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Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This is a huge step forward for iPhone users. Look, I get it. From the typical HN perspective, this potenti

Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This is a huge step forward for iPhone users. Look, I get it. From the typical HN perspective, this potentially looks like a lot of hype. But many of you aren't looking at from a high level. In the world we are now living in; even what's happening in the United States right now, being able to protect yourself from well-funded, determined attackers for the average person couldn't come at a better time. There's a huge gap between Fortune 500 executives, government officials, etc. and regular people in terms of the resources available to them to prevent state-sponsored attackers. It doesn't take much these days to go from a nobody to being on somebody's radar. If you're a woman seeking an abortion in a state where it's illegal or severely restricted, you could be the target of malware from your local or state government or law enforcement. In Texas, you can sue anyone who aids and abets a woman who attempts to get an abortion for $10,000, which is enough to get someone to trick someone into installing malware on a phone. No, it's not China or Russia coming for you but it doesn't take much to ruin someone's life. I don't think this is virtue signaling or marketing hype by Apple; if anything, this is right in alignment with the stance they've had on privacy for years. Even for a company the size of Apple, putting up $10 million to fund organizations that investigate, expose, and prevent highly targeted cyberattacks isn't pocket change. At the end of the day, this is all good news for user privacy and security going forward. I also suspect if I lockdown my iPhone, my other compatible devices using the same Apple ID will also lockdown. No IT department required.

