The story is that the US doesn’t want backdoors on iPhones because everyone in the government is using iPhones, and if they put backdoors in them, the Russians and the Chinese – and anyone else who wants them – will have access.

The NSA has some kind of way to hack iPhones, which they presumably get from Israeli companies that develop this software (that was in WikiLeaks), but what the UK is asking for – just an open door that will allow them to spy on all the phones at the same time – is something different and much more extreme.

RT:

The UK government has issued a “technical capability notice” to Apple, compelling the tech giant to create a backdoor to its encrypted iCloud service, the Washington Post reported on Friday. The move would enable UK law enforcement and security agencies to access encrypted data stored by Apple users worldwide, according to the newspaper.

The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), referred to by critics as the “Snoopers’ Charter,” grants authorities the power to mandate that tech companies permit access to users’ data for investigative purposes. It also makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has made such a demand. The recent notice requires Apple to provide a means for decrypting user data. It is currently protected by end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only users can access their information.

Creating such backdoors could weaken overall security and set a dangerous precedent, according to Daniel Castro, vice-president of the US-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. In a statement on Friday, he has described the UK’s move as an “unjustified over-reach that threatens the security and privacy of individuals and businesses around the world.”

…

UK security officials argue that encryption can hinder efforts to combat crime and terrorism. “Maintaining proportionate, lawful access to such communications in the face of ever-more prevalent encryption is sometimes our only means of detecting and understanding these threats,” Ken McCallum, head of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, stated last October. He believes that “privacy and exceptional lawful access can coexist if absolutist positions are avoided.”

Well, if the UK hadn’t flooded their country with immigrants, they wouldn’t have a terrorism problem.

This whole “we have to take everyone’s freedom away because all these immigrants we brought in are violent criminals who want to kill us all” is something you could only argue in a modern democracy country, where the social order is controlled by the media.

In a normal country, that argument would leave people with their jaws hanging open, and then they would riot and overthrow the government.

I have every confidence that Apple will stay on the right side of history and resist government demands to add surveillance backdoors to iOS. Any backdoor built for one government will ultimately be demanded by all, and will be exploited by hackers and nation state adversaries. https://t.co/fHqitHSLbB

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2025

The grave danger here is that governments, eager to expand their surveillance of citizens, will offer Apple a corrupt bargain: Support their secret government spying demands, and your monopoly will get a free pass on antitrust and regulatory enforcement.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 7, 2025

Previously: Las Vegas: CyberTruck Blows Up Outside Trump Casino, Killing One and Injuring Several

To be fair, this is about as ridiculous as being surprised to find that Siri is spying on you.

Obviously, Tesla tracks all of your movements, and presumably can and will listen to what you’re talking about while in the car. It actually records video of you and sends it back to the company, and Elon just lets employees pass it around as fap material.

People think a lot about cellphone spying, but not about Tesla.

AP:

Your car is spying on you.

That is one takeaway from the fast, detailed data that Tesla collected on the driver of one of its Cybertrucks that exploded in Las Vegas earlier this week. Privacy data experts say the deep dive by Elon Musk’s company was impressive, but also shines a spotlight on a difficult question as vehicles become less like cars and more like computers on wheels.

Well, if a computer blows up, Microsoft or Apple can’t collect the data from it explaining why it blew up.

This is worse than a computer.

“You might want law enforcement to have the data to crack down on criminals, but can anyone have access to it?” said Jodi Daniels, CEO of privacy consulting firm Red Clover Advisors. “Where is the line?”

Many of the latest cars not only know where you’ve been and where you are going, but also often have access to your contacts, your call logs, your texts and other sensitive information thanks to cell phone syncing.

The data collected by Musk’s electric car company after the Cybertruck packed with fireworks burst into flames in front of the Trump International Hotel Wednesday proved valuable to police in helping track the driver’s movements.

Within hours of the New Year’s Day explosion that burned the driver beyond recognition and injured seven, Tesla was able to track Matthew Livelsberger’s movements in detail from Denver to Las Vegas, and also confirm that the problem was explosives in the truck, not the truck itself. Tesla used data collected from charging stations and from onboard software — and to great acclaim.

“I have to thank Elon Musk, specifically,” said Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill to reporters. “He gave us quite a bit of additional information.“

Some privacy experts were less enthusiastic.

“It reveals the kind of sweeping surveillance going on,” said David Choffnes, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston. “When something bad happens, it’s helpful, but it’s a double edged sword. Companies that collect this data can abuse it.”

General Motors, for instance, was sued in August by the Texas attorney general for allegedly selling data from 1.8 million drivers to insurance companies without their consent.

