4 ms·

Apple is not a "PRISM" partner; I thought we all agreed that this was when the NSA discovered goto fail and/or some jailbreak exploits.

sneak 12y ago
The Washington Post documents claim otherwise: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/images/prism-slide-5.jpg http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...
- Anechoic 12y ago
  That link doesn't contradict xenadu02's claim. Do you have a link that better spells out that Apple is a willing partner in PRISM?
  - sneak 12y ago
    I doubt any of the companies are willing partners in PRISM - it's terribly bad for business, as Americans are only 4% of humans and being forced on threat of personal imprisonment to spy for the American government is not a really wise customer acquisition strategy. It is really quite likely that the access to Apple and Google and other large providers' systems is done at an operations level, without knowledge of their management and providing for complete plausible deniability. How many network admins and ops people at Apple have physical access to the machines where keys are generated, stored, and used? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations The #1 realtime end-to-end encrypted messaging service on the planet (where the software development and cyphertext transmission are both physically present inside the legal jurisdiction of the US) would be your first choice, no?
    - Anechoic 12y ago
      I doubt any of the companies are willing partners in PRISM AFAICT that was xenadu02's point - that data from Apple et al are being collect by PRISM, but Apple is not a "partner" in the sense that "partner" implies cooperation. If intelligence agencies have to steer clear of management, that's not a partnership, that's espionage.
hbbio 12y ago
Apple joined PRISM a few months after Steve Jobs death.
flatdeviant 12y ago
Nope. PRISM has do to with "direct access" to Apple's servers. This is according to NSA's own documents, and Apple may either be aware and forced by law to lie (Yahoo-style [0]) or unaware of this (i.e. they got hacked by NSA). Nothing to do with SSL being broken, especially as iCloud didn't run on Apple software but on Azure and AWS back then[1], and therefore iCloud wasn't itself vulnerable to goto fail. [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-government-could-have-destroyed-yahoo-183644617.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-government-could-have... [1]: see iOS security white paper from Feb 2014, iCloud was the same back in 2012.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  "Direct access" came from a Washington Post story and it has since been walked back. PRISM is a program operated by the FBI, through which they make FISA court requests of data companies (like Apple) and then share the results with the NSA.

sneak 12y ago

The Washington Post documents claim otherwise: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/images/prism-slide-5.jpg http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...

Anechoic 12y ago
That link doesn't contradict xenadu02's claim. Do you have a link that better spells out that Apple is a willing partner in PRISM?
- sneak 12y ago
  I doubt any of the companies are willing partners in PRISM - it's terribly bad for business, as Americans are only 4% of humans and being forced on threat of personal imprisonment to spy for the American government is not a really wise customer acquisition strategy. It is really quite likely that the access to Apple and Google and other large providers' systems is done at an operations level, without knowledge of their management and providing for complete plausible deniability. How many network admins and ops people at Apple have physical access to the machines where keys are generated, stored, and used? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations The #1 realtime end-to-end encrypted messaging service on the planet (where the software development and cyphertext transmission are both physically present inside the legal jurisdiction of the US) would be your first choice, no?
  - Anechoic 12y ago
    I doubt any of the companies are willing partners in PRISM AFAICT that was xenadu02's point - that data from Apple et al are being collect by PRISM, but Apple is not a "partner" in the sense that "partner" implies cooperation. If intelligence agencies have to steer clear of management, that's not a partnership, that's espionage.

hbbio 12y ago

Apple joined PRISM a few months after Steve Jobs death.

flatdeviant 12y ago

Nope. PRISM has do to with "direct access" to Apple's servers. This is according to NSA's own documents, and Apple may either be aware and forced by law to lie (Yahoo-style [0]) or unaware of this (i.e. they got hacked by NSA). Nothing to do with SSL being broken, especially as iCloud didn't run on Apple software but on Azure and AWS back then[1], and therefore iCloud wasn't itself vulnerable to goto fail. [0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-government-could-have-destroyed-yahoo-183644617.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-the-government-could-have... [1]: see iOS security white paper from Feb 2014, iCloud was the same back in 2012.

snowwrestler 12y ago
"Direct access" came from a Washington Post story and it has since been walked back. PRISM is a program operated by the FBI, through which they make FISA court requests of data companies (like Apple) and then share the results with the NSA.