hk1337 4y ago
I kind of want to turn it on and leave it on. I'm assuming since it's a "mode" that I can turn it off when I need to, do what I know is legit, then turn back on again.
- rmbyrro 4y ago
  Might not be as convenient. Probably requires restarting the phone.
  - QuantumSeed 4y ago
    As soon as you enable lockdown mode in iOS 16 Beta 3 it reboots the phone
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    If you're in the habit of worrying about persistent malware on your device, "regular restarts" are one of the best things you can do. Much of the low interaction malware is only persistent in memory, so a reboot will clear it until they get their claws back into you. Depending on what the attack path is, that may take some while - and using those attacks is still somewhat risky. "Having to re-pwn a phone every 6 hours" is a lot more risky to an attacker than "someone who never reboots their phone and never updates it."
    - jquery 4y ago
      Yes. Also, regularly doing a factory reset is another good hygiene habit to have, this will clear the more rare but persistent forms of malware, often brought on board by legitimate software you installed a long time ago but no longer use.
- kelnos 4y ago
  I would assume that disabling Lockdown Mode means wiping the phone to factory condition. Otherwise Lockdown Mode is only as secure as whatever PIN or password you use to disable it, which isn't particularly secure at all.
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    Yes, but if an attacker has physical access and unlimited time, you've probably lost anyway. What this seems to be focused on are the "remote zero-click/one-click" vulnerabilities we've seen, in which either a message is delivered that never shows up but installs a backdoor hook, or a website can deliver a malware package to a particular user and install the backdoor hook without notifications. It sounds like it does improve some of the physical security features, which should help reduce attack surface, but I wouldn't trust any bit of consumer electronics against a sustained physical attack by a sufficiently motivated adversary.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    Turning off Lockdown mode restarts the device but does not wipe it.
  - bigiain 4y ago
    Sounds to me like it's targeting all the zero and one click exploits we've heard about over the last few years. Not having SMS/iMessage download and "parse" random files/formats and tightening up Javascript attack surface to not include JIT optimisations would probably have helped Jamal Kashoggi and his friends/contacts. Even with this, there's not very much you can do against a state level actor who had physical control of your device and you, and a $5 wrench. Even without having you and being prepared to use violence, a sufficiently motivated state actor will probably get into your device anyway - Apple didn't6 cave to a judge when the FBI wanted them to break every iPhone user's security to get into the San Bernadino shooter's phone, but they didn't get to set a precedent there because someone else broke into that phone for the FBI anyway and they dropped that case...
- oneplane 4y ago
  The thing with Lockdown Mode is that it shifts the trade-off between functionality and security significantly away from functionality. This is an acceptable side-effect of intentionally disabling attack surface that isn't strictly required to have a useful phone. On the other hand, it also makes most social time wasting stuff not work, which is what the masses mostly use their phone for anyway. This really is a mode designed for those who really desperately need it, and it really is implemented in a strong enough way to be useful (hardware root of trust, no-drive by changes since it requires a reboot with a wiped key bag cache so you must reauthenticate in order to change it). But all of that for consumer-attainable pricing. It doesn't have to be perfect and I'm sure in due time there will be jailbreak-esque attacks. But until then, this is effectively a very high barrier for an attacker that lacks the resources of a nation state (or a smart but bored teenager in a basement these days).
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > It doesn't have to be perfect and I'm sure in due time there will be jailbreak-esque attacks No protection is perfect, and this kind of things are always another layer in a defence-in-depth approach. Just like car locks, the idea is that it becomes enough of a hurdle that someone on a fishing expedition will go look elsewhere. Of course it won't be enough for a determined state actor.
  - bigiain 4y ago
    > On the other hand, it also makes most social time wasting stuff not work, which is what the masses mostly use their phone for anyway. Got any info/links explaining that? Having only read Apple's webpage, it sounds to me like the major problem is slowed down javascript execution? I certainly didn't;t get the impression it's going to shut down all social media apps/websites?
    - comex 4y ago
      It also disables some iMessage features, which could be classified under social, but it doesn’t seem like anything major.
O__________O 4y ago
At the point it puts users at more risk that not, I don’t see this as a step forward; not informing users of the risk of having iCloud enabled is one example. For more of my take on the topic, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436
jorvi 4y ago
I agree with the rest of your comment, but this > Even for a company the size of Apple, putting up $10 million to fund organizations that investigate, expose, and prevent highly targeted cyberattacks isn't pocket change. is kind of funny, as it’s about 1/20000 of their total cash reserves. With 20000 in my savings account, it’d be equivalent to giving 1 dollar to charity. In other words, pocket change :)
- PoignardAzur 4y ago
  It's still ridiculously good by bug bounty standards. Zero-day buyers are going to have a hard time topping that.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    Bounty is $2 million, grant is $10 million. You could easily get more for selling a zero-day likely this than reporting it to Apple. If you combined the risk this is being turned on is reported back to Apple or remotely detectable, combined with a zero day, it would be a goldmine; cover this and other issues in my comments on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436
    - hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
      I like money but something tells me targets of such attacks might end up dead, so it’s more about ethical considerations rather than who pays better. The bounty won’t sway everyone but $2m would sway more people than $1m which would be more than $10k
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  where are the cash reserves documented?
  - zie 4y ago
    see: https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Specifically the 2022 Q2 financial statement(it's a PDF). under "Cash and Cash equivalents" on the 2nd page, you will see: 28,098 That's in millions of dollars(see top of that page for source), so they have 28 Billion USD just laying around. 10M/28098M = 0.0004 so it's 0.04% of their cash.
andrewmcwatters 4y ago
"Silly HN reader, you're just not seeing the big picture." Could you not? You know what people do when they're targeted by state actors? They don't use computers. And if they have to, they air gap.
- astrange 4y ago
  It's true, NSO Group doesn't exist and none of their exploits have ever worked on anyone.
- dangus 4y ago
  It seems like there could be a median area between "in the crosshairs of the KGB" and "I need to avoid off-the-shelf exploits in a specific situation." A great example of this might be visiting a country like China while on business. Straight up going "off the grid" isn't really an option in that scenario.
  - metadat 4y ago
    If you have any security concerns whatsoever, it's ill-advised to bring your primary personal phone in to China, period. They may compel all kinds of things, such as unlocking it or more. KISS.
    - ritchiey 4y ago
      Or Australia. Border agents here can now compel you to hand over your phone and credentials.
    - dangus 4y ago
      This is basically saying "If you have any safety concerns with your motor vehicle, it's safer to just walk to your destination." That's not always practical.
  - jsjohnst 4y ago
    > A great example of this might be visiting a country like China while on business. Straight up going "off the grid" isn't really an option in that scenario. Most corporations who know what they are doing (and some who don’t) send their execs with burner devices when traveling to certain countries on business trips.
dkarl 4y ago
> In Texas, you can sue anyone who aids and abets a woman who attempts to get an abortion for $10,000, which is enough to get someone to trick someone into installing malware on a phone. Anecdata for people who think this is unlikely: my wife had an issue getting unclaimed property back from the state of Texas and hired someone who advertise the ability to help. She turned out to be a bulldog with a ton of knowledge of the necessary bureaucracy. She put hours per week into it on our behalf for months, through many rounds of filing paperwork and then hounding bureaucrats on the phone by telling them exactly how and why we could sue if they ignored it. She did all that for a cut that was a fraction of the $10k abortion bounty. The $10k might seem like a symbolic gesture, but it will spawn a cottage industry of bounty hunters. No doubt most of them will be ideologically excited wannabes who quickly give it up, but some will be dogged and effective and will cultivate an expanding repertoire of skills. It's a terrifying prospect. There will be many, many people who never previously entertained the idea of getting involved in serious criminality who now need protection from the prying eyes of the state and their fellow citizens. To look at it from a cold and opportunistic viewpoint, this could change the public perception of digital privacy from being just for dangerous creepy people to something that everybody should value.
- fastball 4y ago
