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> Locked devices are extremely risky for any kind of resistance. Tell that to the surveillance states that hate your iPhone.

mrtksn 3y ago
The same states that just purchased the Pegasus software from Israel and breached the iPhones anyway? O.K. I'll tell them. Meanwhile there are real wars happening in Europe and the Middle East, people are hacking phones to fly drones, trigger devices or detect enemy. It would suck badly if you are the one who has no access to an Android device, and you have to wait for Apple reviewers to approve the app that can use the seismometer to detect and rely the tank positions in your neighbourhood. It's 2025, the war still goes on and Trump decides that Putin is right, to de-escalate the situation orders Apple to stop providing services to users in Ukraine because people are using their phones to film and locate Russian soldiers, prolonging the war. There you have it, someone on the other side of the planet just cut your communications as they see fit so you can be exterminated without causing much trouble. Very dangerous stuff. These devices are expensive, people can't just get something that will work at whim. Unfortunately, Apple's walled gardens can't protect you against tanks or missiles.
- Terretta 3y ago
  > Pegasus software from Israel and breached the iPhones anyway Pegasus doesn't help them with all iPhones, and the set of phones it can break into becomes much smaller if you take the (not entirely simple) step of pairing your USB (Lightning) port to a management tool, even just the Apple Configurator, and/or using the features Apple added that let you emergency disable biometrics and wired unlocks together with a good self-erase config setting. Apple now even offers you a feature that can revoke Apple's keys from your iCloud backup, so even they can't provide access to surveillance states through your cloud backups. (You lose a number of features including making your photos and messages unrecoverable if you lock yourself out, which most users would hate. That's why it's not a default.) Of course the new Lockdown mode is useful if this matters to you, added by Apple specifically to deter nation state level skulduggery, as a belt and suspenders approach on top of the ongoing work to sandbox better. Your scenarios seem less far fetched now that Musk switches things on and off on a whim, but journalists and human rights activists and CEOs worldwide are under attack constantly. The rest of your post ignores Apple's resistance to both state apparatus and APTs, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute This iPhone in question was a 5C, old enough at the time to still be attacked (can't fix old hardware issues, for example). Situations like this led to not just software but hardware changes, and Apple continues to advance both technology fronts in efforts to ensure Pegasus-like tools are left unable to compromise your security and privacy. So no, in a balance of harms, I don't want the device opened up, I want it provably secure with no backdoors and nothing that can be used to pry an entry. There are, as you note, plenty other devices on the market for DIY use, so the free market gives us the best of both worlds, hackable by design and secure by design. . . . PS. A couple levels above you wrote, "Huge appetite by the governments to control user's devices and make vendors act as the police. Maybe you support this if you feel like the power is on your side but don't forget that your enemies can take over at any time. Locked devices are extremely risky for any kind of resistance." On the contrary, that's exactly the fight Apple is fighting, and they have been taking away their own access rather than have it available to those you're worried about in that comment. That is strictly better.

mrtksn 3y ago

The same states that just purchased the Pegasus software from Israel and breached the iPhones anyway? O.K. I'll tell them. Meanwhile there are real wars happening in Europe and the Middle East, people are hacking phones to fly drones, trigger devices or detect enemy. It would suck badly if you are the one who has no access to an Android device, and you have to wait for Apple reviewers to approve the app that can use the seismometer to detect and rely the tank positions in your neighbourhood. It's 2025, the war still goes on and Trump decides that Putin is right, to de-escalate the situation orders Apple to stop providing services to users in Ukraine because people are using their phones to film and locate Russian soldiers, prolonging the war. There you have it, someone on the other side of the planet just cut your communications as they see fit so you can be exterminated without causing much trouble. Very dangerous stuff. These devices are expensive, people can't just get something that will work at whim. Unfortunately, Apple's walled gardens can't protect you against tanks or missiles.

Terretta 3y ago
> Pegasus software from Israel and breached the iPhones anyway Pegasus doesn't help them with all iPhones, and the set of phones it can break into becomes much smaller if you take the (not entirely simple) step of pairing your USB (Lightning) port to a management tool, even just the Apple Configurator, and/or using the features Apple added that let you emergency disable biometrics and wired unlocks together with a good self-erase config setting. Apple now even offers you a feature that can revoke Apple's keys from your iCloud backup, so even they can't provide access to surveillance states through your cloud backups. (You lose a number of features including making your photos and messages unrecoverable if you lock yourself out, which most users would hate. That's why it's not a default.) Of course the new Lockdown mode is useful if this matters to you, added by Apple specifically to deter nation state level skulduggery, as a belt and suspenders approach on top of the ongoing work to sandbox better. Your scenarios seem less far fetched now that Musk switches things on and off on a whim, but journalists and human rights activists and CEOs worldwide are under attack constantly. The rest of your post ignores Apple's resistance to both state apparatus and APTs, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute This iPhone in question was a 5C, old enough at the time to still be attacked (can't fix old hardware issues, for example). Situations like this led to not just software but hardware changes, and Apple continues to advance both technology fronts in efforts to ensure Pegasus-like tools are left unable to compromise your security and privacy. So no, in a balance of harms, I don't want the device opened up, I want it provably secure with no backdoors and nothing that can be used to pry an entry. There are, as you note, plenty other devices on the market for DIY use, so the free market gives us the best of both worlds, hackable by design and secure by design. . . . PS. A couple levels above you wrote, "Huge appetite by the governments to control user's devices and make vendors act as the police. Maybe you support this if you feel like the power is on your side but don't forget that your enemies can take over at any time. Locked devices are extremely risky for any kind of resistance." On the contrary, that's exactly the fight Apple is fighting, and they have been taking away their own access rather than have it available to those you're worried about in that comment. That is strictly better.