Apple Stands Up: Calls US Government, "Malicious Hackers"

"malicious hackers" may not be strong enough but from a major corporation it's a good beginning.
I was beginning to wonder if every single corporation was in bed with Congress in some form or fashion.
Perhaps they are but at least one company has the sense to deny the relationship to the public.
(which in turn could be nothing more than good PR for Apple, wink wink)

reply to post by xuenchen

Apple is a giant company and well established within the international corporatist agenda.

Is it possible there's a silent war between global corporations and national governments? Jockeying for control of world government? ...Maybe the corporate takeover is not acceptable to everyone in power?

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I'm not saying that what the NSA is doing is right but no one really reads all your stuff unless the software flags certain key words it finds.

Don't be so vain that you'd think the government is interested in your regular everyday affairs.

unb3k44n7
Ever since the patriot act people should consider any and all of their personal information, mobile and PC data fair game to be looked through under any circumstance, justifiable reasoning or not.

Yeah, and OBAMA could have gotten rid of that Patriot Act garbage, but he re-upped it for Bush. What a liar.

I don't see the point in watching everyone to this degree.

I say do away with it. Either that or come on out with the truth and NAME the people you suspect so EVERYONE knows who they are and we can deal with this issue like it should be dealt with.

reply to post by Nephalim


The point is control. Imagine you are running for public office...ready to clean up corruption...ect. The NSA through their spying have found out that in your spare time you like to get spanked with a hairbrush....you get a visit from your friends in the NSA, telling you that if you don't tow the line they will "leak" this information to the press...see where I'm going with this? Judges, politicians...basically anyone is at risk of being coerced or blackmailed into just about anything....for this and many other reasons....THIS HAS TO BE STOPPED.

As for the issue being dealt with....as long as the government is being held hostage by the military industrial complex, banking, and corporate interests...we have NO HOPE.

I will help people understand what is going on with information you have already been given and show you how to discover what has happened.

First the document about DROPOUTJEEP.

media.idownloadblog.com...

Now look for the date. No not where you normally look for it at. Look at the bottom. The date there is around a year off from that above. 20070108

Now you have to bring up the Apple timeline and look for the same date.20070108

upload.wikimedia.org...

Apple Timeline and you will see what corresponds to 20070108.

en.wikipedia.org...

On January 9, 2007, Apple unveiled a new AirPort Extreme (802.11 Draft-N) Base Station, which introduced 802.11 Draft-N to the Apple AirPort product line. This implementation of 802.11 Draft-N can operate in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz ISM bands, and has modes that make it compatible with 802.11b/g and 802.11a. The number of Ethernet ports was increased to four—one nominally for WAN, three for LAN, but all can be used in bridged mode. A USB port was included for printers and other USB devices. The Ethernet ports were later updated to Gigabit Ethernet on all ports. The styling is similar to that of the Mac Mini and Apple TV.[4]

Holy crap the NSA is good. They were able to install spy software and have a report made and a official name for the software DROPOUTJEEP the day before Apple even released the new software. Wow!! Or Apple works with them and installs the software before it is every released to the public.

You decide! I go with Apple works with the NSA.

Whether or not Apple is being genuine here is irrelevant. It's their fault for designing weak and easily compromised devices. Hackers are always going to expose weak software and hardware, and it's by doing so that they help make the devices stronger. Information security has advanced mostly because of hackers who continue to find new ways to compromise different systems. Without hackers our systems would never get any better. I wouldn't even be surprised if Apple purposely built their devices to be weak so that entities like the US Government had a back door into them, and that's why Apple devices have been pushed so hard onto society and they've created a sort of cult which shuns anyone who doesn't have an Apple phone.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


I'm not a coder but I completely get what you're saying. I like to write and if somebody inserted or altered words in something that I wrote, it'd stick out to me like a sore thumb. One tends to know one's work. The other thing that really makes me wonder is how the NSA would've placed the code in all of these devices in any undetected manner by Apple. Considering the amount of corporate espionage that is likely to take place, then one would imagine that Apple would have very rigid controls placed in terms of their software and hardware development at every step in the process. Now either the NSA has the best of the best of the best that can slip in completely undetected by other experts in the field (unlikely as I know there is a brain drain for a variety of governmental entities, including DARPA, because a. it's not sexy enough and b. the corporate variants provide for more opportunity) or Apple was complicit. Techies tend to be both paranoid in terms of their tech/software used and curious about how something works as well, are they not? So I'm placing my bet on the latter--Apple was complicit.

The thing that concerns me is that much of what is being said in response by the involved companies in regards to the surveillance being revealed is pure PR. I don't think that they are placing themselves at risk by stating comments such as these because if their sales decline because a clean competitor appears, then who else is getting hurt by that? Why the NSA, of course. Arguments that people are simply too distrustful to buy into statements like these aren't considering that many people already own all of these devices, there hasn't been any major move to create anything, as far as I know, to replace them, and lastly, most don't know a thing about coding or how their phones even work to verify whether it's being followed through upon. So really, all Apple (or any other implicated company) needs to do is to convince their users that they are "on their side" and the risk of that being revealed as a farce is pretty darn low.

Apple/MS/Oracle and other companies being owned in the US will be basically open for the the spooks to look around and theres nothing they can do about it as theres a tame federal judge owned by the NSA to sign off anything required so its quicker for them to work with the NSA than have to rewrite every new version of software and put in the spyware required afterwards

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Its an Apple PR job.
And what exactly are they going to do to help protect their customers from the NSA?
Nothing.

unb3k44n7
Ever since the patriot act people should consider any and all of their personal information, mobile and PC data fair game to be looked through under any circumstance, justifiable reasoning or not.

the scary part is you are mistaken, as are many people.