  Yeah except putting malware on someone's phone is actually illegal, so seems like a pretty bad tradeoff since, ya know, you'd have to mention how you got the data when you sue someone in court.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Police use this sort of tactic (parallel construction) all the time, though: they collect evidence in ways not admissible in court, but use knowledge of that evidence to find new lines of investigation and new evidence that can be admissible in court. Presumably someone could use malware on someone's phone to know who to target with an abortion-related lawsuit, and then use legal forms of investigation to find evidence to prove that they got an abortion.
    - 4y ago
Sebb767 4y ago
> There's a huge gap between Fortune 500 executives, government officials, etc. and regular people in terms of the resources available to them to prevent state-sponsored attackers. It doesn't take much these days to go from a nobody to being on somebody's radar. It's also a question of whether you want that. Anyone can take anti-phishing training, it just takes a lot of time. Want to download a mod for a game? You better have a separate gaming machine with no important data on it and, to be sure, in a separate network. Want to buy a phone? Better drive to a random store, ordering is to dangerous. Sure, it's easy to get on the radar, but avoiding a state-sponsored hack is also a lot of effort. Fortune 500 executives need to put that effort in and they do have the money to make it happen, but for most people, the problem is not the cost.
rmbyrro 4y ago
> putting up $10 million isn't pocket change 10 Million = 0.0027% of Apple's sales in 2021. Equivalent to an Apple developer who made 300K in 2021 donating 8 dollars. If this doesn't classify as pocket change, it's quite close.
- tyingq 4y ago
  Enlightening comparison, though revenue isn't income. If you went with net income, it would be 0.0105% of Apple's 2021 net income. Or $31.80 of $300k instead of $8.
  - rmbyrro 4y ago
    $300k is not the developer net income, in the example
    - tyingq 4y ago
      Other than perhaps taxes, they would be the same. So perhaps it's a $45-$55 equivalent?
      - rmbyrro 4y ago
        The thing is: - You have people whose security depend on you - You say this is a top priority and of ultimate importance (people's lives depend on it) - You make $300K gross income over a year - And you dedicate $50'ish for an entire year to contribute into solving the issue It does look like pocket change to me.
        tyingq 4y ago
        Yes, I agree...I just hate to see revenue used out of context. I can sell $5 bills for $4 and rake in the revenue :)
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Then it’s $200K after taxes. Though now we are discounting the many things Apple can write off and that people worth 8 figures and up can write off and get away with, with a $300K income person or $200K after taxes. It wouldn’t be the same net income regardless.
samstave 4y ago
smoldesu 4y ago
> If you're a woman seeking an abortion in a state where it's illegal or severely restricted, you could be the target of malware from your local or state government or law enforcement. Let's not get in above our heads, here: if the US government wants to know what's on your iPhone, they still have the faculties to retrieve that information. Setting your iPhone in a lockdown mode isn't going to let you escape the purview of government surveillance, and if it did then Apple wouldn't be announcing it today. We're all targets of government malware, and the way they ensure we all keep it installed is simple: they just make Apple and Google write it for them. This pervasive idea that Apple is somehow escaping the jurisdiction of PRISM is pretty hysterical, and it makes me excited for the first Senators to get caught paying for prostitution services with Apple Pay inside Lockdown Mode. The only enemy of "good" in a threat model is the unknown, and Apple makes sure there's plenty of unknown factors in your iPhone. Edit: For all HN loves to rant about the Halloween Documents, you lot seem awfully unfamiliar with the Snowden leaks...
kelnos 4y ago
I have mixed feelings about this. Lockdown Mode basically cripples the phone, feature-wise. It's not quite to the point where I'd (even hyperbolically) say "why don't you just get an old dumb phone instead", but still... The right thing to do would be to redesign the system from the bottom up to actually be secure in the face of vulnerabilities in any of these features that get disabled because they can be dangerous for people. (And maybe Apple is working on this behind the scenes, which will take them years to complete.) But, agreed: let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. It's better to have this option than to not have it, even though it likely creates a super restricted user experience that probably isn't particularly pleasant to use.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  > Lockdown Mode basically cripples the phone, feature-wise. It's not quite to the point where I'd (even hyperbolically) say "why don't you just get an old dumb phone instead", but still... The problem is that phones (of the "dumb"/"feature" variety) are running OSes that don't have nearly the security attention or hardware features related to them as iOS devices. I carry a KaiOS feature phone as my personal phone (when I remember it). Apple pissed me off enough with the CSAM stuff that I wanted to experiment with alternatives, and I've done so. However, I don't pretend KaiOS is particular "hard" against attackers - it's almost certainly not. But neither does it have much of an attack surface. It doesn't even try to render emoji, they're just black rectangles. And neither does it try to, say, render weird old Xerox image formats. I would trust an iOS device with "most of the complex attack surfaces turned off" far more than I'd trust a KaiOS or stripped Android device. You get all the hardware protections, regular OS updates, a bug bounty program focused on this mode, and the smaller attack surface window of Lockdown. I'm incredibly excited by it, because it turns off all the stuff I don't want in a phone anyway. Unfortunately, "crickets on CSAM" is a problem too. If they say they're not going to ship that ill conceived feature, I might move back to iOS. If not, well... I'll probably play with Lockdown mode for a week or two and then go back to the Flip.
  - onethought 4y ago
    If you opt out of/disable iCloud iPhoto Library then CSAM isn't active right? - It applies to iMessages only because iMessages integrates to iPhoto Library. Again, the CSAM "scandal" was actually an improvement of what the other online photo services do (constantly scan your entire library of photos with no controls in place). Just the improvement involved on-device scanning that folks seem allergic to. But you can opt-out, so still better than KaiOS.
Veserv 4y ago
Let’s not let better be the enemy of good either. Better than terrible is still bad and is nowhere near good. It is frankly ridiculous that anybody should believe Apple when they claim to provide even minimal resistance to well-funded determined attackers. Protecting against well-funded determined attackers has been the holy grail of software security since forever and everybody in software security at least claims to be working toward that. Despite that, the prevailing state of “best-in-class” “best-practices” commercial software security is objectively terrible including Apple circa 1 year ago. Are we supposed to believe that Apple, despite abject failure over the last few decades until as recently as the last time they announced security updates to the iPhone, has finally this time, for sure, pinky swear its true, jumped from terrible to the holy grail, or even good, because they said so? No, this is absolute, utter, unequivocal garbage. Their claims are completely unsupported and they should be excoriated for spewing unsubstantiated bullshit that muddies the waters of the actual state of software security and misleads people into believing they are getting a meaningful degree of protection or software security. If they want to make such claims, they should put their money where there mouth is and, instead of certifying iOS to EAL1+ and AVA_VAN.1 as they currently do, they should certify it in “Lockdown Mode” to EAL6-7 and AVA_VAN.5 which actually does certify protection against “high attack potential” attackers such as large organized crime and state-sponsored attackers. At the very least they could certify it to EAL5 and AVA_VAN.4 which certifies protection against “moderate attack potential” attackers. Until they do that, their claims to protect against state-sponsored attackers are complete unverifiable bullshit.
- donw 4y ago
  Especially as Apple is often the "well-funded attacker".
  - Bud 4y ago
    Citation, please?
- saagarjha 4y ago
  First off, calm down. This feature came out today. It's not really clear yet how well it will fare. Second, this feature is a step in the direction of Apple accepting that defending against a well-funded attacker is difficult when providing general-purpose software, so this is still a step in the right direction.
heavyset_go 4y ago
If the state is after you, even low-level state actors, all it takes is a court order or subpoena to compel any of the parties involved with your phone or data to hand over your data or start collecting it. If your threat model includes any level of the US government, and that includes women seeking abortions in states where it is illegal, you cannot rely on US-based company's tech to protect you from the law.
- projectazorian 4y ago
  There are state actors other than the US Government, along with plenty of non-state actors who are willing to use illegal techniques on occasion, and this does increase people's protection against those actors. If you're in a developing country and you engage in activism against some questionable project by the state owned mining company, you're probably not going to get the full force of the NSA directed against you. But your country's domestic intelligence agency may be interested, and they probably only have off the shelf spyware to work with.
