India Mobile Handset Backdoor Memo Probably a Fake

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India Mobile Handset Backdoor Memo Probably a Fake

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 11, 2012 @03:18PM from the upon-further-investigation dept.

daveschroeder writes "In the wake of previous coverage alleging that Apple, Nokia, RIM, and others have provided Indian government with backdoors into their mobile handsets — which itself spawned a US investigation and questions about handset security — it turns out the memo which ignited the controversy is probably a fake designed to draw attention to the "Lords of Dharmaraja." According to Reuters, "Military and cyber-security experts in India say the hackers may have created the purported military intelligence memo simply to draw attention to their work, or to taint relations between close allies India and the United States." Apple has already denied providing access to the Indian government."

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Or maybe not... by Ethanol-fueled · 2012-01-11 15:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's not a backdoor if it's "by accident..."
1. Re:Or maybe not... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 15:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You can never prove a conspiracy false, because any evidence against it is dismissed as disinformation planted by the conspiracy.
2. Re:Or maybe not... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 15:37 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  No, that's just what they *want* you to think.
I'll just be right here... by NiceGeek · 2012-01-11 15:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

patiently waiting for everyone who was Apple-bashing to recant their statements.
1. Re:I'll just be right here... by bonch · 2012-01-11 15:35 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Won't happen. Bashers really believe that Apple just sits around, inventing absolutely nothing, selling overpriced shiny baubles. In their view, all technology is the same, and Apple just makes products whose ideas are all entirely obvious, despite the fact that no one did things that way before. They hate Apple for being popular and widely credited for industry trends.
2. Re:I'll just be right here... by artor3 · 2012-01-11 15:35 · Score: 2
  
  You'll be waiting a long time. Most of them won't even read this story, and will continue to believe that lie for the rest of their lives. They'll even casually bring it up in conversation, causing other people to believe it. "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on."
3. Re:I'll just be right here... by DJRumpy · 2012-01-11 15:40 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  You may be waiting a while as these sorts of things tend to take on a life of their own regardless of the facts presented. The meat of the linked article basically says the docs are questionable but well done. They also throw in a possible link to Anonymous which is a curious twist:
  
  Technology blog Infosec Island said on Wednesday it had seen more data obtained by the Lords of Dharmaraja, including dozens of usernames and passwords for compromised U.S. government network accounts.
  Infosec Island blogger Anthony Freed said the hacker group claimed to have taken the data from servers belonging to India's Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian government's IT organization, among others.
  Officials in India declined to comment on the document's content or authenticity.
  The alleged memo (http://bit.ly/zYze7w), which had a number of inconsistencies, including the letterhead of a military intelligence unit not involved in surveillance, claimed India had been spying on the USCC using know-how provided by Western mobile phone manufacturers.
  While the memo looks dubious, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has not denied the veracity of the email cache, and U.S. authorities are investigating the matter.
  The emails include conversations between U.S. embassy officials in Tripoli, DHL and General Electric about delivering medical equipment to Libya, as well as concerns that GE was helping China improve its jet engine industry.
  "ANONYMOUS"
  It is unclear whether Lords of Dharmaraja got the emails from Indian military intelligence servers, as they claim, but they first mentioned the documents in November, at the same time as they announced they hacked India's embassy server in Paris.
  That breach was confirmed at the time by India's foreign ministry, and some experts believe the cache of U.S. emails was taken from the same source, raising the question of how they ended up there in the first place.
  "An individual could have hacked someone's personal computer and handed it over to the embassy. There are so many means and measures," said Saini, who himself was charged with leaking secrets to Washington in 2006. He proclaims his innocence.
  "There may be cooperation between India and the United States, the United States may have shared them, or India could have done the hack ... or a third country may have handed it to India," said Saini.
  It is also unclear how Symantec's source code ended up with the Lords of Dharmaraja, whose public face goes by the name Yamatough on a Twitter feed.
  Yamatough, whose profile picture shows a Tibetan painting of Dharmaraja, the Hindu god of death and justice, follows many members of the "Anonymous" hacking collective, and Symantec attributes the hack to that group.
4. Re:I'll just be right here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 15:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I have to give Apple credit for the Apple II. That was awesome. Hurray for Wozniak.
  Is there any other Apple product of which you can say "no one did things that way before"?
5. Re:I'll just be right here... by bruno.fatia · 2012-01-11 15:57 · Score: 2
  
