7 ms·

Note that "mercenary spyware" is the politically correct term Apple chose for "state-sponsored attacker" because Modi complained that Apple was exposing them fo

Note that "mercenary spyware" is the politically correct term Apple chose for "state-sponsored attacker" because Modi complained that Apple was exposing them for using illegal NSO Group spyware.

loceng 3y ago
The power of language, where "state-sponsored" too accurately directs the population's attention to their government but where mercenary is vague and non-aiming - where a simple change in language is enough to quell that ire and attention of authoritarians; or should I say authoritarian behaviour to not out them directly as authoritarians?
- FpUser 3y ago
  So you're saying that non authoritarian governments do not sponsor or do themselves the spying / attacks?
- miohtama 3y ago
  Apple needs to work with authoritarian governments, or nobody is going to build our iPhones. I would guess it’s obvious for everyone who gets the message that they are political targets. However it is also important to call out abuse of power, like is in the case of India, Spain, Poland, where the governing party is spying the opposition in order to find ways to get rid of them.
  - nehal3m 3y ago
    > Apple needs to work with authoritarian governments, or nobody is going to build our iPhones. Not only is this objectively true, I also have an iPhone. It's not news to me but it still makes me do a double take every time. Maybe I should try oscillating to Linux and FairPhone again...
    - tombert 3y ago
      I think as of right now, it's nearly impossible to buy a guilt-free computer of any kind. It's a spectrum, obviously, but I think if you were to audit every component of any computer you buy from basically any company, you'd eventually get something kind of depressing. A relative of mine in the defense industry has told me that, generally speaking, the DoD requires that none of the components in missiles have parts manufactured by potential adversaries, which makes enough sense but is also extremely difficult now.
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        When I have to point to something when I say I doubt manufacturing will ever come back to the west, I point to the fact we can't manufacture the simplest of things ourselves anymore. Thanks Delta Airlines, whose metal nametags are literally just cut sheets of aluminum with some paint on them and are still Made in China. Someone seriously wants to tell me we can manufacture bleeding edge tech when we can't even cut and paint our own fucking sheet metal?
        reaperducer 3y ago
        Very often it's not about "can't," and more about "cheaper." There's plenty of places to get metal nametags made in the U.S.A. But Delta chose to go the cheapest route to save a few pennies.
        kwhitefoot 3y ago
        That's just weird. the US is definitely a lower cost country than Norway yet my youngest son works for a company here in Norway that does quite a lot of business making metal and plastic tags of various kinds with text engraved, printed, or laser cut. As far as I know most of the machinery is made in Europe, mostly Germany, again generally higher cost than the US. So I find it difficult to believe that it can't be done in the US.
        jfim 3y ago
        My guess is that it's likely cultural. Cost cutting seems to be done much more deeply in the US than in Europe. For example, economy class on all North American airlines is rather miserable, while most European non budget carriers have a better experience in economy.
  - mc32 3y ago
    There are definitely more countries where Intelligence Services spy on not only the opposition but members of congress. The FBI admitted to spying on members of the US senate as well as an adversarial candidate to the US presidency.
  - loceng 3y ago