- gcanyon 4y ago
  Pretty sure most things are stored encrypted/delivered encrypted only to be decrypted and rendered on your phone. Meaning Apple/your provider have nothing to give up for the hypothetical US government demand.
  - InvertedRhodium 4y ago
    This is incorrect, iCloud backups are deliberately unencrypted. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-id https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... I haven't heard of any changes to this to-date.
    - barsonme 4y ago
      Sure, they’re not E2EE, but stuff like iMessages are E2EE (assuming iCloud backups are turned off so the keys aren’t included in the backup).
    - 4y ago
datavirtue 4y ago
A prominent activist was targeted and her iPhone compromised (owned). She ended up in prison/tortured because of it. Did not look good for Apple. For a company of their means, they had to do something.
- raybb 4y ago
  Are you talking about this case? https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-saudi-womans-iphone-revealed-hacking-around-world-2022-02-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-saudi-womans-iphone-r...
- theshrike79 4y ago
  This was a very expensive hack. These are not the kind people throw away on an abortion case. When you use the hack and it's discovered, it'll get patched and you'll need a new one. These cost 6 figures to acquire in the least.
akira2501 4y ago
The disconnect here is that Apple already monopolizes the devices, the service, and the application distribution platform. Now, they're expecting you to be satisfied with them monopolizing the security controls and monitoring on your phone. We expect so little of our phones with respect to our desktops when we know full well there's no legitimate reason to do so. Particularly now, if you're imagining that one needs security against state level actors.. then the notion that a single vendor is required to simplify the ecosystem and broaden adoption is directly in conflict with this future you have declared we are now in. It's literally the weakest possible model of defense available. This isn't the perfect being the enemy of the good.. this is Apple monopolizing yet another aspect of the platform for themselves at the cost of true innovation.
- noduerme 4y ago
  It's also a handy way to keep their stranglehold on iOS web browsers, forcing all to use webkit. How exactly they turn off JIT compiling and allow any javascript to run at all, I don't really understand, and I don't know what vulnerabilities they must be aware of in Safari's engine that could lead to unsandboxed code execution (although thinking about it, this seems to prove they're aware of something inherently unsafe there). But if their claim is along the lines that all JIT compilers are vulnerable, that's a strong case for never allowing V8 or any other engine in the app store.
  - jquery 4y ago
    This lockdown mode means they can support those other browsers in a non-lockdown mode. All they have to do is have lockdown mode disable all non-webkit browsers.
  - alwillis 4y ago
    But if their claim is along the lines that all JIT compilers are vulnerable, that's a strong case for never allowing V8 or any other engine in the app store. I’m okay with this; I’ve always felt that dealing with the security issues of 3rd party rendering engines and JavaScript implementations is a valid reason to not allow them on iOS. Since Apple is the platform vendor, at the end of the day, if there’s a vulnerability, it’s their responsibility, even if (in a hypothetical future) it’s Google’s or Mozilla’s JIT that allowed the the malware to be installed on a user's device. Of course, since all browsers on iOS use WebKit and JavaScript Core, they all get Lockdown protection for free.
anshumankmr 4y ago
>$10,000, which is enough to get someone to trick someone into installing malware on a phone. People have done far worse for far less.
mlindner 4y ago
> If you're a woman seeking an abortion in a state where it's illegal or severely restricted, you could be the target of malware from your local or state government or law enforcement. In Texas, you can sue anyone who aids and abets a woman who attempts to get an abortion for $10,000, which is enough to get someone to trick someone into installing malware on a phone. Can we stop spreading these lies?
- yourad_io 4y ago
  What is false about this?
  - mlindner 4y ago
    We're ranting around about states doing explicitly illegal things for no reason. These things will never be done. They'd be thrown out by the courts the instant they were attempted.
hulitu 4y ago
> At the end of the day, this is all good news for user privacy and security going forward. What can i say ? Good luck then with your "privacy and security going forward". And remember later, when they knock at your door, that it was for your's and (mostly) their security.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
maybe stupid question, but wasn't apple a part of prism (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...) are these US companies not legally obligated through some clandestine patriot act style laws to enable backdoors - and to deny the existence of these at any cost.
oksi_nimb 4y ago
captainmuon 4y ago
I wonder, why doesn't Apple (and MS, Google, ...) throw all their weight into the ring and lobby for making selling exploits commerically a crime? It should be up there with counterfeighting money or selling nuclear secrets. NSO Group should be on sanction lists. Politicians should be ranting about how dangerous it is that foreign companies and countries can spy on US citizens (instead of what they are usually ranting about). You could wake up one morning, and every billboard in Washington, every newspaper will have ads for this issue. Every representative would be followed around by lobbyists. And Apple could pay it from their coffee money. Now, I get why we don't crack down harder on selling exploits. First, intelligence agencies love NOBUS (No one but us) exploits and believe something like this exists. Second, it is convenient because sometimes foreign intelligence agencies are used to spy where domesitc agencies are not allowed to; and third the US could probably do little (officially) against companies, say, in Israel. But this is totally the kind of issue that you could escalate into a bipartisan national security thing. And it would be an incredible marketing, and security win if Apple could push any stricter legislation in that direction.
- rsync 4y ago
  "I wonder, why doesn't Apple (and MS, Google, ...) throw all their weight into the ring and lobby for making selling exploits commerically a crime?" I would be strongly, strongly opposed to this. It is a clear-cut free speech / first amendment issue. If you don't believe me, just imagine yourself describing the pseudocode of an exploit to someone over the phone - or sketching out the details of a vulnerability in a short note. I believe we won't get to this place because we have the first amendment but I would really love to not waste ten years fighting about it ...
  - captainmuon 4y ago
    I would actually say morally it is clear cut in the opposite direction. Imagine you hack into a company or a government computer and steal secrets. That is clearly illegal. Now imagine you figure out how to do the hack, do all the preparation, and sell it ready to use to somebody. And they are open about the fact that they are selling it to foreign powers. This should definitely be illegal, too. In the physical world, you also probably shouldn't be able to go around and sell instructions how to break into cars or houses. > If you don't believe me, just imagine yourself describing the pseudocode of an exploit to someone over the phone - or sketching out the details of a vulnerability in a short note. I don't see how any of this would be effected. You could still do hacking, security research, you could get bug bounties, report bugs to the vendor, the government, or even disclose them to the public. You just shouldn't be allowed to sell that kind of information to a third party. There are many laws like that right now. In the case of insider trading, you are not allowed to share certain nonpublic information against some benefit with others.
switch007 4y ago
Is there any topic Roe v Wade can't be shoehorned in to?
- bakugo 4y ago
  There is no topic that Americans won't somehow manage to shoehorn unrelated American politics into, no. No matter how little sense it makes.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    Only some Americans - namely, the ones who started the culture war in the first place.
lrvick 4y ago
Let us not gloss over the fact that in China Apple willingly handed over their HSMs to the CCP granting them full control of Apple devices there, even if it means aiding in Uyghur genocide. When it comes down to money, or protecting the freedom or privacy of users, they will choose money. In this case the money is in good PR to help them secure more government contracts. They are playing all sides. I do not feel anyone that needs high freedom, security, and privacy is well served by proprietary walled gardens. Particularly those that only grant holes in the walls to corrupt state actors. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...
gtvwill 4y ago
Lol this is a whole lotta faith based on nothing. Sorry bud Aussie laws gonna puck you here. Your Apple device can be backdoored curtosy of aus laws and apples not allowed to inform you it's happened. If you think lockdown mode gonna prevent this your 100% dreaming. Much lulz y'all should just put less data on your phone if your concerned with others knowing that data.
- Handytinge 4y ago
  Absolutely the Australian government have put in some questionable (bipartisan) security laws in the last few years, and Apple _may_ comply with a request under them (even though it famously hasn't many times). However the Australian government attacking you specifically isn't the only problem this solves.
mkd1964 4y ago
On the other hand, if you're a ballot trafficker, this is good news for you and the non-profits and NGOs abetting you.