  It is also unclear how Symantec's source code ended up with the Lords of Dharmaraja, whose public face goes by the name Yamatough on a Twitter feed.
  Yamatough, whose profile picture shows a Tibetan painting of Dharmaraja, the Hindu god of death and justice, follows many members of the "Anonymous" hacking collective, and Symantec attributes the hack to that group.
  I never knew you could follow someone Anonymous.
6. Re:I'll just be right here... by harperska · 2012-01-11 15:58 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  There really is a sort of sublime irony in a poster blatantly ripping off a blog post which defends the idea that certain companies are ripping off Apple.
  http://macjournals.com/blog/2012/01/10/dan-lyons-showing-self-awareness-what-self-awareness/
  Unless, of course, bonch really is Matt Deatherage of MacJournals, in which case, congratulations on quoting yourself.
7. Re:I'll just be right here... by Kenja · 2012-01-11 17:21 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Apple phones originally looked like this. Not sure what your point is.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
8. Re:I'll just be right here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 17:30 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  N800, bitchez!
  (Seriously, why does everyone think Android is/was the only competitor to Apple?)
9. Re:I'll just be right here... by ozmanjusri · 2012-01-11 18:03 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Android phones originally looked like this [imgur.com].
  Ah, it wouldn't be Slashdot without sly misdirection and deceptive practices.
  There are TWO Android prototypes, one the image you've liked to, the other a (still ugly) candybar touchscreen device. Anyone who's used the emulator in the SDK will be familiar with the touchscreen version http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/android-emulator.jpg.
  And since I've seen postings where this has been pointed out to you before, I can only conclude you're deliberately lying to mislead anyone who reads your posts. Most likely to persuade people to believe Google didn't plan on touchscreens from the start.
  What's your motivation for this? Can you explain why it's so important for you to repeatedly lie in a public forum?
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
10. Re:I'll just be right here... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 18:58 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Probably because we already know Apple spies on iOS users?
  If you remember, CarrierIQ is baked into iOS. It can't be uninstalled by users, because it's part of the OS. Even with jailbreaking it involves removing kernel modules.
  Not to mention that if you actually bothered to read your iCloud TOS, you'll discover that Apple reserves the right to continuously monitor and record your current location. They even get access to your email through iCloud.
  Basically, everything that the memo says Apple allowed India to do Apple claims the right to do in their TOS!
  So even if the memo is fake, the ability for Apple to spy on iOS users most certainly is NOT.
11. Re:I'll just be right here... by CheerfulMacFanboy · 2012-01-11 21:03 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Android phones originally looked like this [imgur.com].
  Ah, it wouldn't be Slashdot without sly misdirection and deceptive practices.
  There are TWO Android prototypes, one the image you've liked to, the other a (still ugly) candybar touchscreen device. Anyone who's used the emulator in the SDK will be familiar with the touchscreen version http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/android-emulator.jpg.
  Wow, there actually was an Android touchscreen emulator less than a year after the iPhone was announced? And that the actual prototypes that were shown later all lacked the touchscreen is actually a fluke?
  What was that again about sly misdirection and deceptive practices again?
  
  --
  Fandroids hate facts.
12. Re:I'll just be right here... by CheerfulMacFanboy · 2012-01-11 21:11 · Score: 2
  
  Don't hold your breath, this was not our hoax.
  Yeah, you just A) fell for it, and B) still ignored that the document said all major device makers had installed the backdoor and focused on Apple.
  
  --
  Fandroids hate facts.
13. Re:I'll just be right here... by whosdat · 2012-01-11 22:09 · Score: 2
  
  explicit adj. (comparative more explicit, superlative most explicit) Very specific, clear, or detailed.
  Quiz time! Q: Which parts of "major device makers, RIM, Nokia, Apple etc." are explicit by this definition and which are implicit? Q2: Can't you keep your martyrdom complex down after seeing there was no group Apple bashing in the discussion thread?
14. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · 2012-01-11 23:15 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  You might want to point out that that was released *after* the iPhone, but you go kid! On your truth crusade!
15. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · 2012-01-11 23:19 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  So, turn off those features.
  Switch off location services, don't use iCloud (a claim that can be put to any cloud service, not just Apple's).
  It also doesn't say "continuously monitor" - you're just trying to use weasel words to make it sound worse. What it talks about is occasionally collecting anonymous location data to improve it's location-aware apps.
16. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · 2012-01-12 01:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Right, so why did Android phones not look like that till after the iPhone, if it was so obvious and ubiquitous?
  There's no escaping that Android shifted gears to match the iPhone after all that difficult "risk" was gone (since the iPhone took that risk - as was widely being laughed out of the room and predicted to be a giant flop by everyone until it actually started selling [much like the iPad actually]).
  It's not necessarily a bad thing - switching to something the consumer wants is exactly how businesses and products thrive. It's just highly disingenuous to try to downplay Apple's role in moving the smartphone market into the mainstream with a different way of doing things. Note that this doesn't mean that they "invented the touch screen phone" or "were the first to make an mp3 player" as many Apple haters attempt to claim is the point of the argument, just that they spotted a niche and released a product that worked very well in that niche.
  To those who hate on screen keyboards, I'm sure they're annoyed at that, but for everyone else, Apple changed the way people (as in, the public at large, not just the tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people using smartphones at the time) saw the smartphone.
  Those behind Android quickly realised this and followed suit. Those at RIM did not see that, and look where they are now, after trying doggedly to stick to what was working before. Android's move to match what consumers wanted has paid off extremely well for the platform. Those who like Android seem loathe to acknowledge that Apple played a big role in that.
  Your sig is especially hilarious, since without Apple, Android would still be on Blackberry-like devices and wouldn't be able to include things like Webkit. We'd all be stuck with DRM-locked music from online stores and people would laugh at you if you suggested a 10" touchscreen tablet as something the consumer would want to buy.
  They're not perfect by any means, but they're far from the Machiavellian evil empire that people on slashdot who don;t seem to have anything other than a hate of Apple to define themselves seem to think they are.
17. Re:I'll just be right here... by GameboyRMH · 2012-01-12 01:33 · Score: 2
  
