[flagged]
Now on the HN frontpage: "Google Antigravity just wiped my hard drive"
Sure going to be hard to distinguish these Chinese models' "intentionally malicious actions"!
And the cherry on top:
- Written from my iPhone 16 Pro Max (Made in China)
Even if China did manage to embed software on the iPhone in Taiwan, it would soon hopefully be wiped since you usually end up updating the OS anyway as soon as you activate it.
You should remember that all iPhones had for several years an undetected hardware backdoor, until a couple of years ago, when independent researchers have found it and reported the Apple bugs as CVEs, so Apple was forced to fix the vulnerabilities.
The hardware backdoor consisted in the fact that writing some magic values to some supposedly unused addresses allowed the bypassing of all memory protections. The backdoor is likely to have consisted in some memory test registers, which are used during manufacturing, but which should be disabled before shipping the phone to customers, which Apple had not done.
This hardware backdoor, coupled with some bugs in a few Apple system libraries, allowed the knowledgeable attackers to send remotely an invisible message to the iPhone, which was able to take complete control over the iPhone, allowing the attacker to read any file and to record from cameras and microphones. A reboot of the iPhone removed the remote control, but then the attacker would immediately send another invisible message, regaining control.
There was no way to detect that the iPhone was remotely controlled. The backdoor was discovered only externally in the firewalls of a company, because the iPhones generated a suspiciously high amount of Internet traffic, without apparent causes.
This has been widely reported at the time and discussed on HN, but some people continue to be not aware about how little you can trust even major companies like Apple to deliver the right hardware.
The identity of the attackers who exploited this Apple hardware backdoor has not been revealed, but it is likely that they had needed the cooperation of Apple insiders, at least for access to secret Apple documentation, if not for intentionally ensuring that the hardware backdoor remained open.
Thus the fact that Apple publishes only incomplete technical documentation has helped only the attackers, allowing them to remain undiscovered for many years, against the interests of the Apple customers. Had the specifications of the test registers been public, someone would have quickly discovered that they had remained unprotected after production.
Therefore, for many years the iPhones of certain valuable targets had magically intercepted all their communications and they have sent them to an unknown country (due to the nature of some of the identified targets and the amount of resources required to carry the attacks, it has been speculated that the country could have been Israel, but no public evidence exists; a US TLA is the main plausible alternative, as some targets were Russians).
put another way, how do you propose to tell this subtle nefarious chinese sabotage you baselessly imply to be commonplace from the very real limitations of this technology in the first place?
This makes EU countries more reliable partners for cooperation than China. The same goes for the US from an European perspective, and even with everything going on over there it is still not remotely close.
All states are fundamentally adversaries because they have conflicting interests. To your point however, adversaries do indeed cooperate all the time.
Please don't engage in political battle here, including singling out a country for this kind of criticism. No matter how right you are or feel you are, it inevitably leads to geopolitical flamewar, which has happened here.
remember when the US bugged EU leader's phones, including Merkel from 2002 to 2013?
Please don't be snarky or condescending in HN comments. From the guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
The topic itself, like any topic, is fine to discuss here, but care must be taken to discuss it in a de-escalatory way. The words you use and the way you use them matter.
Most importantly, it's not OK to write "it is however entirely reasonable to assume that the comment I replied to was made entirely in bad faith". That's a swipe and a personal attack that, as the guidelines ask, should be edited out.
Other than that let's be very clear that there was no personal attack. You left out the part where I explain why I think the comment was made in bad faith. I.e. the part that makes it not a personal attack. And a part which I, upon request, elaborated on in the same comment tree.
As you said: Words matter.
And yes I am a moderator and it's my role to prevent flamewars and to encourage everyone to raise the standard of discourse here. In my comment I was trying to convey that multiple comments of yours were crossing too far into political battle and personal attack, and here are the main instances:
> That is just objectively incorrect, and fundamentally misunderstanding the basics of statehood
This counts as a personal swipe, and as fulminating.
> It is however entirely reasonable to assume that the comment I replied to was made entirely in bad faith
People can be mistaken or wrong, or just of a different opinion/assessment, without acting “entirely in bad faith”.
> "Baselessly" - I'm sorry but realpolitik is plenty of basis. China is a geopolitical adversary of both the EU and the US. And China will be the first to admit this, btw.
This is phrased in a snarky way.
The points you've made are fine to make, but the way you make them matters. Snarkiness, swipes, put-downs, accusations of bad faith (giving your reason "why" you think it was in bad faith doesn't make it OK) are all clearly against the guidelines.
I can accept that you didn't mean to break the guidelines, which is why I've politely asked you to familiarise yourself with them and try harder to follow them in future. It's a request not a scolding. It's not necessary to announce you want to quit HN in protest. (Though of course, eventually we would rather people leave if they prefer not to follow the guidelines.) Just making an effort to respect the guidelines and the HN community would be great.
I have not made a single personal swipe in this entire comment tree. I have stated (implied) that certain views are not consistent with a cursory introduction to the topic at hand.
I absolutely assumed a basic familiarity with the concept of a state from a comment on the relationship between states. That is good faith and basic respect for the human you are conversing with as I view it.
Overall, I have kept a tone I would prefer be kept towards myself; fake politeness is just condescending.
That being said: Your site, your rules, and your power to arbitrarily interpret and enforce said rules. I.e., message received, regardless of my thoughts on your interpretation of events.
We don't want you to be fake. We just want you to make the effort to share your perspective in a way that is kind and is conducive to curious conversation, which is HN's primary objective. We know it can be hard to get this right when commenting on the internet. It's common for people to underestimate how hostile their words can come across to others, when they seem just like reasonable, matter-of-fact statements when formulated in one's own mind.
> That being said: Your site, your rules, and your power to arbitrarily interpret and enforce said rules
That's not really it. The community holds the power here; when we try to override broad community sentiment and expectations, the community pushes back forcefully.
Your comments got my attention because they were attracting flags and downvotes from the community, and from looking at these comments and earlier ones in your feed, my assessment is "yes, I can see why". (We don't let community sentiment, or "mob rule" win out all the time; we often override flags if we think they're unfair, but in your case, given the pattern we observe over time, we think the community's response is reasonable.)
If you are getting at the fact that it is sometimes beneficial for adversaries to collaborate (e.g., the prisoner dilemma) then I agree. And indeed, both Norway and Sweden would be completely lost if they declared war on the other tomorrow. But it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the relationship.
There has never been a shred of evidence for security researchers, model analysis, benchmarks, etc that supports this.
It's a complete delusion in every sense.