hk1337 4y ago

I kind of want to turn it on and leave it on. I'm assuming since it's a "mode" that I can turn it off when I need to, do what I know is legit, then turn back on again.

rmbyrro 4y ago
Might not be as convenient. Probably requires restarting the phone.
- QuantumSeed 4y ago
  As soon as you enable lockdown mode in iOS 16 Beta 3 it reboots the phone
- Syonyk 4y ago
  If you're in the habit of worrying about persistent malware on your device, "regular restarts" are one of the best things you can do. Much of the low interaction malware is only persistent in memory, so a reboot will clear it until they get their claws back into you. Depending on what the attack path is, that may take some while - and using those attacks is still somewhat risky. "Having to re-pwn a phone every 6 hours" is a lot more risky to an attacker than "someone who never reboots their phone and never updates it."
  - jquery 4y ago
    Yes. Also, regularly doing a factory reset is another good hygiene habit to have, this will clear the more rare but persistent forms of malware, often brought on board by legitimate software you installed a long time ago but no longer use.
kelnos 4y ago
I would assume that disabling Lockdown Mode means wiping the phone to factory condition. Otherwise Lockdown Mode is only as secure as whatever PIN or password you use to disable it, which isn't particularly secure at all.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  Yes, but if an attacker has physical access and unlimited time, you've probably lost anyway. What this seems to be focused on are the "remote zero-click/one-click" vulnerabilities we've seen, in which either a message is delivered that never shows up but installs a backdoor hook, or a website can deliver a malware package to a particular user and install the backdoor hook without notifications. It sounds like it does improve some of the physical security features, which should help reduce attack surface, but I wouldn't trust any bit of consumer electronics against a sustained physical attack by a sufficiently motivated adversary.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  Turning off Lockdown mode restarts the device but does not wipe it.
- bigiain 4y ago
  Sounds to me like it's targeting all the zero and one click exploits we've heard about over the last few years. Not having SMS/iMessage download and "parse" random files/formats and tightening up Javascript attack surface to not include JIT optimisations would probably have helped Jamal Kashoggi and his friends/contacts. Even with this, there's not very much you can do against a state level actor who had physical control of your device and you, and a $5 wrench. Even without having you and being prepared to use violence, a sufficiently motivated state actor will probably get into your device anyway - Apple didn't6 cave to a judge when the FBI wanted them to break every iPhone user's security to get into the San Bernadino shooter's phone, but they didn't get to set a precedent there because someone else broke into that phone for the FBI anyway and they dropped that case...
oneplane 4y ago
The thing with Lockdown Mode is that it shifts the trade-off between functionality and security significantly away from functionality. This is an acceptable side-effect of intentionally disabling attack surface that isn't strictly required to have a useful phone. On the other hand, it also makes most social time wasting stuff not work, which is what the masses mostly use their phone for anyway. This really is a mode designed for those who really desperately need it, and it really is implemented in a strong enough way to be useful (hardware root of trust, no-drive by changes since it requires a reboot with a wiped key bag cache so you must reauthenticate in order to change it). But all of that for consumer-attainable pricing. It doesn't have to be perfect and I'm sure in due time there will be jailbreak-esque attacks. But until then, this is effectively a very high barrier for an attacker that lacks the resources of a nation state (or a smart but bored teenager in a basement these days).
- kergonath 4y ago
  > It doesn't have to be perfect and I'm sure in due time there will be jailbreak-esque attacks No protection is perfect, and this kind of things are always another layer in a defence-in-depth approach. Just like car locks, the idea is that it becomes enough of a hurdle that someone on a fishing expedition will go look elsewhere. Of course it won't be enough for a determined state actor.
- bigiain 4y ago
  > On the other hand, it also makes most social time wasting stuff not work, which is what the masses mostly use their phone for anyway. Got any info/links explaining that? Having only read Apple's webpage, it sounds to me like the major problem is slowed down javascript execution? I certainly didn't;t get the impression it's going to shut down all social media apps/websites?
  - comex 4y ago
    It also disables some iMessage features, which could be classified under social, but it doesn’t seem like anything major.

O__________O 4y ago

At the point it puts users at more risk that not, I don’t see this as a step forward; not informing users of the risk of having iCloud enabled is one example. For more of my take on the topic, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436

jorvi 4y ago

I agree with the rest of your comment, but this > Even for a company the size of Apple, putting up $10 million to fund organizations that investigate, expose, and prevent highly targeted cyberattacks isn't pocket change. is kind of funny, as it’s about 1/20000 of their total cash reserves. With 20000 in my savings account, it’d be equivalent to giving 1 dollar to charity. In other words, pocket change :)

PoignardAzur 4y ago
It's still ridiculously good by bug bounty standards. Zero-day buyers are going to have a hard time topping that.
- O__________O 4y ago
  Bounty is $2 million, grant is $10 million. You could easily get more for selling a zero-day likely this than reporting it to Apple. If you combined the risk this is being turned on is reported back to Apple or remotely detectable, combined with a zero day, it would be a goldmine; cover this and other issues in my comments on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006436
  - hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
    I like money but something tells me targets of such attacks might end up dead, so it’s more about ethical considerations rather than who pays better. The bounty won’t sway everyone but $2m would sway more people than $1m which would be more than $10k
jjtheblunt 4y ago
where are the cash reserves documented?
- zie 4y ago
  see: https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Specifically the 2022 Q2 financial statement(it's a PDF). under "Cash and Cash equivalents" on the 2nd page, you will see: 28,098 That's in millions of dollars(see top of that page for source), so they have 28 Billion USD just laying around. 10M/28098M = 0.0004 so it's 0.04% of their cash.