    As a bridge perhaps, and not all authoritarians are equal - of course, so being rational is fine - aligning with a less worse, less captured society is a reasonable stepping stone; and a maneuver can be to pit one tyrant against another, where India-China relations aren't good - however that could be useful to both tyrants towards manufacturing consent to send all of their young military aged men - who would be the strongest, most capable to go up against the tyrants - instead sending them to a meat grinder of a potential WW3 that the military industrial complex is also likely drooling over in their fascist wet dreams; the two sides of the fascist coin being authoritarian politicians and industrial complexes. However the longer we allow revenues to be generated in relationships with authoritarian economies-states, the more we're empowering them. That in a way is also a carrot - at least until a certain point of no return - where in America there's an effort to collapse the USD, and they might succeed - and then where BRICS will have buying power to influence the rest of the world to align with bad actors in each countries who aren't yet toeing the tyrannical line - and help them navigate towards a totalitarian state. Knowing who is your ally in each nation is important, and keeping communication lines open is the bare minimum - and tyrant wannabes in different nations, except in places like China where they already are locked down in their systems, still need to creep forward in as incognito method as possible until they've captured all of the various positions necessary before they can recruit and grow their Gestapo. Most people are unaware that Canada is about to be captured by fascists, and where laws and mandates have already passed that could allow those politicians to pretend they won the next election (multiple people in our intelligence agency CSIS already whistleblowing that China, the CCP is confirmed to have interfered in at least our last 2 elections which kept Trudeau-NDP in power) - and then pump that out and control the narratives in our state-funded media channels like CBC; mainstream news - including the biggest dissident media company called Rebel News - aren't shown on Facebook, for vector example, another vector being an arguably manufactured false flag 3-day outage of Rogers Telecommunications - where this fascist government immediately afterward mandated all telecommunications companies cross-integrate their services "to act as a backup" for other companies - which conveniently creates-allows for a centralized system for monitoring, etc.
    - FpUser 3y ago
      >"where this fascist government..." I am not sure whether this counts as the success or the failure of the meds
- everforward 3y ago
  Best to refer to them as the “Ministry of Truth”. We’ve always been at war with Eurasia. I wonder if someone has made a “De-bullshitify English” Chrome add on to replace phrases like “mercenary hacker” and “officer-involved shooting” with more semantically correct phrases.
bparsons 3y ago
Interesting. By reading that term, I thought the exact opposite. Mercenary sounds decidedly like a non-state actor.
- danudey 3y ago
  That was my first thought as well, though on further consideration I assumed that it was some kind of paid/for-profit criminal organization performing these attacks on behalf of a nation-state.
- jsheard 3y ago
  The wording is technically correct since these attacks are often facilitated by private for-profit companies. It just glosses over who is paying them (state actors).
- sofixa 3y ago
  Why? Mercenaries are most often hired by state actors.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Interesting use of language on your part as well- what makes the NSO Group spyware illegal?
- vngzs 3y ago
  I would describe this spyware's "illegal" status as colloquially true - despite the lack of a comprehensive, international, enforceable legal framework - at least in the USA [0]: > As part of this effort, the End-User Review Committee of the BIS decided to add four foreign entities, among them two Israeli companies, NSO Group and Candiru, to the Entity List. The U.S. Export Administration Regulations (‘EAR’) impose additional license requirements for exports to listed entities, and limits the exceptions for exports, reexports, and transfers to such entities. But they continue: > The existing international and national frameworks regulating the export of sensitive spyware technologies lack the teeth necessary to deal with contemporary issues relating to the abuse of these technologies and the growing need for their enhanced supervision. [0]: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/ctbl/blog/managing-risky-business-the-international-regulatory-framework-of-spyware-companies-where-it-is-lacking-and-where-it-is-heading/ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/ctbl/blog/managing-risky-busi...
- ajross 3y ago
