4 ms·

What does it even mean to be a state-level actor? For me this is the same kind of bullshit/PR language that is is used to sell so-called "military-grade" artefa

What does it even mean to be a state-level actor? For me this is the same kind of bullshit/PR language that is is used to sell so-called "military-grade" artefacts. This is nonsense. Security breaches can be discovered and used by anyone with the right knowledge and skills. Geohot was not sponsored by the CIA or the FSB.

halJordan 4y ago
State-level is a label for groups that have resources and persistence and perhaps the technical acumen that is available to states.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  I know what the label is, but from a strictly technical point of view, a breach is a breach, an exploit is an exploit, this is not like AI research where you need server farms. From my own experience and from the postmortems I have had access to, most of the time this a work of patience and skills. In my opinion, this is a way of saying to the public that their devices is secure against everything but state actors, this is simply not true.
WFHRenaissance 4y ago
I think they're focusing on the notion of protecting against well-funded mercenary firms with the resources/time/ability/motivation to target specific individuals with specific exploits. I have a hard time believing that anyone would enable this Lockdown Mode _prior_ to being owned though.
- threeseed 4y ago
  > I have a hard time believing that anyone would enable this Lockdown Mode _prior_ to being owned though I can imagine many use cases where they would e.g. journalist enabling this before working on an article that was critical of a foreign government. Or any government contractor, NGO, embassy worker etc.
threeseed 4y ago
> Security breaches can be discovered and used by anyone with the right knowledge and skills That's often not enough. You need a lot of resources and most importantly prosecutorial immunity.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  Why is that not enough? What do you mean? Because it would take too much time?

halJordan 4y ago

State-level is a label for groups that have resources and persistence and perhaps the technical acumen that is available to states.

stephc_int13 4y ago
I know what the label is, but from a strictly technical point of view, a breach is a breach, an exploit is an exploit, this is not like AI research where you need server farms. From my own experience and from the postmortems I have had access to, most of the time this a work of patience and skills. In my opinion, this is a way of saying to the public that their devices is secure against everything but state actors, this is simply not true.

WFHRenaissance 4y ago

I think they're focusing on the notion of protecting against well-funded mercenary firms with the resources/time/ability/motivation to target specific individuals with specific exploits. I have a hard time believing that anyone would enable this Lockdown Mode _prior_ to being owned though.

threeseed 4y ago
> I have a hard time believing that anyone would enable this Lockdown Mode _prior_ to being owned though I can imagine many use cases where they would e.g. journalist enabling this before working on an article that was critical of a foreign government. Or any government contractor, NGO, embassy worker etc.

threeseed 4y ago

> Security breaches can be discovered and used by anyone with the right knowledge and skills That's often not enough. You need a lot of resources and most importantly prosecutorial immunity.

stephc_int13 4y ago
Why is that not enough? What do you mean? Because it would take too much time?