donald Trump and Joe Biden had opposite views on some topic. The title and conclusion of this article is uninteresting.

halfdan 5y ago
It's already ignoring the fact that Apple is a privately held US company and Germany a sovereign nation. Those are just fundamentally different things.

webmobdev 5y ago

Apple (& BigTech) make money from lax privacy laws. When governments are not abusing the same weak privacy laws while using such spywares, they are generally working to protect national interests. (Usually when a government spies on you, for whatever reason, they follow due process of the law). There's a lot of difference in being spied on by a corporate vs government. When abusive, it's a different kind of exploitation. But the solution to both is the same - strong privacy laws.

mcphage 5y ago
How does Apple make money from lax privacy laws?
- webmobdev 5y ago
  When privacy laws are weak in a country, Apple can collect more user data without their consent. The more data they have on a user, the better they can monetise it.
  - mcphage 5y ago
    Monetize it how, though? Like how exactly does Apple make that money?
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      Google just paid Apple $15 billion to be the default search engine on ios platform. Let's assume that lax privacy laws of a particular country allow data sharing between Google and Apple, and they've negotiated a data sharing agreement in their contract. This means Apple can now have access to all search queries of any user who uses the Google search engine. Let's also assume that Apple has access to the users browsing history (they do if you enable Safari / iCloud tabs with iCloud) and weak privacy laws allow them to use this data however they want. With just a user's browsing history and search data, Apple can get a lot of insights into the user's personal and professional interests. Once it builds these kind of profiles, they can now use it in various ways: - Show you ads in apps / websites based on your interests. (Apple has an advertising network). - Promote paid apps that match your interest to tempt you to pay for it. (Apple has an App store). - Increase the price of apps that Apple thinks you may be interested in, based on your personal data. (Apple gets a percentage from every paid app). and so on ... there is a lot of other ways to exploit such user data - e.g. Apple uses the credit card data user provide it get the user's financial credit score. They collate this data, along with other data points, to price their products ("hey, we have a lot of rich users, let's price our product higher" or "some of our users our from middle income group - let's ask AT&T to create a financial package so that they can buy our costly phones and pay in installment"). Heck, with Apple Pay, I won't even be surprised if they even know everything you buy from them.

jonplackett 5y ago

So wait, if all western governments have this (I doubt it's just germany) and are using it, and it works as advertised, then aren't the politicians worried about all being hacked themselves by each other's governments? Isn't there one sane operator who would like to instead report these zero days and then have a (more) secure device them self?

ben_w 5y ago
I’ve heard it claimed that governments consider spying on allies to be normal, even useful. Makes it easier to know what political doors are open and which are closed. No idea how true that really is, but it’s at least a more optimistic and hopeful view of things than the idea each government is supremely arrogant and thinks its own defence team can hold back everyone else’s offensive teams, which is closer to my own personal expectation of what’s going on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
CobrastanJorji 5y ago
Bruce Schneier's written a few times on the subject of what the NSA should do, when coming across a powerful exploit. This can be a surprisingly complex calculus when you're thinking solely strategically and not specifically about privacy or ethics as goals in of themselves. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/should-hackers-fix-cybersecurity-holes-or-exploit-them/371197/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/shoul... In this article, Schneier suggests that if the US and China have an iPhone exploit, and exploits are very rare, then the US should disclose and patch it because it's likely that China has the same exploit. But if exploits are not very rare, then the US should not disclose the one it knows because China probably knows a different one, so the US would lose its capability to spy on China but China would still be able to spy on the US. His conclusion, though, is different, and argues for erring on the side of patching bugs.
- dogma1138 5y ago