  The DMCA, in the US. Other statutes in other markets. Hacking computers is pretty prima facie criminal everywhere. It's true that there are inter-jurisdictional edge cases (cracking an iPhone in India via an attack from Israel probably isn't illegal in the USA,etc...) which allows NSO to operate more freely than we'd like. But no one seriously claims this is legal activity anywhere in particular, just that we can't catch them. Basically the distinction is one of law enforcement authority, not legality.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    The CFAA is the broadest and most relevant US statute regarding computer hacking. But yes, international computer hackers typically operate outside of the jurisdictional reach of their targets.
  - 3y ago
sneak 3y ago
Technically speaking, Apple placing iCloud services for users in China on CCP-controlled hardware (as required for their continued operation in China) is also a “state-sponsored attack”. Not that they have a choice, given that their most profitable product lines are all basically 95%+ manufactured in China by Chinese nationals working for Chinese companies.
- bluish29 3y ago
  So apple/companies complying to US/EU laws is state-sponored attacks and not following local law?
  - sneak 3y ago
    https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZK1CO/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZK1CO/ Yes. We’re well past “following local law” and into “active cooperation” territory. Apple by nature can’t have adversarial relationships with the US or Chinese governments or they’d get squashed like a bug. One might even argue they have a fiduciary duty to not pick fights with city hall.
saagarjha 3y ago
Mercenary spyware isn’t a new term. It’s inclusive of hacking-for-hire groups that are not state entities or funded by countries.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
geodel 3y ago
Well "mercenary" do sound weasel term but calling it "state sponsored" with releasing details for others to research and prove/disprove isn't doing much apart from agitating supposed states. Any government has to take Apple's word seriously it is not like an individual or small time company claiming that government illegally tapped their phones or hacked computer and government doesn't even bother to respond because its not worth their time.
vinay_ys 3y ago
Well, supreme court ordered panel investigation into this spyware scandal didn't find any evidence of actual spyware. So there's that. Also, if government wants to investigate someone, they have so many powerful ways to do that (and they actually do that). So, it's not clear to me what need they have to go spy on people via NSO tools. And surely, if they were building large datacenters to do massive spying like some TLAs do in 5eyes countries, we would know about it. So, no, this isn't the local government but a foreign government (which doesn't have detention powers in another country) that's likely to use remote hacking methods to coerce people in another country. We saw this with leaked data dumps from recent hacks by the not so friendly neighbors on India's many citizen databases (like retirement provident fund systems etc).
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  I'm not sure exactly what part of it you're trying to refute since your comment is kind of all over the place, but GP comment is correct. The reason it's called that is literally because of the Indian government. > Apple's removal of the term "state-sponsored" from its description of threat notifications comes after it repeatedly faced pressure from the Indian government on linking such breaches to state actors, said a source with direct knowledge. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/apple-warns-users-mercenary-spyware-attack-91-countries-including-india-et-2024-04-11/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/apple-warns...
  - vinay_ys 3y ago
    I'm clearly refuting this – "because Modi complained" in the GPs post. And your linked article is making an unsubstantiated claim based on "source with direct knowledge". That's just not credible enough.
    - mynameisvlad 3y ago
      It was not clear at all. You jumped thoughts half a dozen times throughout your comment. That’s not an unsubstantiated claim, that’s literally how you deal with sensitive contacts and information in journalism. You understand that nobody is going to speak on the record about this, right? What, exactly, do you expect in terms of substantiation?