Cars equipped with cameras to enable self-driving features have added a new security risk. Tesla itself came under fire after Reuters reported how employees from 2019 through 2022 shared drivers’ sensitive videos and recordings with each other, including videos of road rage incidents and, in one case, nudity.

Here’s an article from 2023 about the video sharing scandal.

They were sharing videos of accidents and well as videos of attractive women.

Who was sharing them?

His name’s “Pajeet” and he wants to kiss your vagana to make you feel happy and he will put his 1 foot pinus in your vegen and make you feel very happy.

White people would feel ashamed about this, spying on people in their cars and masturbating to the videos, mocking kids hit with bikes and so on.

When that story broke, it came out then that there were no laws violated. They’re just allowed to do this. You sign up for it in the Tesla ToS. So there is zero reason to believe they aren’t still doing it.

Tesla is in very bad shape, and it is only a matter of time before it collapses. Elon is running an Enron type scam.

This is a good video (despite the guy being sort of a fag who is against right-wing politics):

People really need to understand just how retarded this guy is. It’s confusing for people, because he is rich. I don’t think he’s as rich as they claim, but he is very rich.

People assume that is an indicator of intelligence. While it might indicate guile, it does not in fact indicate intelligence. All he did for the money was use family money to start a company that merged with PayPal, which is basically just getting lucky given that an internet bank was very obviously going to happen at some point. Then he got a bunch of government subsidies with Tesla and SpaceX, for companies that absolutely could not compete in a free market. The only way Tesla sells at all in America and Europe is through import bans and tariffs on Chinese EVs. Chinese EVs are better in every way and for equivalent models, cost about 30% of the price of a Tesla.

Further, in China, this kind of spying would be considered unacceptable. I’m sure the government has ways to access devices in China, but for staff of a private company to be passing around nudes they recorded using spy devices would be unacceptable in virtually any country other than America.

Elon set himself up to claim every bad thing that happens to his companies is a result of political persecution by doing something totally insane and publicly allying himself with a bunch of racists. I support racists, but for the head of large companies to get so involved in politics is always extreme. But this is just ridiculous in his case. Obviously, if Dana White is involved in the right, he faces little consequence and gets the benefit of being aligned with the government in power, because UFC fans are going to be right-wing. Elon’s entire customer base was redditors and global warmers. No one his political views appeal to is going to buy a car or care about frigging Mars.

It was probably clever to align with the right-wing like this, because either left or right eventually would have prosecuted him for all these crimes he’s committing, in particular the endless and multitude forms of fraud. But then he destroyed all of that goodwill in a single day by claiming that the people he was appealing to are racially inferior and need to be replaced.

He’s dumb.

I don’t know what kind of people thought Siri wasn’t spying on them.

It’s not clear how Siri would even function without spying on people.

Isn’t Alexa doing the same thing?

AP:

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the privacy-minded company of deploying its virtual assistant Siri to eavesdrop on people using its iPhone and other trendy devices.

The proposed settlement filed Tuesday in an Oakland, California, federal court would resolve a 5-year-old lawsuit revolving around allegations that Apple surreptitiously activated Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices equipped with the virtual assistant for more than a decade.

The alleged recordings occurred even when people didn’t seek to activate the virtual assistant with the trigger words, “Hey, Siri.” Some of the recorded conversations were then shared with advertisers in an attempt to sell their products to consumers more likely to be interested in the goods and services, the lawsuit asserted.

The allegations about a snoopy Siri contradicted Apple’s long-running commitment to protect the privacy of its customers — a crusade that CEO Tim Cook has often framed as a fight to preserve “a fundamental human right.”

Apple isn’t acknowledging any wrongdoing in the settlement, which still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. Lawyers in the case have proposed scheduling a Feb. 14 court hearing in Oakland to review the terms.

Anyone who uses Siri is necessarily retarded. Obviously, that is going to be recording you.

The question is, do iPhones turn on and listen to you randomly?

It seems like they might, but that has never been to court.

The best evidence that iPhones are secure is that all government employees use them. Google phones (Android) are definitely not being used by government people.

Most of us already know this but we are all being spied on by our own government via our phones.

Listen to this about Apple’s new upgrade and AI. Things are about to get much worse. Very disturbing. 👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/xNMYw9GLC2

— Glockford Files (@GlockfordFiles) September 30, 2024

The government never does anything good.

These states are not banning porn, despite the fact that they have a right to do that. They’re making you scan your ID card so your real identity can be tracked online.

Obviously, any kid that wants to look at porn can just go to another website, or he can find an ID image online and scan that. Of course, it’s never explained why porn is better for people over the age of 18 or why the government supports that.

