
Edward Snowden thinks a global iPhone attack will happen this year - IamFermat
http://www.popsci.com/edward-snowden-thinks-global-iphone-attack-will-happen-this-year
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Someone
I would think attacks have been an ongoing thing for years. The thing to fear
is a successful attack.

Let's analyze whether one is likely.

The FBI has stated that they cracked a single iPhone 5. Ignoring the
possibility that they lie (which I give a small, but non-zero probability), we
do not know whether that attack:

\- works against all iPhone 5s, irrespective of configuration.

\- works again newer iPhones

\- works remotely (either directly or through a very popular application that
breaks through the sandbox)

The first two will limit any problem that occurs, the latter is required for
this to become a huge problem. Also, the "via an application that breaks out
of the sandbox" route, IMO, would lead to a relatively small-scale problem
because Apple will disable the application fairly soon, and because it is less
likely to be a truly popular app in the Twitter/Facebook range.

The big problem is how to assign probabilities to these. My guess would be
that one shouldn't worry too much. If there is a way to do this, it apparently
already is on the market, and whoever has it for sale, will want to sell it
ASAP, because exploits can become as good as worthless overnight.

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IamFermat
Totally agree. Re: #3, I can imagine with the proliferation of SDKs, that
could be a source of security risks.

Or it could just be like the heartbleed bug, the NSA has known about it for a
while and has exploited it before to hack into other countries. Could be the
same here once they find a way in. They could just throw a bunch of
redherrings out there if they were actually smart.

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vincenttoms
That's really interesting. I hope he is wrong.

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IamFermat
I hope so too