Note that "mercenary spyware" is the politically correct term Apple chose for "state-sponsored attacker" because Modi complained that Apple was exposing them for using illegal NSO Group spyware.

loceng 3y ago

The power of language, where "state-sponsored" too accurately directs the population's attention to their government but where mercenary is vague and non-aiming - where a simple change in language is enough to quell that ire and attention of authoritarians; or should I say authoritarian behaviour to not out them directly as authoritarians?

FpUser 3y ago
So you're saying that non authoritarian governments do not sponsor or do themselves the spying / attacks?
miohtama 3y ago
Apple needs to work with authoritarian governments, or nobody is going to build our iPhones. I would guess it’s obvious for everyone who gets the message that they are political targets. However it is also important to call out abuse of power, like is in the case of India, Spain, Poland, where the governing party is spying the opposition in order to find ways to get rid of them.
- nehal3m 3y ago
  > Apple needs to work with authoritarian governments, or nobody is going to build our iPhones. Not only is this objectively true, I also have an iPhone. It's not news to me but it still makes me do a double take every time. Maybe I should try oscillating to Linux and FairPhone again...
  - tombert 3y ago
    I think as of right now, it's nearly impossible to buy a guilt-free computer of any kind. It's a spectrum, obviously, but I think if you were to audit every component of any computer you buy from basically any company, you'd eventually get something kind of depressing. A relative of mine in the defense industry has told me that, generally speaking, the DoD requires that none of the components in missiles have parts manufactured by potential adversaries, which makes enough sense but is also extremely difficult now.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      When I have to point to something when I say I doubt manufacturing will ever come back to the west, I point to the fact we can't manufacture the simplest of things ourselves anymore. Thanks Delta Airlines, whose metal nametags are literally just cut sheets of aluminum with some paint on them and are still Made in China. Someone seriously wants to tell me we can manufacture bleeding edge tech when we can't even cut and paint our own fucking sheet metal?
      - reaperducer 3y ago
        Very often it's not about "can't," and more about "cheaper." There's plenty of places to get metal nametags made in the U.S.A. But Delta chose to go the cheapest route to save a few pennies.
      - kwhitefoot 3y ago
        That's just weird. the US is definitely a lower cost country than Norway yet my youngest son works for a company here in Norway that does quite a lot of business making metal and plastic tags of various kinds with text engraved, printed, or laser cut. As far as I know most of the machinery is made in Europe, mostly Germany, again generally higher cost than the US. So I find it difficult to believe that it can't be done in the US.
        jfim 3y ago
        My guess is that it's likely cultural. Cost cutting seems to be done much more deeply in the US than in Europe. For example, economy class on all North American airlines is rather miserable, while most European non budget carriers have a better experience in economy.
- mc32 3y ago
  There are definitely more countries where Intelligence Services spy on not only the opposition but members of congress. The FBI admitted to spying on members of the US senate as well as an adversarial candidate to the US presidency.
- loceng 3y ago
  As a bridge perhaps, and not all authoritarians are equal - of course, so being rational is fine - aligning with a less worse, less captured society is a reasonable stepping stone; and a maneuver can be to pit one tyrant against another, where India-China relations aren't good - however that could be useful to both tyrants towards manufacturing consent to send all of their young military aged men - who would be the strongest, most capable to go up against the tyrants - instead sending them to a meat grinder of a potential WW3 that the military industrial complex is also likely drooling over in their fascist wet dreams; the two sides of the fascist coin being authoritarian politicians and industrial complexes. However the longer we allow revenues to be generated in relationships with authoritarian economies-states, the more we're empowering them. That in a way is also a carrot - at least until a certain point of no return - where in America there's an effort to collapse the USD, and they might succeed - and then where BRICS will have buying power to influence the rest of the world to align with bad actors in each countries who aren't yet toeing the tyrannical line - and help them navigate towards a totalitarian state. Knowing who is your ally in each nation is important, and keeping communication lines open is the bare minimum - and tyrant wannabes in different nations, except in places like China where they already are locked down in their systems, still need to creep forward in as incognito method as possible until they've captured all of the various positions necessary before they can recruit and grow their Gestapo. Most people are unaware that Canada is about to be captured by fascists, and where laws and mandates have already passed that could allow those politicians to pretend they won the next election (multiple people in our intelligence agency CSIS already whistleblowing that China, the CCP is confirmed to have interfered in at least our last 2 elections which kept Trudeau-NDP in power) - and then pump that out and control the narratives in our state-funded media channels like CBC; mainstream news - including the biggest dissident media company called Rebel News - aren't shown on Facebook, for vector example, another vector being an arguably manufactured false flag 3-day outage of Rogers Telecommunications - where this fascist government immediately afterward mandated all telecommunications companies cross-integrate their services "to act as a backup" for other companies - which conveniently creates-allows for a centralized system for monitoring, etc.
  - FpUser 3y ago
    >"where this fascist government..." I am not sure whether this counts as the success or the failure of the meds
everforward 3y ago
Best to refer to them as the “Ministry of Truth”. We’ve always been at war with Eurasia. I wonder if someone has made a “De-bullshitify English” Chrome add on to replace phrases like “mercenary hacker” and “officer-involved shooting” with more semantically correct phrases.

bparsons 3y ago

Interesting. By reading that term, I thought the exact opposite. Mercenary sounds decidedly like a non-state actor.

danudey 3y ago
That was my first thought as well, though on further consideration I assumed that it was some kind of paid/for-profit criminal organization performing these attacks on behalf of a nation-state.
jsheard 3y ago
The wording is technically correct since these attacks are often facilitated by private for-profit companies. It just glosses over who is paying them (state actors).
sofixa 3y ago
Why? Mercenaries are most often hired by state actors.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Interesting use of language on your part as well- what makes the NSO Group spyware illegal?

