4 ms·

Their OS may give them that capability, or it may not. There is no way to know.

lapcat 3y ago
There actually is a way to know. People can and do reverse engineer the code on device. I've done it myself many times. I would also note that unless you compile an open source project yourself, there's no guarantee that the compiled product you download from an open source project actually came from the publicly available source. If you want to get all conspiratorial, I suggest that you're not conspiratorial enough. ;-)
- smoldesu 3y ago
  If Apple is somehow dumb enough to leave an unscrubbed/unfuzzed backdoor in their shipping version of iOS, I'd almost be inclined to call it a red herring. It stands a reasonably safe assumption that Apple has been compelled to add obfuscated adversarial code to iOS, just as you can assume BitLocker is about as secure as a Masterlock made out of Swiss Cheese.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    No, it's not a safe assumption, and it's not clear that you even know what you're talking about, technically. You use terms like "unscrubbed", "unfuzzed", "obfuscated", but what do you think they mean exactly? For example, how does "unfuzzed" relate, if at all, to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzing
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      I think the core conclusion is perfectly sound. Apple is a capable company - they would not let the user discover malicious code unless they wanted you to find it. They intend for people to reverse-engineer their systems and run it through IDA, Ghidra and Cutter. Tools exist to mitigate that discoverability, and I think it's foolish to assume they don't use them. The only safe assumption seems to be that they are hiding something. Proving the contrary requires tools we may never have.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > Apple is a capable company - they would not let the user discover malicious code unless they wanted you to find it. Apple is not capable of magic, or the impossible. > Tools exist to mitigate that discoverability Citation needed. > The only safe assumption seems to be that they are hiding something. Proving the contrary requires tools we may never have. You can assume whatever you want, but with no evidence whatsoever, I wouldn't call it "safe", I'd call it "irrational". Also, you didn't answer my question, which suggests that I was right about your not knowing what you were talking about.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > Citation needed. There are hundreds of commercial and open methods for obfuscating a program during compilation. Since Apple controls Ring 0 they can also obfuscate syscalls and network traffic if they want. I'd ask you if I'm wrong about this, but you already seem convinced. > You can assume whatever you want, but with no evidence whatsoever, I wouldn't call it "safe", I'd call it "irrational". It's perfectly rational. Apple already does this in China. We know the CIA, FBI and NSA have a common interest in weakening all domestic cryptography. Taking Apple at face value when so many other FAANG companies have been embarrassed by PRISM revelations is a fool's decision. It will be irrational once we know for certain that Apple doesn't aid spying on their users. Until then, I figure I'm a safe skeptic. Pending evidence, both of our claims are equally substantiated. Only the uninvested parties have nothing to lose here, though.
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > We know the CIA, FBI and NSA have a common interest in weakening all domestic cryptography. To the extent that the CIA, NSA, or FBI have an interest in weakening cryptography, it applies at least as strongly (more strongly for most of them) to foreign cryptography, so I’d probably drop the modifier “domestic” from that sentence.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        You're not wrong about that. The history of their interference with domestic corporations is why I add that in, though. They do have an interest in weakening all cryptography, but the ones they're best-suited to compromise are the ones relying on domestic trust.
- lrvick 3y ago
  You do not need to compile it yourself. The build just needs to be deterministic and compiled by multiple independent parties you trust. This is the entire point of the reproducible builds project. Participating projects make themselves immune from a single release engineer executing whatever code they want on end clients.

There actually is a way to know. People can and do reverse engineer the code on device. I've done it myself many times. I would also note that unless you compile an open source project yourself, there's no guarantee that the compiled product you download from an open source project actually came from the publicly available source. If you want to get all conspiratorial, I suggest that you're not conspiratorial enough. ;-)

smoldesu 3y ago
If Apple is somehow dumb enough to leave an unscrubbed/unfuzzed backdoor in their shipping version of iOS, I'd almost be inclined to call it a red herring. It stands a reasonably safe assumption that Apple has been compelled to add obfuscated adversarial code to iOS, just as you can assume BitLocker is about as secure as a Masterlock made out of Swiss Cheese.
- lapcat 3y ago
  No, it's not a safe assumption, and it's not clear that you even know what you're talking about, technically. You use terms like "unscrubbed", "unfuzzed", "obfuscated", but what do you think they mean exactly? For example, how does "unfuzzed" relate, if at all, to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzing
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    I think the core conclusion is perfectly sound. Apple is a capable company - they would not let the user discover malicious code unless they wanted you to find it. They intend for people to reverse-engineer their systems and run it through IDA, Ghidra and Cutter. Tools exist to mitigate that discoverability, and I think it's foolish to assume they don't use them. The only safe assumption seems to be that they are hiding something. Proving the contrary requires tools we may never have.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > Apple is a capable company - they would not let the user discover malicious code unless they wanted you to find it. Apple is not capable of magic, or the impossible. > Tools exist to mitigate that discoverability Citation needed. > The only safe assumption seems to be that they are hiding something. Proving the contrary requires tools we may never have. You can assume whatever you want, but with no evidence whatsoever, I wouldn't call it "safe", I'd call it "irrational". Also, you didn't answer my question, which suggests that I was right about your not knowing what you were talking about.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        > Citation needed. There are hundreds of commercial and open methods for obfuscating a program during compilation. Since Apple controls Ring 0 they can also obfuscate syscalls and network traffic if they want. I'd ask you if I'm wrong about this, but you already seem convinced. > You can assume whatever you want, but with no evidence whatsoever, I wouldn't call it "safe", I'd call it "irrational". It's perfectly rational. Apple already does this in China. We know the CIA, FBI and NSA have a common interest in weakening all domestic cryptography. Taking Apple at face value when so many other FAANG companies have been embarrassed by PRISM revelations is a fool's decision. It will be irrational once we know for certain that Apple doesn't aid spying on their users. Until then, I figure I'm a safe skeptic. Pending evidence, both of our claims are equally substantiated. Only the uninvested parties have nothing to lose here, though.
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > We know the CIA, FBI and NSA have a common interest in weakening all domestic cryptography. To the extent that the CIA, NSA, or FBI have an interest in weakening cryptography, it applies at least as strongly (more strongly for most of them) to foreign cryptography, so I’d probably drop the modifier “domestic” from that sentence.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        You're not wrong about that. The history of their interference with domestic corporations is why I add that in, though. They do have an interest in weakening all cryptography, but the ones they're best-suited to compromise are the ones relying on domestic trust.
lrvick 3y ago
You do not need to compile it yourself. The build just needs to be deterministic and compiled by multiple independent parties you trust. This is the entire point of the reproducible builds project. Participating projects make themselves immune from a single release engineer executing whatever code they want on end clients.