andrewmcwatters 4y ago

"Silly HN reader, you're just not seeing the big picture." Could you not? You know what people do when they're targeted by state actors? They don't use computers. And if they have to, they air gap.

astrange 4y ago
It's true, NSO Group doesn't exist and none of their exploits have ever worked on anyone.
dangus 4y ago
It seems like there could be a median area between "in the crosshairs of the KGB" and "I need to avoid off-the-shelf exploits in a specific situation." A great example of this might be visiting a country like China while on business. Straight up going "off the grid" isn't really an option in that scenario.
- metadat 4y ago
  If you have any security concerns whatsoever, it's ill-advised to bring your primary personal phone in to China, period. They may compel all kinds of things, such as unlocking it or more. KISS.
  - ritchiey 4y ago
    Or Australia. Border agents here can now compel you to hand over your phone and credentials.
  - dangus 4y ago
    This is basically saying "If you have any safety concerns with your motor vehicle, it's safer to just walk to your destination." That's not always practical.
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > A great example of this might be visiting a country like China while on business. Straight up going "off the grid" isn't really an option in that scenario. Most corporations who know what they are doing (and some who don’t) send their execs with burner devices when traveling to certain countries on business trips.

dkarl 4y ago

> In Texas, you can sue anyone who aids and abets a woman who attempts to get an abortion for $10,000, which is enough to get someone to trick someone into installing malware on a phone. Anecdata for people who think this is unlikely: my wife had an issue getting unclaimed property back from the state of Texas and hired someone who advertise the ability to help. She turned out to be a bulldog with a ton of knowledge of the necessary bureaucracy. She put hours per week into it on our behalf for months, through many rounds of filing paperwork and then hounding bureaucrats on the phone by telling them exactly how and why we could sue if they ignored it. She did all that for a cut that was a fraction of the $10k abortion bounty. The $10k might seem like a symbolic gesture, but it will spawn a cottage industry of bounty hunters. No doubt most of them will be ideologically excited wannabes who quickly give it up, but some will be dogged and effective and will cultivate an expanding repertoire of skills. It's a terrifying prospect. There will be many, many people who never previously entertained the idea of getting involved in serious criminality who now need protection from the prying eyes of the state and their fellow citizens. To look at it from a cold and opportunistic viewpoint, this could change the public perception of digital privacy from being just for dangerous creepy people to something that everybody should value.

fastball 4y ago
Yeah except putting malware on someone's phone is actually illegal, so seems like a pretty bad tradeoff since, ya know, you'd have to mention how you got the data when you sue someone in court.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Police use this sort of tactic (parallel construction) all the time, though: they collect evidence in ways not admissible in court, but use knowledge of that evidence to find new lines of investigation and new evidence that can be admissible in court. Presumably someone could use malware on someone's phone to know who to target with an abortion-related lawsuit, and then use legal forms of investigation to find evidence to prove that they got an abortion.
  - 4y ago

Sebb767 4y ago

> There's a huge gap between Fortune 500 executives, government officials, etc. and regular people in terms of the resources available to them to prevent state-sponsored attackers. It doesn't take much these days to go from a nobody to being on somebody's radar. It's also a question of whether you want that. Anyone can take anti-phishing training, it just takes a lot of time. Want to download a mod for a game? You better have a separate gaming machine with no important data on it and, to be sure, in a separate network. Want to buy a phone? Better drive to a random store, ordering is to dangerous. Sure, it's easy to get on the radar, but avoiding a state-sponsored hack is also a lot of effort. Fortune 500 executives need to put that effort in and they do have the money to make it happen, but for most people, the problem is not the cost.

rmbyrro 4y ago

> putting up $10 million isn't pocket change 10 Million = 0.0027% of Apple's sales in 2021. Equivalent to an Apple developer who made 300K in 2021 donating 8 dollars. If this doesn't classify as pocket change, it's quite close.

tyingq 4y ago
Enlightening comparison, though revenue isn't income. If you went with net income, it would be 0.0105% of Apple's 2021 net income. Or $31.80 of $300k instead of $8.
- rmbyrro 4y ago
  $300k is not the developer net income, in the example
  - tyingq 4y ago
    Other than perhaps taxes, they would be the same. So perhaps it's a $45-$55 equivalent?
    - rmbyrro 4y ago
      The thing is: - You have people whose security depend on you - You say this is a top priority and of ultimate importance (people's lives depend on it) - You make $300K gross income over a year - And you dedicate $50'ish for an entire year to contribute into solving the issue It does look like pocket change to me.
      - tyingq 4y ago
        Yes, I agree...I just hate to see revenue used out of context. I can sell $5 bills for $4 and rake in the revenue :)
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Then it’s $200K after taxes. Though now we are discounting the many things Apple can write off and that people worth 8 figures and up can write off and get away with, with a $300K income person or $200K after taxes. It wouldn’t be the same net income regardless.

samstave 4y ago

smoldesu 4y ago

> If you're a woman seeking an abortion in a state where it's illegal or severely restricted, you could be the target of malware from your local or state government or law enforcement. Let's not get in above our heads, here: if the US government wants to know what's on your iPhone, they still have the faculties to retrieve that information. Setting your iPhone in a lockdown mode isn't going to let you escape the purview of government surveillance, and if it did then Apple wouldn't be announcing it today. We're all targets of government malware, and the way they ensure we all keep it installed is simple: they just make Apple and Google write it for them. This pervasive idea that Apple is somehow escaping the jurisdiction of PRISM is pretty hysterical, and it makes me excited for the first Senators to get caught paying for prostitution services with Apple Pay inside Lockdown Mode. The only enemy of "good" in a threat model is the unknown, and Apple makes sure there's plenty of unknown factors in your iPhone. Edit: For all HN loves to rant about the Halloween Documents, you lot seem awfully unfamiliar with the Snowden leaks...

kelnos 4y ago

I have mixed feelings about this. Lockdown Mode basically cripples the phone, feature-wise. It's not quite to the point where I'd (even hyperbolically) say "why don't you just get an old dumb phone instead", but still... The right thing to do would be to redesign the system from the bottom up to actually be secure in the face of vulnerabilities in any of these features that get disabled because they can be dangerous for people. (And maybe Apple is working on this behind the scenes, which will take them years to complete.) But, agreed: let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. It's better to have this option than to not have it, even though it likely creates a super restricted user experience that probably isn't particularly pleasant to use.

