Time to adapt the Alaskan Bush lifestyle! .. or Coloradian Bush in my case 
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lol, so naive
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lol, so naive
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Israeli Security Firm Claims Spyware Tool Can Harvest iCloud Data in Targeted iPhone Attack
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Yeah, the targeted attacks is key here.
Yes, you want people involved in your backups that have some expertise in the matter, not just poorly implemented add-ons.
And, yes, there is a HUGE difference between sync and backup. Just remember a sync can quickly and efficiently delete that crucial document across all your devices if you (or the sync vendor) makes a mistake.
I'm guessing maybe it gets incorporated in other apps, and then some social engineering to attract the target? I'm not sure, but I wouldn't necessarily trust the App Store review to catch it unless blatantly obvious.
It doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to have a basic understanding of human nature.
My experience, even professional tech people fail to back up their stuff more often than they care to admit.
No doubt. Most people don't have adequate archival/backup.
(As an aside... it's interesting how incompetent the gov't seems to be at backup if you've ever filed a somewhat controversial FoIA request. I was involved in one such attempt where we documented it being on at least 7 different computers, yet not one of them, or backups, had the video in question any longer. A bit too convenient, I think.)
I wonder how much that really happens. I recently traveled internationally, and was wondering if someone might ask to see my phone or unlock it, etc. I'd probably just do it, but I kind of want to resist on principal.
That's because the whole Russia thing was just political theatre towards an end. No one would care much otherwise.
And, it's also quite hypocritical, as the USA regularly interferes in the elections of other countries, and with real and more direct impact. Or, that internal USA entities (like, say, Google) had more influence on many millions of votes.
lol wut. Examples of the ludicrousness and naivety of this statement: arms sales (billions) by the UK and USA to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Arms sales approved by congress to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Interesting article here on how the USA supplied arms to the South African apartheid regime in contravention of the UN embargo (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1166940) "Turkey also has a longstanding record of restricting freedom of speech and association, and a record of brutal repression against its Kurdish population. Turkey is also a major recipient of U.S. arms and training, receiving a total of $10.5 billion in U.S. arms from 1984, when its war against Kurdish rebels began, through 1998."
https://worldpolicy.org/report-the-...ions-world-policy-institute-research-project/
I could sit here all night on my little mobile phone and come up with examples... The fact of the matter is that these hacking technologies can and will be used by governments and potentially non-governmental groups in manners that are unethical and represent a danger to freedom of thought and expression And the idea that such nefarious use is limited to just the "bad guys" neglects hundreds of empirical counterexamples
I think theft, breakage, & water damage probably outpace hard drive failure (especially ssd) by an absolute country mile... but I get your point, lol.
How often do you get arrested in the middle of the night and interrogated with violence for hours at a time and then thrown into a dark cell? How often are you and your family harassed by police forces?
Our “ally” Israel routinely spies on the U.S. government. In the 1990s Israeli agents installed custom ICs in telephone network switches around Washington DC that essentially wire-tapped government phone conversations and routed them through the Israeli embassy.
We've done that to them too. We've spied on the Germans, French, the British, etc. All of our close allies. They've done the same to us. We tapped Merkel's phone. The BND tapped the White House's secure lines.
Were you not paying attention in 2011 and 2013? Under the NDAA the U.S. government can legally send federal marshals to your home, arrest you with no notice to any local authority, and detain you at a military facility indefinitely with no access to legal counsel. You would simply disappear. Hmmm, sounds fairly repressive to me.
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For "associated forced," in other words terrorism and suspected terrorism. A US Citizen who fights for a terrorist group can be incarcerated BY THE MILITARY indefinitely for that, or one connected to terrorist groups. Otherwise that law and ones preceding that which already allowed a form of mass arrest would have landed many political foes of any administration jail without due process.
Obama Administration carried out a strike against a US citizen because said citizen was involved in heavy terrorist activities against the US and its armed forces.
Do I think that was justified? Damn right I do.
I don't backup anything to any cloud server period. Your backup server should only be your external drive at home. Next time someone asks you for your smartphone at customs/immigration in Israel just consider that they have every info from your smartphone in their hands. On the other hand Apple must have a mole or spy of some sort working for them sending info to Israel. Apple needs to tighten up their security measures for their employees. If Iran or China had this they would be considered a national security concern but since it is Israel they seem to let it go. Any other company would have been sanctioned national security risks. China supposedly collects info from your smartphone assuming it is a Huawei Smartphone and Israel just asks you to hand over your smartphone at customs/immigration for security check. It's actually not just that but tablets and notebooks as well.
What is obvious these days is that smartphone security is not as good as it should be.
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You have to ask the Palestinian people this question The above mentioned happens to them on a daily basis. These devices are frequently used on all their smartphones.
What is obvious these days is that smartphone security is not as good as it should be.