The Independent:

More than a third of US states have now introduced restrictions for online adult content, blocking access to popular pornographic websites such as Pornhub.

From 1 January, 2025, there are 17 states with restrictions in place after Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee became the latest to enforce over-18 age verification laws for viewing porn sites.

Legislation aimed at banning under-18s from viewing adult content in these states – which have a combined population of more than 120 million – typically requires visitors to provide state-approved identification, such as a passport or driving license.

Critics claim that this is a violation of user privacy, with Pornhub, RedTube and YouPorn parent company Aylo claiming that it also puts people’s personal data at risk. The company said it has withdrawn its websites from these states as a result of the laws.

“Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy, and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults,” a spokesperson said.

Well, obviously it’s a privacy violation.

And what is the point when if you believed porn is a social evil, you could just ban it outright?

The point must be to violate privacy, no?

Project 2025 called for the criminalization of pornography.

Further restrictions could be introduced under Donald Trump’s administration, with the criminalisation of pornography among the proposals of the controversial Project 2025 plan drawn up by the Heritage Foundation.

The conservative think tank claims that pornography has no First Amendment protections relating to free speech, and refers to it as “addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime” in the 920-page manifesto.

“Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned,” Project 2025 states.

I don’t understand why the media continues to claim Trump is involved with Project 2025 when he’s made it clear he condemns everything in it. The idea that Trump is going to ban porn is ridiculous. Maybe he’ll ban TikTok to fight the Chinese (i.e., posts about Israel). That’s all.

Are we ready for a world where our data is exposed at a glance? @CaineArdayfio and I offer an answer to protect yourself here:https://t.co/LhxModhDpk pic.twitter.com/Oo35TxBNtD

— AnhPhu Nguyen (@AnhPhuNguyen1) September 30, 2024

Oh, so technology is causing problems?

Who could have foreseen such a thing?

New York Post:

This pernicious program is every stalker’s dream.

Two Harvard students developed a program for Ray-Ban’s Meta smart glasses that can be used to identify an individual and obtain access to their personal information, including a home address.

AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, who are engineering students at the Ivy League school, posted a chilling demonstration of what their program, dubbed I-Xray, can do.

“Some dude could just find some girl’s home address on the train and just follow them home,” Nguyen told 404 Media about the sinister potential of the specs.

Based.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses can record up to three minutes of video.

The I-Xray program works by uploading the footage from the glasses to PimEyes, a facial recognition tool that uses AI to match a recorded face to any publicly available images on the internet.

I-Xray then prompts another AI tool that scours public databases to retrieve personal details about the individual in the image, including their name, address, phone number and even information about relatives.

This information is then sent to the I-Xray mobile app.

In the video, posted to X Monday, Nguyen and Ardayfio are seen identifying classmates in real-time and approaching strangers in public using information I-Xray gathered to act as if they know them.

However, Nguyen and Ardayfio clarified that they are not releasing the program, and say they only created it to “highlight [the] significant privacy concerns” associated with the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

“The purpose of building this tool is not for misuse, and we are not releasing it,” the pair noted.

To limit exposure to bad actors using the Meta smart glasses, Nguyen and Ardayfio released step-by-step instructions to help people remove themselves from the public databases that the engineers used to obtain the personal information.

404 Media has reported that “both Meta and PimEyes seemed to downplay the privacy risks” in the past.

It’s not clear what people complaining about these things want. It’s like the fat Luddite commie dockworkers, apparently. Technologies are supposed to be suppressed in order to maintain the status quo – even while the status quo itself is in large part the result of unfettered technological development.

Maybe certain technology can or should be suppressed or outlawed, but you would have to take a wholistic view of the technological landscape. You can’t just demand port inefficiency so fat commies can suck more and more out of the public trust. Unless these slobs at the dock are simply greedy (they are), then there is a bigger problem with resource distribution that needs addressed.

Just so, stalking a woman you see in public to her home is something that has always been possible, so claiming that glasses that make that easier are a threat is a meaningless assertion. If there is a problem with men stalking women, that’s what needs to be addressed, not glasses that make it slightly easier.

The normies will love these

In other news, the Jews have banned you from using money.

European Conservative:

The European Parliament has approved a directive that will severely limit the use of cash.

Under the directive, ostensibly aimed at curbing money laundering and the funding of terrorism, anonymous cash payments over €3,000 will be banned in commercial transactions. In business transactions, cash payments over €10,000 will be completely banned. Anonymous payments in cryptocurrencies will also be completely banned.

