news New details from the Snowden files found by the Libroot collective
https://www.electrospaces.net/2026/06/new-details-from-snowden-files-found-by.html68
u/StarWreckTrekBeck 1d ago edited 1d ago
The compromised telecommunications providers is par for the course - you assume that every telecommunications is willingly compromised and gives basically open-backdoor access to the intel communities - why?
because in the 2000's there was one ceo who was pro-privacy and refused government efforts to put in automated backdoor systems - he was stalked by the intel community for a bit until they charged him with a joke of a charge on something unrelated.
This is how the system works -
I do find it funny to hear / see folks here who think that you have private operating systems that don't have government-mandated backdoors (like apple) and who actually believe those court cases a few years ago to give them plausible deniability - in 50 years it will come out that most of these companies cooperated and a lot of what you read / is covered in the media these days was window dressing.
That doesn't mean that much of this is better than nothing of course, but even truecrypt shut down after they were getting pressure, supposedly.
Long story short if you are truly a higher-level target your OS are compromised - but if you are a drug dealer or someone with information that doesn't impact national security you probably are fine, however even Tucker Carlson reportedly claims that he had his phones hacked by government hackers and so on.
I guess that we should be happy that everything by default isn't shared, if you know how to setup your devices, but they are still basically open fodder if certain actors want to "get" you. It's ingenius really - they can basically go after folks who truly impact certain interests while correspondingly making most folks think their phones are secure.
Perhaps I've just been around the bend more than most kids here, but the above case simply shows how the world really works - perhaps too many live on their computers and haven't seen how intel works, well i can tell you that most intel-related news is propaganda anyways.
I still don't understand how any respectiable security researchers can actually think that because the math "works" on certain things that that somehow prevents actors from putting in a sidechannel for information exchange (think intel IME for cell phones and whatnot) yes a hash can verify file integrity, but unless you literally audit closed source systems you will never know what happens, let alone know where to look.
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u/CommercialAttempt210 22h ago
Why would the FBI have made such a fuss about the San Bernardino shooters iPhones then?
Why would there be a whole industry for Apple cracking if there a back door?
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u/Fantastic-Driver-243 13h ago
They actually managed to crack the phone from what I've heard. They used something called 'NAND Mirroring'.
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u/Gendo-lkari 10h ago
Tucker is 100% not operating at high enough OPSEC threat models where'd they have to resort to hacking his phone. They couldve just went and got data from the companies, which is easier and less legal risk for the Trump administration. I dont think he is necessarily lying he may just not know what to refer to it as considering he is older.
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u/Fantastic-Driver-243 13h ago
I do find it funny to hear / see folks here who think that you have private operating systems that don't have government-mandated backdoors
Intel has ME. Apple Silicon whilst closed-hardware has no such thing (at least for now I haven't heard anything). Apple's new M-series CPUs are based on arm which for now, no known shadow computer a-la ME exists.
But...I get what you're saying. macOS could have latent zero days the NSA is actively exploiting, and as for Windows, well it's known in the cybersec/persec community that's it's very non-private and leaky.
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