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Comment by dagi3d | Hacker News Reader

so, they are basically confirming Android and Apple have their backdoors as no arrests or seizures on that matter have taken place

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That was my read on that too.

> As of 2018 through an initiative sometimes termed "Five Eyes Plus 3", Five Eyes has agreements with France, Germany, and Japan to introduce an information-sharing framework to counter China and Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Five_Eyes_Plus

Yep. That’s the implication, and it’s disturbing. It also implies the US government knows - otherwise why wouldn’t they use their influence to put an end to this?

Does this apply to other Linux Distros?

I don't think they are highly concerned with people installing their own OS on desktop machines, that's still a fringe group. And most of us are using smartphones too. Also there are likely other trivial exploits like CUPS which was preinstalled and enabled by default on desktop linuxes.

Every smartphone has hardware backdoors controlled by BTS'.

Source?

Not really. It's one thing trying to bully a relatively small FOSS project, it's quite something else to take on one of the world's biggest companies that can afford a literal army of lawyers and that also has the power to have the US government intervene on their behalf.

Actually, in some ways, it is easier to bully large companies - because those companies are less flexible in avoiding confrontation with the authorities in a certain state. For Google to avoid having a legal presence in France is much harder than for the GrapheneOS project to do the same.

But - valid point regarding having the US government intervene.

> that also has the power to have the US government intervene on their behalf.

This would seem to be a weakness, if your goal is using American clout to persecute malware manufacturers: https://www.securityweek.com/apple-suddenly-drops-nso-group-...

you’re getting the logic wrong. i’m absolutely sure apple and google have direct cia backdoors. that’s what Snowden taught us and it would be delusional to think the world has changed. The bigger the company = tighter the link with power

that's my understanding as well. absolutely unsurprising btw.

absolutely yes

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