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Trash headline from TechCrunch; the exact statement from Apple was: > We are not aware of any successful mercenary spyware attacks against a Lockdown Mode-enab
by 827a 7mo ago
Trash headline from TechCrunch; the exact statement from Apple was:
> We are not aware of any successful mercenary spyware attacks against a Lockdown Mode-enabled Apple device.
- everdrive 7mo agoGood call-out, and it's also nice to see that Apple tried to speak accurately here.
- sgbeal 7mo ago> nice to see that Apple tried to speak accurately here. The key word being "mercenary", which does not rule out first-party spyware.
- stephbook 7mo agoSo in essence they - can give away your data for free - get hacked by nation-state such as Iran - get hacked by mercenary spyware and not notice and their statement would still be correct. Now that's an awful lot of qualifiers. Plus that's just what they say.
- jmalicki 7mo agoMercenary also excludes people do it for funsies and not getting paid.
- xingped 7mo agoThe wording is weird enough that I have to agree. This is the first time I've ever heard spyware segmented using "mercenary" as a qualifier, which is just insanely suspicious.
- Braxton1980 7mo agoIsn't that assumed? Obviously Apple can't check every iPhone owner to see if they have been hacked now or in the past
- mulmen 7mo agoTechCrunch misrepresented Apple's statement.
- calmbonsai 7mo agoYep. It's business as usual for that rag.
- steve1977 7mo agoNo... they can't... obviously...
- Veserv 7mo agoOh geez. Legal did not give them the go ahead to make the unqualified statement: “We are not aware of any successful spyware attacks” they had to explicitly qualify it with “mercenary”.
- varispeed 7mo agoThere are more weasel words "we are not aware" - means they actually don't know if such attack was successful, "successful" - what is the definition of success? Maybe attackers got access, but didn't find anything interesting? Apple is digging itself into a hole.
- scottyah 7mo agoI think you are, the words make perfect sense. They know of a lot of attack attempts, and so far they have no reason to believe any were successful. Success can mean a lot of different things, why list it all out (were able to extract data, install malicious software, encrypt files with ransomware, delete any data, etc).
- sally_glance 7mo agoHow do you know their definition isn't only "received extortion letters" and "exfiltrate data" is fine as long as it didn't lead to the former?
- Veserv 7mo agoThey have a legal department carefully directing what they say. In a court of law, their lawyers will successfully argue that they are beholden to only the precise letter of their statement. Are you arguing that their lawyers are incompetent and imprecise in their wording? If so, what evidence do you have that their lawyers are incompetent? In light of the correct legal interpretation of their words, being only the specific letters, we can see that your interpretation is incorrect. > They know of a lot of attack attempts No, their statement says nothing about attack attempts. > so far they have no reason to believe any were successful No, their statement says nothing about their belief, only their explicit knowledge. Their statement says nothing about their investigation practices or whether they even attempted to investigate and learn about attacks. Their statement says nothing about non-mercenary attacks. Their statement is technically correct as long as any successful attacks they know about are not explicitly known to be committed by mercenarys.