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Comment by roin | Hacker News Reader

Not only is the slide from 2008, but it also says it requires "close access methods" and "remote installation will be pursued for a future release." In other words, they need physical access to your device. If we think that the NSA can't compromise a device after gaining physical access, well then I think we should be scared about the competence of the NSA.

I don't have the patience to watch Appelbaum's hour long talk, but unless he has something far more impressive than these documents then he's just another activist who will willfully mislead in order to advance his cause.

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>I don't have the patience to watch Appelbaum's hour long talk, but unless he has something far more impressive than these documents then he's just another activist who will willfully mislead in order to advance his cause.

The fact that you cherry picked a obvious example, and even downplayed its singificance -- plus fact that you were quick to call him an "activist" (nay, "another activist", how their pesky multitudes annoy you), tells more about you than about him or the talk.

I didn't cherry pick any example. I just used the example that the article was written about.

Much of Jacob's presentation echoes many of the articles he (and others) had published in Der Spiegel earlier that day, going into a little more into the technical aspects (to the extent they are known and/or can be inferred.) While you may skip out the talk, at least look over the articles. While Jacob's style may rub you wrong, the issues are there regardless, and impatience is hardly a justifiable excuse.

On another note, if you are aware of Jacob misleading on any matter, it would be nice pointing that out directly. He is an activist that has done everything from helping with on-the-ground infrastructure deployments in war-torn areas, working on and advocating for Tor, speaking in front of the EU council… Casting doubt on his integrity without highlighting relevant facts is a way of distracting from the actual issues under discussion.

Close access includes the assembly line, and that would be the preferred option for an intelligence organ seeking access to a consumer device - it scales well. Given the logistics of the electronics industry, there are many potential vectors to introduce the exploit unilaterally, though working cooperatively with Korean or Taiwanese agencies is possible given shared interests and those country's roles in component manufacturing. Of course with their own chip design arm, going directly through Apple is a more obvious choice.

Yeah.. close access methods..

Hope you didn't have that phone shipped to you, because apparently the NSA is cool with slicing open your new package before conveniently reshipping it.

I would say this is one of the least impressive things mentioned in that talk.

"physical access", or "we'll run a jailbreak tool and set the 'hidden' property of the Cydia app to true"

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