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So basically a backdoor option in the US like in China.
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You have to ask the Palestinian people this question
The above mentioned happens to them on a daily basis. These devices are frequently used on all their smartphones.
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This was not Iran or China that did this. Had it been them sanctions would have been on Trump’s desk to sign
China and Israel have always liked data theft. Their excuse is for their own national security interests
China and Israel have always liked data theft. Their excuse is for their own national security interests
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I happen to think that the US constitution and its amendments are some of the finest legal and ethical documents written.
To argue that Guantanamo Bay, black sites, illegal renditions and extra-judicial targeted killing programs (with very high civilian casualty rates) is morally, or ethically or legally justifiable within the bounds of the constitution and with regard to the actual danger presented to the US citizenry - especially considering the protection afforded to the actual sources of terrorism funding (KSA, Pakistan etc.) - requires the kind of mental gymnastics that would make Chinese Olympic Gold medal recipient soil their leotards.
A just war should be fought with the support, consent and understanding of the citizens that are asked to kill - we see the scars left upon the young men that were compelled to fight in WWI, in Vietnam in Iraq, etc where the underlying truths were obscured by those that placed political expediency above all else.
The Obama and Trump era crackdowns on whistle-blowers that fulfill their moral duty to expose these constitutional and ethical breeches by the government (in absence of effective whistle-blower protections) show that the tools and methods described in the OP article will be abused by foreign regimes as well as "democratic Western governments" to further what history will record as gross injustices based on lies, information repression and intellectual dishonesty.
The laws in Germany, particularly privacy laws, protect their citizens. Do those privacy laws affect me as a US citizen? No. In what way do the laws in the US meant for US citizens protect terror suspects? They don't.
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The current Iraqi and Afghan government agree with the war on terror and aid the US. The prior governments, of a deposed leader and a relatively lawless country, respectively, didn't meet your current ideals.
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You mean the illegal publication of classified materials?
People like Snowden are not whistle blowers. The media love to call him one, but he's not. He's a traitor. He's no better than Aldrich Ames. And the only thing he deserves is a bullet to the head.
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"The tool is said to work on many of the latest iPhones and Android smartphones, and can continue to harvest data even after the tool is removed from the original mobile device."
If it wasn't for that, i'd be ok with the tool, mainly for forensics or generally companies needing to get data from services.
Anyone who gets hold of this tool would be happy for a very long time.
"In response to the report, Apple told FT that its operating system was "the safest and most secure computing platform in the world."
Any company can claim this when put up to security/privacy firms... it doesn't mean anything. Like any company who would say the say the same, they do that to protect their backs.
If a company claimed they "were not the safest, and not the most secure", we'd be all over them as "you told us it was secure" and all hell would break loose.
If it wasn't for that, i'd be ok with the tool, mainly for forensics or generally companies needing to get data from services.
Anyone who gets hold of this tool would be happy for a very long time.
"In response to the report, Apple told FT that its operating system was "the safest and most secure computing platform in the world."
Any company can claim this when put up to security/privacy firms... it doesn't mean anything. Like any company who would say the say the same, they do that to protect their backs.
If a company claimed they "were not the safest, and not the most secure", we'd be all over them as "you told us it was secure" and all hell would break loose.
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Thanks for the info. Now I'm debating on whether it's safe to click the link you provided...
Shrugs. Another reason why I do not use or want iCloud and other cloud subscription services.
Can they not access the end-to-end encrypted info? Access to on-device keys makes it sound like they can.
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I love how the newspapers keep telling me the Russian Snapchat clone is evil because it sends photos to servers. Uh, Snapchat does that too, assuming you send the photo. Maybe the Russian one is more evil, but they haven't given me a reason to believe so.
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Wonder why Apple doesn’t sue companies that reverse engineer their hardware and software to make hacking products. Its right in the EULA and T&C. Certainly Apple is aware of these security companies and how they operate, and Apple certainly knows how to use the legal system. So Apple must be ok with them doing what they do, and who their clients are.
You are sadly mistaken. Literally just this past week were more reports of the NSA wiretapping everday American citizens without warrants - no barriers whatsoever.
Snowden released thousands and thousands of documents, basically he said any phone in existence can be tapped, cracked and listened in on. It makes no difference who manufactures it. He also recommended uninstalling Facebook and all forms of social media, and up to and including covering microphones and cameras on laptops and smartphones.
He released thousands of pages documenting how the microphone has been used by apps even when denied permission or the phone is locked — to spy on you and serve you targeted advertisements.
No phone or phone user is safe. It is literally a psychological fallacy designed to keep you with a false sense of security. You cannot have a smartphone and be secure.
They avoid lawsuits because they would have to go through a discovery process (mandated by the court) where each side is required to answer detailed questions about the case for the opposing lawyers. Apple would end up revealing a lot of proprietary information.