ECHELON started in the early 90's. and I KNEW ABOUT it THEN.

People have NO CLUE!.. just like the saying that GOVT tech is old by the time the public get wind of it is true.

How do you feel knowing the monitoring has been happening LONGER than this, by almost a decade.

the patriot act is an abortion of our human rights to be free and private. But, the scarier part is that many people still can't get the whole picture yet.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


An Apple ad campaign boasting of NSA proof software would be great at this minute in time

Kudos to Apple for making a stand.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Microsoft were the first to cal the NSA out and used harsh words like Criminal Activity to describe the NSA surveillance. But make no mistake. All of these companies are guilty of playing ball. Let's face it. If these companies want to survive they pretty much have no choice but to play ball. It has always been that with the Tech/Corporate world and the US Government going back to WW2.

People seem to be overlooking or misinterpreting important details about these documents, but I'll specifically talk about the ones relating to this particular thread.

I think, first and foremost, it's important to note the document talks about "software implant[s]." That is just a formal term for exploits. They aren't talking about using a system (backdoor) Apple purposely built in so the NSA could access and capture data from the devices. Did people miss all the information regarding the TAO division? It's pretty obvious that searching for and writing exploits is one of their primary tasks.

Second point I think is worthy of noting is, as others have pointed out, the timestamps on these documents, if correct, would mean they were talking about the first iPhone. Since I have yet to see any evidence allowing me to conclude Apple built a backdoor into iOS for the NSA, it's quite possible that whatever flaw(s) the NSA used to compromise the first iPhone is no longer present in newer and current iterations.

The fact that the NSA apparently reported a 100% success rate exploiting the iPhone isn't, by itself, evidence of Apple collaboration, either. The language and descriptions used in the DROPOUT JEEP document is no different than the language used in the other documents, describing "software implants" for other devices. And the NSA reports different success rates for different devices.

Based on all this, I understand these to be descriptions of the exploits they developed or were developing, their capabilities, and their respective success rates; and not built-in backdoors into these systems put in by the manufacturers.

For now, I have yet to see any evidence to conclude Apple is working, or worked, with the NSA on this specific issue. Doesn't mean they haven't, and I agree with most comments, that their public statements don't mean much. More so when we know the NSA (and other agencies) can compel their collaborators to deny NSA involvement and collaboration.

The company formerly known as Research in Motion, maker of the once very popular Blackberry smart phone, and reputed world leader in providing absolutely secure communications for its clients was forced by political developments in India to allow government access to its secure servers. That was the beginning of what might turn out to be the end for that company. Political pressure deprived them of the principle reason for interest in their product. Even President Obama had one, which he called his "Crackberry" because he couldn't get along without it.

Undoubtedly American tech firms like Apple are under similar pressure, but in Silicon Valley they must be only too aware that it would be possible for a Russian or Chinese technology company to step in and steal the global communications industry out from under them, on the selling point of absolute security alone.

That's what happened to Blackberry, who once dominated the corporate market for smart phones.

The American government might care what Americans are saying to one another, or pretend to care because there is so much money to be made pretending to care in America, but the Chinese government doesn't care about what the average American has to say on any subject. Industrial espionage is different, but if China or Russia could sell the average consumer on the basis of personal security, a lot of the industry leaders in the field in the West could kiss their asses goodbye.

I think that is what is really behind the show of truculence coming out of Silicon Valley.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


It really doesn't matter. Federal Judge William Pauley already ruled that it is perfectly acceptable. So there you have it. Nothing can be done about it.

VoidHawk
Seems like there's a massive oppertunity for a company to market a phone thats designed from the ground up to be free of backdoors and spyware. I'd buy one!

You and the rest of us too my friend, but they would be bought out in a flash for heavy cash.

Otherwise I agree 100% with your wishful thinking.

Regards, Iwinder

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I call BS on this one. Apple LOVES the US government. The USG is helping Apple obtain a monopoly over US communication devices. And now I am supposed to believe that Apple just wants to be FAIR!? Ya right.

Samsung has been barred from selling some of its smartphones in the US after President Obama refused to veto an import ban, just weeks after overturning a similar restriction on Apple products.

LINK

President Barack Obama's trade representative has now vetoed that decision because of its "effect on competitive conditions in the US economy".

LINK


It seems to me that Apple has been essentially nationalized. Too big to fail status.

Samsung is nearly tripling Apples market share, but US media is making it sound like apple is the best thing since sliced bread. The truth is that Samsung is made for the customer and Apple is made to CONTROL the customer.

The USG is going to protect apple because of it's new finger print ID tech on the new phones. Imagine that... Biometric recorders on every communication device... Americans must really trust their government.

soficrow
reply to post by xuenchen

 

Apple is a giant company and well established within the international corporatist agenda.

Is it possible there's a silent war between global corporations and national governments? Jockeying for control of world government? ...Maybe the corporate takeover is not acceptable to everyone in power?

there is war alright, and it is dirty. Apple is throwing up a flag saying that they are AGAINST government spying yet they are the ones that are going to usher in new technology that will make spying so much easier.

As P-Diddy put in in 'Get Him To The Greek'... They are MINDF&^ING US!!

reply to post by Blaine91555


The companies are trying to save face; it's PR, that's all it is. Ask yourself this question. This spying has been going on for years, and these companies damn well knew about and co-operated. Now, that it's out in the open, all of a sudden they have a conscience and want to fight for the rights of the people?

Do not be fooled by these people, they do not care about us.