Syonyk 4y ago
> Lockdown Mode basically cripples the phone, feature-wise. It's not quite to the point where I'd (even hyperbolically) say "why don't you just get an old dumb phone instead", but still... The problem is that phones (of the "dumb"/"feature" variety) are running OSes that don't have nearly the security attention or hardware features related to them as iOS devices. I carry a KaiOS feature phone as my personal phone (when I remember it). Apple pissed me off enough with the CSAM stuff that I wanted to experiment with alternatives, and I've done so. However, I don't pretend KaiOS is particular "hard" against attackers - it's almost certainly not. But neither does it have much of an attack surface. It doesn't even try to render emoji, they're just black rectangles. And neither does it try to, say, render weird old Xerox image formats. I would trust an iOS device with "most of the complex attack surfaces turned off" far more than I'd trust a KaiOS or stripped Android device. You get all the hardware protections, regular OS updates, a bug bounty program focused on this mode, and the smaller attack surface window of Lockdown. I'm incredibly excited by it, because it turns off all the stuff I don't want in a phone anyway. Unfortunately, "crickets on CSAM" is a problem too. If they say they're not going to ship that ill conceived feature, I might move back to iOS. If not, well... I'll probably play with Lockdown mode for a week or two and then go back to the Flip.
- onethought 4y ago
  If you opt out of/disable iCloud iPhoto Library then CSAM isn't active right? - It applies to iMessages only because iMessages integrates to iPhoto Library. Again, the CSAM "scandal" was actually an improvement of what the other online photo services do (constantly scan your entire library of photos with no controls in place). Just the improvement involved on-device scanning that folks seem allergic to. But you can opt-out, so still better than KaiOS.

Veserv 4y ago

Let’s not let better be the enemy of good either. Better than terrible is still bad and is nowhere near good. It is frankly ridiculous that anybody should believe Apple when they claim to provide even minimal resistance to well-funded determined attackers. Protecting against well-funded determined attackers has been the holy grail of software security since forever and everybody in software security at least claims to be working toward that. Despite that, the prevailing state of “best-in-class” “best-practices” commercial software security is objectively terrible including Apple circa 1 year ago. Are we supposed to believe that Apple, despite abject failure over the last few decades until as recently as the last time they announced security updates to the iPhone, has finally this time, for sure, pinky swear its true, jumped from terrible to the holy grail, or even good, because they said so? No, this is absolute, utter, unequivocal garbage. Their claims are completely unsupported and they should be excoriated for spewing unsubstantiated bullshit that muddies the waters of the actual state of software security and misleads people into believing they are getting a meaningful degree of protection or software security. If they want to make such claims, they should put their money where there mouth is and, instead of certifying iOS to EAL1+ and AVA_VAN.1 as they currently do, they should certify it in “Lockdown Mode” to EAL6-7 and AVA_VAN.5 which actually does certify protection against “high attack potential” attackers such as large organized crime and state-sponsored attackers. At the very least they could certify it to EAL5 and AVA_VAN.4 which certifies protection against “moderate attack potential” attackers. Until they do that, their claims to protect against state-sponsored attackers are complete unverifiable bullshit.

donw 4y ago
Especially as Apple is often the "well-funded attacker".
- Bud 4y ago
  Citation, please?
saagarjha 4y ago
First off, calm down. This feature came out today. It's not really clear yet how well it will fare. Second, this feature is a step in the direction of Apple accepting that defending against a well-funded attacker is difficult when providing general-purpose software, so this is still a step in the right direction.

heavyset_go 4y ago

If the state is after you, even low-level state actors, all it takes is a court order or subpoena to compel any of the parties involved with your phone or data to hand over your data or start collecting it. If your threat model includes any level of the US government, and that includes women seeking abortions in states where it is illegal, you cannot rely on US-based company's tech to protect you from the law.

projectazorian 4y ago
There are state actors other than the US Government, along with plenty of non-state actors who are willing to use illegal techniques on occasion, and this does increase people's protection against those actors. If you're in a developing country and you engage in activism against some questionable project by the state owned mining company, you're probably not going to get the full force of the NSA directed against you. But your country's domestic intelligence agency may be interested, and they probably only have off the shelf spyware to work with.
gcanyon 4y ago
Pretty sure most things are stored encrypted/delivered encrypted only to be decrypted and rendered on your phone. Meaning Apple/your provider have nothing to give up for the hypothetical US government demand.
- InvertedRhodium 4y ago
  This is incorrect, iCloud backups are deliberately unencrypted. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-id https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... I haven't heard of any changes to this to-date.
  - barsonme 4y ago
    Sure, they’re not E2EE, but stuff like iMessages are E2EE (assuming iCloud backups are turned off so the keys aren’t included in the backup).
  - 4y ago

datavirtue 4y ago

A prominent activist was targeted and her iPhone compromised (owned). She ended up in prison/tortured because of it. Did not look good for Apple. For a company of their means, they had to do something.

raybb 4y ago
Are you talking about this case? https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-saudi-womans-iphone-revealed-hacking-around-world-2022-02-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-saudi-womans-iphone-r...
theshrike79 4y ago
This was a very expensive hack. These are not the kind people throw away on an abortion case. When you use the hack and it's discovered, it'll get patched and you'll need a new one. These cost 6 figures to acquire in the least.

akira2501 4y ago

The disconnect here is that Apple already monopolizes the devices, the service, and the application distribution platform. Now, they're expecting you to be satisfied with them monopolizing the security controls and monitoring on your phone. We expect so little of our phones with respect to our desktops when we know full well there's no legitimate reason to do so. Particularly now, if you're imagining that one needs security against state level actors.. then the notion that a single vendor is required to simplify the ecosystem and broaden adoption is directly in conflict with this future you have declared we are now in. It's literally the weakest possible model of defense available. This isn't the perfect being the enemy of the good.. this is Apple monopolizing yet another aspect of the platform for themselves at the cost of true innovation.