“Under the guise of combating money laundering, you are actually waging a war against cash which has protected our financial privacy since time immemorial,” said German Pirate Party MEP Partick Breyer.

…

Breyer points out that cryptocurrency is already traceable when necessary as it operates through a blockchain peer-to-peer computer network. He adds that law enforcement has already effectively traced and caught criminals committing financial crimes or laundering money from illegal activities through cryptocurrencies. He also notes that during the public consultation period on the directive, it proved highly unpopular among citizens in EU member states, with 90% of respondents weighing in against the measure, citing the use of cash as an essential personal freedom.

Experts have also warned that it will do little to prevent crime while harming ordinary citizens, particularly the most vulnerable.

“On the other hand, [cash payment limitations] may bring about higher transaction costs, undermined privacy, weakened trust to institutions, basic rights violations, bank-runs and bail-in regulations that place citizens’ savings at risk of devastating losses,” Nikos Passas, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, stated in a blog post.

This is one of the top government programs that no one requested at all.

Nobody wants this, but they’re gonna do it anyway

America lost something important today, and hardly anyone heard. The headlines of state-aligned media screech and crow about the nefarious designs of your fellow citizens and the necessity of foreign wars without end, but find few words for a crime against the Constitution. https://t.co/VvgVQcq2NE

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 20, 2024

🧵 2/4

My 1st amendment included my bipartisan 4th Amendment is Not for Sale Act (already passed by the House). It would have ended the government’s practice of buying its way around the Bill of Rights by purchasing Americans’ personal data.

Defeated 31-61

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 20, 2024

Yet again the Senate was asked to consider the question: can liberty be exchanged for security? And sadly the majority of Senators said yes it can.

Final FISA reauthorization passed once again.

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 20, 2024

Democracy is just a rat cage.

It’s like that Smashing Pumpkins song.

Reuters:

The U.S. Senate voted late on Friday night to approve the reauthorization of a controversial surveillance program, narrowly missing the midnight expiration of the program, and the White House said President Joe Biden would swiftly sign it.

The reauthorization secures what supporters call a key element of U.S. foreign intelligence gathering.

“Democrats and Republicans came together and did the right thing for our country safety,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Yeah, Chuck Schumer, the baby-killing Jew, is just very concerned about the safety of Americans.

If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I want to sell you. In Baltimore.

FISA has attracted criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who argue it violates Americans’ constitutional right to privacy. The bill was blocked three times in the past five months by House Republicans bucking their party, before passing last week by a 273-147 vote when its duration was shortened from five years to two years.

…

Although the right to privacy is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, foreign nationals’ data gathered by the program often includes communications with Americans, and can be mined by domestic law enforcement bodies such as the FBI without a warrant.

This mention of the “foreign national” is stupid, because it’s anyone who has talked to a foreign national, or anyone who has talked to anyone who has talked to a foreign national. They just open up your email or your apps, and read everything. It’s actually a limitless domestic spying program, to collect all private communications, which goes almost as far as the “secret” and “illegal” NSA programs.

Here are the 60 Senators who—bolstered by a lie about a phony deadline—decided to vote away our Fourth Amendment rights late on a Friday night when no one was paying attention. pic.twitter.com/yUB6vUCh0m

— Amy Peikoff (@AmyPeikoff) April 20, 2024

.@SpeakerJohnson was incredibly wrong to vote w/ Dems against the 4th amend. when he killed the FISA warrant requirement and wrong to give in to the Dems spending demands. As I see it now, I’m not so sure there’s a difference between him being in charge and Dems being in charge. pic.twitter.com/NoyRhUrvRM

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 14, 2024

This stuff is all happening because of 911, supposedly.

lol.

Reuters:

Reformers had hoped that the debate over the reauthorization of a key U.S. domestic surveillance law would lead to new safeguards protecting Americans’ data.

But the bill now headed to the Senate instead expands the scope of the country’s domestic surveillance program, allowing police organizations including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to access to a far broader swathe of sensitive data on their fellow citizens than before.

Missing from the proposed legislation is any need for a warrant. A vote to require officials to seek judicial authorization before exploiting the data failed on a vote of 212 to 212 in the House of Representatives on Friday.

“It’s obviously pretty disappointing to have lost on a tie vote,” said Kia Hamadanchy, a senior policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU is one of scores of non-governmental organizations that have been lobbying to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which allows law enforcement to mine the massive trove of data collected by American spies.

…

The White House did not immediately return a message seeking comment on its lobbying. In a call with reporters on Tuesday, a White House official defended Section 702 as aimed squarely at foreigners. And a Department of Justice official defended the broader scope of the surveillance bill, saying it was an effort to adapt surveillance legislation “to the current communication technology landscape.”

