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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am not sure whether this counts as the success or the failure of the meds
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...
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
In a lot of ways, this is obviously good, most people benefit from lower prices, more value being created, etc, but I think it's also made it so that cheap-but-ethically-dubious manufacturing from other countries becomes increasingly appealing, especially since it's abstracted enough from the end-user to where they can comfortably say "out of site out of mind".
I'm no better; I know very well the conditions of some other countries, and think they're very bad. I also think it's bad that America fought a whole war to end slavery, and instead we just launder it through other countries. Still, despite me thinking all of this, I still generally shop for reasonable prices instead of trying to focus on ethical stuff.
When we can't make our own fucking blue jeans we absolutely cannot try for a technology victory.
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.
Basically the distinction is one of law enforcement authority, not legality.
Even in USA that likely could be legal with an appropriate court warrant, and many other countries have more permissive constitutions.
Can you expand upon this? I'm not particularly familiar but it doesn't seem right. Obviously LEO agencies are allowed to subpoena private information, but can they legally use exploits with a warrant? Are there recorded examples of this?
[Based on your reference to warrants, I guess I'm excluding the NSA or other supposed state-level spy agencies that supposedly secretively deploy such tactics]
It's well established that with an appropriate warrant, LEO have always been able to come into your house without telling you and add hidden surveillance bugs to listen on your communications; they have always been allowed to physically modify or replace your phone (e.g. physical phone wiretaps a century ago); Electronic Communications Privacy Act reasserts that this applies also to electronic surveillance and digital communications; so (as a non-expert) I don't really see why that wouldn't apply to smartphone exploits as well. We do see exploits being applied to devices in LEO possession (e.g. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/14/22383957/fbi-san-bernadin... for one random example) to recover evidence.
The main restriction is the constitutional limits of 4th amendment which requires specific warrants for each case - which is a significant practical obstacle, so the circumstances in which warrantless wiretapping is permitted (e.g. by PATRIOT act) is a contentious issue; however, it's not relevant if a proper warrant is obtained.
> 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-busi...
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...
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?
> That’s not an unsubstantiated claim, that’s literally how you deal with sensitive contacts and information in journalism.
The way it works is if the writing has a byline of a credible investigative journalist. It doesn't work for an anonymous wire service article.
> You understand that nobody is going to speak on the record about this, right? What, exactly, do you expect in terms of substantiation?
Journalism used to have standards. If you didn't have multiple confirmations you wouldn't publish it. These days they publish anything. They have more better credibility than anonymous opinion posts on random internet forums.