vngzs 3y ago
I would describe this spyware's "illegal" status as colloquially true - despite the lack of a comprehensive, international, enforceable legal framework - at least in the USA [0]: > As part of this effort, the End-User Review Committee of the BIS decided to add four foreign entities, among them two Israeli companies, NSO Group and Candiru, to the Entity List. The U.S. Export Administration Regulations (‘EAR’) impose additional license requirements for exports to listed entities, and limits the exceptions for exports, reexports, and transfers to such entities. But they continue: > The existing international and national frameworks regulating the export of sensitive spyware technologies lack the teeth necessary to deal with contemporary issues relating to the abuse of these technologies and the growing need for their enhanced supervision. [0]: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/ctbl/blog/managing-risky-business-the-international-regulatory-framework-of-spyware-companies-where-it-is-lacking-and-where-it-is-heading/ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/ctbl/blog/managing-risky-busi...
ajross 3y ago
The DMCA, in the US. Other statutes in other markets. Hacking computers is pretty prima facie criminal everywhere. It's true that there are inter-jurisdictional edge cases (cracking an iPhone in India via an attack from Israel probably isn't illegal in the USA,etc...) which allows NSO to operate more freely than we'd like. But no one seriously claims this is legal activity anywhere in particular, just that we can't catch them. Basically the distinction is one of law enforcement authority, not legality.
- kube-system 3y ago
  The CFAA is the broadest and most relevant US statute regarding computer hacking. But yes, international computer hackers typically operate outside of the jurisdictional reach of their targets.
- 3y ago

sneak 3y ago

Technically speaking, Apple placing iCloud services for users in China on CCP-controlled hardware (as required for their continued operation in China) is also a “state-sponsored attack”. Not that they have a choice, given that their most profitable product lines are all basically 95%+ manufactured in China by Chinese nationals working for Chinese companies.

bluish29 3y ago
So apple/companies complying to US/EU laws is state-sponored attacks and not following local law?
- sneak 3y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZK1CO/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZK1CO/ Yes. We’re well past “following local law” and into “active cooperation” territory. Apple by nature can’t have adversarial relationships with the US or Chinese governments or they’d get squashed like a bug. One might even argue they have a fiduciary duty to not pick fights with city hall.

saagarjha 3y ago

Mercenary spyware isn’t a new term. It’s inclusive of hacking-for-hire groups that are not state entities or funded by countries.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

geodel 3y ago

Well "mercenary" do sound weasel term but calling it "state sponsored" with releasing details for others to research and prove/disprove isn't doing much apart from agitating supposed states. Any government has to take Apple's word seriously it is not like an individual or small time company claiming that government illegally tapped their phones or hacked computer and government doesn't even bother to respond because its not worth their time.

vinay_ys 3y ago

Well, supreme court ordered panel investigation into this spyware scandal didn't find any evidence of actual spyware. So there's that. Also, if government wants to investigate someone, they have so many powerful ways to do that (and they actually do that). So, it's not clear to me what need they have to go spy on people via NSO tools. And surely, if they were building large datacenters to do massive spying like some TLAs do in 5eyes countries, we would know about it. So, no, this isn't the local government but a foreign government (which doesn't have detention powers in another country) that's likely to use remote hacking methods to coerce people in another country. We saw this with leaked data dumps from recent hacks by the not so friendly neighbors on India's many citizen databases (like retirement provident fund systems etc).

mynameisvlad 3y ago
I'm not sure exactly what part of it you're trying to refute since your comment is kind of all over the place, but GP comment is correct. The reason it's called that is literally because of the Indian government. > Apple's removal of the term "state-sponsored" from its description of threat notifications comes after it repeatedly faced pressure from the Indian government on linking such breaches to state actors, said a source with direct knowledge. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/apple-warns-users-mercenary-spyware-attack-91-countries-including-india-et-2024-04-11/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/apple-warns...
- vinay_ys 3y ago
  I'm clearly refuting this – "because Modi complained" in the GPs post. And your linked article is making an unsubstantiated claim based on "source with direct knowledge". That's just not credible enough.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    It was not clear at all. You jumped thoughts half a dozen times throughout your comment. That’s not an unsubstantiated claim, that’s literally how you deal with sensitive contacts and information in journalism. You understand that nobody is going to speak on the record about this, right? What, exactly, do you expect in terms of substantiation?