4 ms·

I think your memory of the Prism program is inaccurate.

1101010010 4y ago
> With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants... You're welcome to dispute these facts based on technical merit or other qualifying evidence, keeping in mind the obvious advancements in technology over the past decade, as well as societies' increased reliance on the proliferated devices.
- quesera 4y ago
  Apple was not a participant in Prism. Neither was Google. Consequently they are not complicit. Smartphones concentrate so much personal data in a single inadequately-protected device. The severity of vulnerabilities is greatly magnified, and they are "juicy targets", as we say in the industry, for attackers of all kinds. If that's your argument, then you're on solid ground. If you believe that your phone is a tool of the NSA, then you're just hypothesizing a worst case scenario, unsupported by evidence.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    > If you believe that your phone is a tool of the NSA My phone is a tool of the NSA. The "worst case scenario" you're citing is backdoor access that exists on billions of phones and has been used millions of times. We are firmly in the age of warrentless surveillance. The original claim was that iOS is "spyware for the masses". If you cannot deny that the ability to snoop on iPhones exists, I don't see a path for refuting it.
    - quesera 4y ago
      There is no evidence that NSA has backdoor access to iOS. Original claim was also that Apple was complicit in this spying. There is also no evidence of this. > If you cannot deny that the ability to snoop on iPhones exists, I don't see a path for refuting it. OK, but keep going with this idea. Choosing to believe the thing not in evidence decreases your net understanding of the world. E.g. You cannot deny the possibility of the existence of a supreme being. I might argue that there is no requirement for the existence of a supreme being to explain any known phenomena, and plenty of evidence suggesting the opposite. Further, speculating the positive existence has a cost, and it results in an increase in overall uncertainty. It's a leap of conjecture that takes you to a place of less knowledge. This is a useful tool for some exercises! Yes, it's possible that NSA, or your older sibling, has backdoor access to iOS. And if your threat model includes actors you believe might have such capabilities, then it's a reasonable security posture to assume compromise, or the risk of compromise. Call it an abundance of caution. It is still an extraordinary claim, it isn't necessary to explain any known facts, and it is contradicted by many pieces of evidence. But no honest person can definitively refute it -- like literally no human can be certain it is not true (some could be certain that it is true). So if you believe your soul hangs in the balance, then by all means go through the motions, and we hope to see you on Sunday!
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        > But no honest person can definitively refute it So there's the concession. All this boils down to the fact that you cannot hold Apple responsible or prove that they don't spy on you or sell backdoors to the CCP. Do you want to arm wrestle for it, or would you rather try to discredit the Snowden leaks?
        quesera 4y ago
        AOSP addresses part of this concern, but see also baseband firmware, repeatable builds, connected services, kernel exploits, etc ad nauseam. Proving a negative is notoriously difficult. If you've decided as a matter of faith that Apple is malevolent, then it is possible to interpret any news as corroborative of those beliefs. If you weigh the evidence objectively, things are far less clear. If you choose to err on the side of caution, then sure absolutely lean into the healthy paranoia (I do), but it makes more sense to evangelize the safer approach, than to preach against those you perceive (without evidence) as wicked. Apple is not perfect, and some of their misses are mind-boggling. All other vendors too. Snowden proved that NSA will do what NSA can do (we all suspected this). He did not prove that Apple (or Google) helped beyond their legal obligations. He helped Apple and Google find and improve some of their failures. No one here is talking about the CCP!

> With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants... You're welcome to dispute these facts based on technical merit or other qualifying evidence, keeping in mind the obvious advancements in technology over the past decade, as well as societies' increased reliance on the proliferated devices.

quesera 4y ago
Apple was not a participant in Prism. Neither was Google. Consequently they are not complicit. Smartphones concentrate so much personal data in a single inadequately-protected device. The severity of vulnerabilities is greatly magnified, and they are "juicy targets", as we say in the industry, for attackers of all kinds. If that's your argument, then you're on solid ground. If you believe that your phone is a tool of the NSA, then you're just hypothesizing a worst case scenario, unsupported by evidence.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- smoldesu 4y ago
  > If you believe that your phone is a tool of the NSA My phone is a tool of the NSA. The "worst case scenario" you're citing is backdoor access that exists on billions of phones and has been used millions of times. We are firmly in the age of warrentless surveillance. The original claim was that iOS is "spyware for the masses". If you cannot deny that the ability to snoop on iPhones exists, I don't see a path for refuting it.
  - quesera 4y ago
    There is no evidence that NSA has backdoor access to iOS. Original claim was also that Apple was complicit in this spying. There is also no evidence of this. > If you cannot deny that the ability to snoop on iPhones exists, I don't see a path for refuting it. OK, but keep going with this idea. Choosing to believe the thing not in evidence decreases your net understanding of the world. E.g. You cannot deny the possibility of the existence of a supreme being. I might argue that there is no requirement for the existence of a supreme being to explain any known phenomena, and plenty of evidence suggesting the opposite. Further, speculating the positive existence has a cost, and it results in an increase in overall uncertainty. It's a leap of conjecture that takes you to a place of less knowledge. This is a useful tool for some exercises! Yes, it's possible that NSA, or your older sibling, has backdoor access to iOS. And if your threat model includes actors you believe might have such capabilities, then it's a reasonable security posture to assume compromise, or the risk of compromise. Call it an abundance of caution. It is still an extraordinary claim, it isn't necessary to explain any known facts, and it is contradicted by many pieces of evidence. But no honest person can definitively refute it -- like literally no human can be certain it is not true (some could be certain that it is true). So if you believe your soul hangs in the balance, then by all means go through the motions, and we hope to see you on Sunday!
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      > But no honest person can definitively refute it So there's the concession. All this boils down to the fact that you cannot hold Apple responsible or prove that they don't spy on you or sell backdoors to the CCP. Do you want to arm wrestle for it, or would you rather try to discredit the Snowden leaks?
      - quesera 4y ago
        AOSP addresses part of this concern, but see also baseband firmware, repeatable builds, connected services, kernel exploits, etc ad nauseam. Proving a negative is notoriously difficult. If you've decided as a matter of faith that Apple is malevolent, then it is possible to interpret any news as corroborative of those beliefs. If you weigh the evidence objectively, things are far less clear. If you choose to err on the side of caution, then sure absolutely lean into the healthy paranoia (I do), but it makes more sense to evangelize the safer approach, than to preach against those you perceive (without evidence) as wicked. Apple is not perfect, and some of their misses are mind-boggling. All other vendors too. Snowden proved that NSA will do what NSA can do (we all suspected this). He did not prove that Apple (or Google) helped beyond their legal obligations. He helped Apple and Google find and improve some of their failures. No one here is talking about the CCP!