
Canadian customs installed spyware app on my iPhone? - pcmaffey
Or am I being paranoid?<p>Does anyone know what this app is? Here&#x27;s a picture: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drive.google.com&#x2F;file&#x2F;d&#x2F;0B3IdETDqOKVtVzNXWnVubXpmY1E&#x2F;view?usp=sharing<p>Because here&#x27;s what I know:<p>1) I&#x27;m a US citizen who was detained by customs for not having a work visa to enter Canada for meetings with a client.<p>2) They told me they had &quot;blah blah&quot; every right to search my shit, then took my iPhone and went into a backroom.<p>3) On the plane, before landing, I went through my Apps &gt; Storage and deleted a bunch of apps I was no longer using. I mention this because this list was fresh in my mind.<p>4) When my phone was returned to me, while waiting, I checked my apps list and found the mysterious app (linked to above) installed in my list!!! What the hell, it wasn&#x27;t there before. Never seen it before. And it has no name? Nor does it show up anywhere in my home screen.<p>5) I took this picture and then deleted the app.<p>6) Woah, wait a second, checked my list again. THE APP IS STILL THERE. I delete it again. And again it won&#x27;t delete!!!<p>7) Before I leave (without my passport), I ask the agent what is this app she installed on my phone?? She denies anything, saying she couldn&#x27;t install anything without my iCloud passport (weirdly specific).<p>So what the hell? I&#x27;m at my friends place, and I&#x27;ve completely wiped my iPhone (it&#x27;s gone). I&#x27;m writing this up wondering what the hell this app was, and more importantly, if Apple has given governments a backdoor ability to instal apps?<p>Or maybe it&#x27;s nothing? Any thoughts are appreciated.
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tptacek
Yes, I think you're being paranoid. It's hard to blame you given the last few
news cycles. Canada did not backdoor your phone.

Having worked for a couple years for a Canadian company, I will confirm for
you: Canada is super-unfriendly about people entering the country to work
undisclosed jobs. Canadian customs often seems to start from the presumption
that your visit is surreptitiously commercial.

If you give customs a sort of "half-commercial" answer, like "visiting a
client" or "giving a talk", it can get worse. I was often given the advice of
simply claiming I was there to visit a friend, even when what I was going for
was otherwise legit. I've had friends in that same situation turned back at
the border.

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pcmaffey
The malignant stance of Canada towards US citizens you describe is exactly my
experience in the 5 times I've traveled here for business.

I can now add "been deported" to my list of life accomplishments... My work
visa was rejected because there's no category for "software development" in
NAFTA.

While I'm inclined to believe that this app was not spyware, but rather a
broken leftover from deleting other apps on my way there, I'm certainly not
100%. I'd say, about 70-30.

My client now wants to move his company out of Canada because of this...
Trudeau has a lot of work ahead of him.

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tptacek
I'm telling you, 100%, that you did not find a trace of Canada's secret
customs spyware program.

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gburt
That is awfully confident for someone cautious. I am much closer to 95% than
100%.

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tptacek
If I could be 101% on this, I would be.

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orionblastar
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/07/22/every-
iph...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/07/22/every-iphone-has-a-
security-backdoor/#22b0df4d37d7)

Apparently the NSA has a backdoor named ‘DROPOUTJEEP’ but needs physical
access to the iPhone first. Possible Canada is using a backdoor like it as
well.

Apple is not cooperating with this backdoor it uses an exploit to install.

~~~
DrScump
If they _know_ it's an exploit and do nothing to fix it, it's as good as
cooperating.

~~~
jheriko
not if they don't know how to fix it.

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codeonfire
They took my iPhone as well and demanded the code a while back for no reason
except that I was traveling alone. I imagine they wanted to dig for info on my
employer because that's the question they strangely asked at the highway booth
before flagging me in. Or maybe they just thought I was going to pick up drugs
or something. Even pretended to check me for guns like any criminal would be
that stupid. I remember a weird app like that but I thought at the time maybe
it was due to messing around with xcode. It's not installed now.

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RizlaPleaseLa
Oh buddy, when you lose physical access to your device, it's not your device
any more. I imagine you got a full rootkit with forever-active wiretapping.
Degauss and destroy I say!

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ApolloRising
Can't remember exactly but it could just be instagram storage. Try the link
below and see if that helps you figure it out.

[https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&q=info+version+7...](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&q=info+version+7.13.0+iphone)

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rakadityas
Its nothing. I also has that. I think thats a corrupted app

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atmosx
This might be an app that was not upgrade properly or something, nothing I
haven't seen before.

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pcmaffey
Except I never installed this app. Never seen that icon before...

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jakobegger
That icon is the placeholder icon for apps without an icon.

Since you deleted your phone there's no way to find out what it was; might
just be the result of a bug in iOS, or some test app you might have installed
at some point. Or it could be a spy app -- but to install it, your phone would
need to be at least unlocked (I don't think iCloud password is necessary)

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coralreef
Are you an iOS developer by chance?

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pcmaffey
No, I design iOS apps and use Testflight, but not xcode.

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coralreef
Are you certain that this app wasn't an instance of a TestFlight app?