That adaptation would allow U.S. spies to draw data not just from any U.S. “electronic communications service provider” – generally understood to be internet service providers and phone companies – but “any service provider” with “access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.”

The distributed nature of the internet means that could be virtually anyone, as the Information Technology Industry Council, a lobbying group, argued in a blog post.

“The language in the amendment vastly expands the U.S. government’s warrantless surveillance capabilities, damaging the competitiveness of U.S. technology companies large and small,” the group said, urging senators to reverse the change.

People don’t care.

They don’t care about anything.

People’s private lives are such a disaster, the only thing they can get energized about are these horrific scenes of children being annihilated in Gaza.

🚨BREAKING: Historic privacy settlement in which Google agrees to delete browsing data collected in Incognito Mode and more. Quotes:

➡️”Google with this Settlement agrees to rewrite its disclosures to inform users that “Google” collects private browsing data, including by… pic.twitter.com/CXkA4Z40uZ

— Luiza Jarovsky (@LuizaJarovsky) April 1, 2024

Why do people not just use Brave?

How are people still using Chrome, knowing that it is recording everything they do?

The Guardian:

Google agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately in its Chrome browser’s incognito mode.

Users alleged that Google’s analytics, cookies and apps let the Alphabet unit improperly track people who set Google’s Chrome browser to “incognito” mode and other browsers to “private” browsing mode.

They said this turned Google into an “unaccountable trove of information” by letting it learn about their friends, favorite foods, hobbies, shopping habits and the “most intimate and potentially embarrassing things” they hunt for online.

Yeah, people use “incognito mode” to look at porn.

This ends up being a massive blackmail database.

Basically, everyone is looking at some kind of weird porn, but they’re all embarrassed about it, for obvious reasons.

Terms of the settlement were filed on Monday in the Oakland, California, federal court, and require approval by US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The class action began in 2020, covering millions of Google users who used private browsing since 1 June 2016.

Under the settlement, Google will update disclosures about what it collects in “private” browsing, a process it has already begun. It will also let incognito users block third-party cookies for five years.

“The result is that Google will collect less data from users’ private browsing sessions, and that Google will make less money from the data,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.

Google’s entire business model is spying on people and selling the data to advertisers and the government.

People should not be involved with this company.

wow. super interesting data point on impact to Google’s revenues from 3rd party cookie blocking (aka privacy)… connecting dots.

Left: Google’s redacted estimate of impact on blocking 3rd party tracking cookies in Chrome’s private mode (aka Incognito).

Right: unsealed today. pic.twitter.com/B1SBG2PlJg

— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) April 1, 2024

The cellphones are spying devices.

They haven’t used them for many purposes that we’ve seen yet, but presumably they are planning to.

January 6 was a big deal on this front, as we learned that it was possible and apparently legal for the government to demand location data and identify people as being in a place based on that location data.

Honestly… there’s not really even a reason to have a phone.

Reuters:

Unidentified governments are surveilling smartphone users via their apps’ push notifications, a U.S. senator warned on Wednesday.

In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from Alphabet’s Google and Apple. Although details were sparse, the letter lays out yet another path by which governments can track smartphones.

Senator Ron Wyden

In a statement, Apple said that Wyden’s letter gave them the opening they needed to share more details with the public about how governments monitored push notifications.

“In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,” the company said in a statement. “Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”

…

Wyden’s letter cited a “tip” as the source of the information about the surveillance. His staff did not elaborate on the tip, but a source familiar with the matter confirmed that both foreign and U.S. government agencies have been asking Apple and Google for metadata related to push notifications to, for example, help tie anonymous users of messaging apps to specific Apple or Google accounts.

The source declined to identify the foreign governments involved in making the requests but described them as democracies allied to the United States.

Yeah, that would be Germany. And whoever else. But definitely Germany.

Germany isn’t really an “ally” of the United States, so much as a US colony. It’s under US military occupation and the German government can only operate with the blessing of the United States. They are prevented from making independent decisions about foreign policy, and largely prevented from formulating their own domestic policy.

People should learn about parallel construction, probably. Intelligence agencies can use the cellphone data to identify you and something you did, and then find a different explanation for how they identified you.

This has happened a lot with doxings of anon right-wingers. The explanations given for the doxing were obviously statistically impossible, or at least so improbable that they were not believable. So in reality, they were identified using ostensibly illegal spying methods, and then a different explanation was given.

CNN has done this multiple times, where it was just obvious that they were collaborating with US intelligence to dox a right-wing activist or shitposter.