noduerme 4y ago
It's also a handy way to keep their stranglehold on iOS web browsers, forcing all to use webkit. How exactly they turn off JIT compiling and allow any javascript to run at all, I don't really understand, and I don't know what vulnerabilities they must be aware of in Safari's engine that could lead to unsandboxed code execution (although thinking about it, this seems to prove they're aware of something inherently unsafe there). But if their claim is along the lines that all JIT compilers are vulnerable, that's a strong case for never allowing V8 or any other engine in the app store.
- jquery 4y ago
  This lockdown mode means they can support those other browsers in a non-lockdown mode. All they have to do is have lockdown mode disable all non-webkit browsers.
- alwillis 4y ago
  But if their claim is along the lines that all JIT compilers are vulnerable, that's a strong case for never allowing V8 or any other engine in the app store. I’m okay with this; I’ve always felt that dealing with the security issues of 3rd party rendering engines and JavaScript implementations is a valid reason to not allow them on iOS. Since Apple is the platform vendor, at the end of the day, if there’s a vulnerability, it’s their responsibility, even if (in a hypothetical future) it’s Google’s or Mozilla’s JIT that allowed the the malware to be installed on a user's device. Of course, since all browsers on iOS use WebKit and JavaScript Core, they all get Lockdown protection for free.

anshumankmr 4y ago

>$10,000, which is enough to get someone to trick someone into installing malware on a phone. People have done far worse for far less.

mlindner 4y ago

> If you're a woman seeking an abortion in a state where it's illegal or severely restricted, you could be the target of malware from your local or state government or law enforcement. In Texas, you can sue anyone who aids and abets a woman who attempts to get an abortion for $10,000, which is enough to get someone to trick someone into installing malware on a phone. Can we stop spreading these lies?

yourad_io 4y ago
What is false about this?
- mlindner 4y ago
  We're ranting around about states doing explicitly illegal things for no reason. These things will never be done. They'd be thrown out by the courts the instant they were attempted.

hulitu 4y ago

> At the end of the day, this is all good news for user privacy and security going forward. What can i say ? Good luck then with your "privacy and security going forward". And remember later, when they knock at your door, that it was for your's and (mostly) their security.

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

maybe stupid question, but wasn't apple a part of prism (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...) are these US companies not legally obligated through some clandestine patriot act style laws to enable backdoors - and to deny the existence of these at any cost.

oksi_nimb 4y ago

captainmuon 4y ago

I wonder, why doesn't Apple (and MS, Google, ...) throw all their weight into the ring and lobby for making selling exploits commerically a crime? It should be up there with counterfeighting money or selling nuclear secrets. NSO Group should be on sanction lists. Politicians should be ranting about how dangerous it is that foreign companies and countries can spy on US citizens (instead of what they are usually ranting about). You could wake up one morning, and every billboard in Washington, every newspaper will have ads for this issue. Every representative would be followed around by lobbyists. And Apple could pay it from their coffee money. Now, I get why we don't crack down harder on selling exploits. First, intelligence agencies love NOBUS (No one but us) exploits and believe something like this exists. Second, it is convenient because sometimes foreign intelligence agencies are used to spy where domesitc agencies are not allowed to; and third the US could probably do little (officially) against companies, say, in Israel. But this is totally the kind of issue that you could escalate into a bipartisan national security thing. And it would be an incredible marketing, and security win if Apple could push any stricter legislation in that direction.

rsync 4y ago
"I wonder, why doesn't Apple (and MS, Google, ...) throw all their weight into the ring and lobby for making selling exploits commerically a crime?" I would be strongly, strongly opposed to this. It is a clear-cut free speech / first amendment issue. If you don't believe me, just imagine yourself describing the pseudocode of an exploit to someone over the phone - or sketching out the details of a vulnerability in a short note. I believe we won't get to this place because we have the first amendment but I would really love to not waste ten years fighting about it ...
- captainmuon 4y ago
  I would actually say morally it is clear cut in the opposite direction. Imagine you hack into a company or a government computer and steal secrets. That is clearly illegal. Now imagine you figure out how to do the hack, do all the preparation, and sell it ready to use to somebody. And they are open about the fact that they are selling it to foreign powers. This should definitely be illegal, too. In the physical world, you also probably shouldn't be able to go around and sell instructions how to break into cars or houses. > If you don't believe me, just imagine yourself describing the pseudocode of an exploit to someone over the phone - or sketching out the details of a vulnerability in a short note. I don't see how any of this would be effected. You could still do hacking, security research, you could get bug bounties, report bugs to the vendor, the government, or even disclose them to the public. You just shouldn't be allowed to sell that kind of information to a third party. There are many laws like that right now. In the case of insider trading, you are not allowed to share certain nonpublic information against some benefit with others.

switch007 4y ago

Is there any topic Roe v Wade can't be shoehorned in to?

bakugo 4y ago
There is no topic that Americans won't somehow manage to shoehorn unrelated American politics into, no. No matter how little sense it makes.
- throw10920 4y ago
  Only some Americans - namely, the ones who started the culture war in the first place.

lrvick 4y ago

Let us not gloss over the fact that in China Apple willingly handed over their HSMs to the CCP granting them full control of Apple devices there, even if it means aiding in Uyghur genocide. When it comes down to money, or protecting the freedom or privacy of users, they will choose money. In this case the money is in good PR to help them secure more government contracts. They are playing all sides. I do not feel anyone that needs high freedom, security, and privacy is well served by proprietary walled gardens. Particularly those that only grant holes in the walls to corrupt state actors. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...

gtvwill 4y ago

Lol this is a whole lotta faith based on nothing. Sorry bud Aussie laws gonna puck you here. Your Apple device can be backdoored curtosy of aus laws and apples not allowed to inform you it's happened. If you think lockdown mode gonna prevent this your 100% dreaming. Much lulz y'all should just put less data on your phone if your concerned with others knowing that data.

Handytinge 4y ago
Absolutely the Australian government have put in some questionable (bipartisan) security laws in the last few years, and Apple _may_ comply with a request under them (even though it famously hasn't many times). However the Australian government attacking you specifically isn't the only problem this solves.

mkd1964 4y ago

On the other hand, if you're a ballot trafficker, this is good news for you and the non-profits and NGOs abetting you.