zlacker

Is there an implication here that they could get into an iPhone with lower security settings enabled? There's Advanced Data Protection, which E2EEs more of your data in iCloud. There's the FaceID unlock state, which US law enforcement can compel you to unlock; but penta-click the power button and you go into PIN unlock state, which they cannot compel you to unlock.

My understanding of Lockdown Mode was that it babyifies the device to reduce the attack surface against unknown zero-days. Does the government saying that Lockdown Mode barred them from entering imply that they've got an unknown zero-day that would work in the PIN-unlock state, but not Lockdown Mode?

>>827a+(OP)
Yes

>>827a+(OP)
It's relatively well know that the NSO Group / Pegasus is what governments use to access locked phones.

>>kingno+Ts
This was known, in the past, but if its relying on zero-days Apple & Google are, adversarially, attempting to keep up with and patch, my assumption would not be that pegasus is, at any time, always able to breach a fully-updated iPhone. Rather, its a situation where maybe there are periods of a few months at a time where they have a working exploit, until Apple discovers it and patches it, repeat indefinitely.

>>827a+LN
How does Apple discover their exploits? I'm sure they keep some around for extremely high value targets.

>>827a+LN
It's always a game of cat and mouse, but NSO had a quarter billion USD in annual revenue in 2020. They are clearly providing highly effective spyware to governments around the world. It wouldn't surprise me if they have that many zero day, zero click exploits that they can always get in to a phone. We're talking nation state espionage here... they probably have insiders at Apple and Google who introduce subtle unnoticeable bugs in core OS stacks.

>>kingno+Ts
The nso group is on the entity list, so no western govt is using it. And it was never used to gain access to devices that they already had physical control over.

>>halJor+Da1
Apple regularly hires Israeli ex-millitary devs