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How do you know it was Steve Jobs that prevented Apple from joining earlier? Perhaps Apple just wasn't a priority for the NSA until 2012.
by scrrr 13y ago
How do you know it was Steve Jobs that prevented Apple from joining earlier? Perhaps Apple just wasn't a priority for the NSA until 2012.
- lukifer 13y agoIt's conjecture, but it's likely. Apple as a company has put a high value on user privacy, which was heavily influenced by Steve. He was also known for maintaining a high degree of personal privacy for such a public figure (for instance, refusing to put plates on his car).
- jgreen10 13y agoApple is a company producing consumer devices, while the others are companies offering Internet services, which is what PRISM targets. Apple has only recently had some success in the Internet services space with iCloud.
- johnchristopher 13y agoOne of those most successful devices is a phone. One that has been selling pretty well for 6 years. That's incitement enough to try to get them on board.
- UVB-76 13y agoUntil iCloud/iMessage, all the actual information was transmitted through third party services (i.e. network providers, email services, etc.) Why go after the myriad of handset manufacturers when you could just get the network providers on board?
- lukifer 13y agoThere are things network providers can't do: activate mic remotely, capture local-only data, keylog apps that use encryption, etc.
- jkrems 13y agoThe list was about joining PRISM, it doesn't say anything about backdoors in mobile phones. They may very well be present in all iPhone generations.
- izolate 13y agoCurious as to why Amazon isn't on that list then? Perhaps it's true that Bezos has more in common with Jobs.
- acqq 13y agoApple had internet services since around year 2000. Apple had mac.com emails for a very long time, as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MobileMe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MobileMe .Mac: July 17, 2002 – July 9, 2008 MobileMe: July 9, 2008 – June 30, 2012 iCloud was launched on October 12, 2011, one year before Apple entering Prism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud The main difference before iCloud was that you had to pay for it. I can however remember that I've had free .me account before iCloud, so even .me must have had enough users.
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoYou must not have read the part where he said "recently had some success"
- Kylekramer 13y agoWell, in the NSA's eyes, that main difference is important. Free (and highly pushed by the very popular iPhone and iPad) meant people actually starting using iCloud. The cost-benefit analysis shifted tremendously from .mac/MobileMe. It is fun to think of Steve Jobs as the lone person saying "fuck you" to the NSA. But it isn't realistic. It isn't like the other companies are run by meek people who love bending over to authorities.
- acqq 13y agoI can remember that I've had a free .me account before iCloud, so I believe even .me must have had enough users: it was freely available to every iDevice user. There were millions of them fast.
- Kylekramer 13y agoHow does that follow? It is not just about the cost, but the amount of utility for the NSA. There are plenty of free services that are not on the PRISM list and I am sure even Apple employees would freely admit their pre-iCloud user numbers were disappointing. They would not have bothered to rebrand the service in the first place if they had a significant userbase. Looking at the PRISM company list, we are talking data service companies with users in the tens of millions (minus the oddball Paltalk). Apple just wasn't in that group until recently.
- rwmj 13y agoI thought you were joking about the number plates thing, but it's true (and apparently legal) ... http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/27/mystery-solved-why-steve-jobs-car-never-had-a-license-plate/ http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/27/mystery-solved-why-st... This reminds me of a friend of mine who proxies all his web traffic through something which strips user agents and referrers. It's very easy for me to tell when he visits my website, because the logs show "-" for each of these fields.
- mcdougle 13y agoThat's really interesting. It sounds like an easy way to get targeted by the people who do want to track you, though. Still -- do you have any idea what he uses for that?
- glitchdout 13y agoHow does your friend do that? I'd be really interested in reading on how to setup a proxy like that.
- tomsthumb 13y agoBurp, fiddler maybe, webscarab maybe. Some kind of proxy with any sort of meaningful capabilities.
- papsosouid 13y agohttp://www.privoxy.org/ http://www.privoxy.org/ It is really simple.
- ryanklee 13y ago> It's very easy for me to tell when he visits my website Simply drawing attention to the fact that his attempt at anonymity acts a key personal identifier in this instance.
- alecdbrooks 13y ago>This reminds me of a friend of mine who proxies all his web traffic through something which strips user agents and referrers. It's very easy for me to tell when he visits my website, because the logs show "-" for each of these fields. I wonder if the best strategy, then, is to figure out a very common user agent string and use that. The EFF's Panopticlick might be a good start: https://panopticlick.eff.org https://panopticlick.eff.org.
- falk 13y agoSteve Jobs went through a background check for a top-level security check in the 80s. I wonder if he ever received it? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/steve-jobs-security-clearance/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/steve-jobs-security... I find it hard to believe that the NSA didn't see one of the most valuable and popular companies in the world as a priority until 2012. I bet they were salivating as soon as the first iPhone launched.
- mr_spothawk 13y agoWith a public record as a LSD user, I wonder how they could have justified giving him clearance.
- falk 13y agoI don't think that would effect his chances. All of our latest presidents have admitted or have been proven to do illegal drugs of some sort. Not to mention that the U.S. government has done some crazy things with drugs, especially LSD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA http://www.cracked.com/blog/five-fun-facts-about-the-cia-and-lsd/ http://www.cracked.com/blog/five-fun-facts-about-the-cia-and...
- jbri 13y agoAs I understand it, getting a security clearance doesn't especially care about whether you've done anything illegal, it cares about: 1. Whether you're likely to voluntarily leak any secure information. 2. Whether someone who dug up some dirt on you could blackmail you into leaking secure information. Or as the saying goes, it's fine to have a mistress, but having a mistress that your wife doesn't know about is a problem...
- VLM 13y agoHaving gone thru the sec clearance thing in the 90s, the third thing is if you have financial issues (like an expensive addiction with much income) and some foreign intelligence service can "help". So they're pretty interested in finances. Which wouldn't have been a problem for Jobs...
- tsahyt 13y agoThen again, Apple was (and still is) huge on the mobile sector. As far as surveillance goes, I'd expect mobiles to be of high priority.
- dgesang 13y agoWhy bother with a phone manufacturer when you can have access to all communications directly at the network provider? Much more convenient.
- rmc 13y agoPossible but unlikely. Steve Jobs was very influencial within Apple. Jobs' opinion was almost certainly a strong factor. Apple had been a leading and popular mobile phone manufacturer for many years before 2012, why wouldn't the NSA be interested in them?
- coldtea 13y agoWe don't know. We just went with the more plausible explanation, instead of jumping through hoops to avoid it. Apple not being a priority for NSA until Oct 2012? Pfft.