  Your sig is especially hilarious, since without Apple, Android would still be on Blackberry-like devices and wouldn't be able to include things like Webkit. We'd all be stuck with DRM-locked music from online stores and people would laugh at you if you suggested a 10" touchscreen tablet as something the consumer would want to buy.
  My sig has nothing to do with Android whatsoever. Apple hater != Android fanboy.
  I have no problem with Blackberry-like devices personally, it's a better form factor than the touchscreen-only phone IMO (although the landscape slider gives the best of all worlds, at the cost of a bit of thickness). Without WebKit other phones would just use Mozilla-based browsers, so that's no big loss. Apple may have helped push DRM-free music, but that's basically irrelevant to everybody but US residents, who still can't buy DRM-free music anyways.
  If people laughed at the idea of a tablet I'd have no problem with that either, tablets can be more useful than laptops or phones for a few tasks but it isn't a terribly useful form overall. Tablet-shaped e-readers would find their way onto the market, but tablets wouldn't be seen in computing until convertible laptops become cheap, and even then people would only flip their screens around for reading and use while standing.
  
  They're not perfect by any means, but they're far from the Machiavellian evil empire that people on slashdot [childish ad-hominem removed] seem to think they are.
  No they certainly are a Machiavellian evil empire, worse than Microsoft ever was. Bringing curated computing into the mainstream is the worst thing ever done in the history of computing, they're at least as anti-competitive as MS ever was, they're worse on openness than Microsoft even if it doesn't seem that way because they use openwashing instead of being openly hostile to openness as MS is, and their hyper-aggressive patent bullying is in the news every day. If you hated Microsoft at any point you should hate the shit out of Apple right now.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
18. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · 2012-01-12 01:56 · Score: 2
  
  You clearly don;t understand the term Machiavellian, but we'll ignore that.
  You also said:
  
  Apple may have helped push DRM-free music, but that's basically irrelevant to everybody but US residents, who still can't buy DRM-free music anyways.
  But I'm not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that only US residents can buy DRM free music?
  Openwashing is the term of someone just looking to hate. I'm not even going to address those points because they've been done to death hundreds of times. Apple's choice of standards and formats is well documented, and opposition to them is mainly ideological (for example, H.264 is an open standard, but this is apparently not good enough since it's not patent free, so even though it flies in the face of the "curated computing" Apple are being accused of - you can take your H.264 videos out of the ecosystem and onto non-Apple products etc), it's instead twisted into a "Apple deliberately chose it to make it impossible for free software to use H.264" or some nonsense.
  At nearly every turn they've gone for open standards that make it easy to get in and out of the ecosystem - AAC, H.264, .mbox for email, open source calendar and address book server and formats, openly-documented XML formats for their office-like products (spreadsheets, documents, slideshows etc), open standards in networking (fully supporting NFS, SMB alongside their own AFP, but also integrating non-open-but-popular Exchange so that they can interoperate with Microsoft). They've put a lot of time and effort into open source projects that benefit them, but also the wider community at large - and not just projects where they're "forced" to contribute by the licence - as well as releasing projects that they have written as open source.
  Seriously, if you're having trouble getting "out" of the curated computing system (that you demonise but without actually offering any reason for - bringing computing to a wider range of people is surely a good thing - not everyone can be a command line master), then you're simply not looking hard enough.
  You also dodged my point about Android following Apple's lead in the redesign of smartphones by going off on a tangent about how physical keyboard phones are the better design, but I'll let that slide, and you totally missed my point on tablets, but deftly illustrate the wider tech mindset that existed before the iPad was released - namely "haha a tablet! who wants that! you can use a netbook! or a laptop! there are already devices that do what a tablet could do! no one will buy one!" *Apple releases iPad at half the price that analysts were predicting, sells 16 million of them as fast as they can make them in the most successful tech product launch ever* ..... "just you wait for the cheaper, faster Android tablets! They're going to destroy the iPad..... Android tablets are the future!"
  I'm not claiming they're perfect - you'll note I already pointed that out, but a Machiavellian empire? Far from it.
19. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · 2012-01-12 03:02 · Score: 2
  
  You've moved the goalposts again - you said that "DRM free music was irrelevant outside the US" because they [those outside the US] "could not buy DRM-free music anyway", and now you're admitting that they can, but that it requires iTunes. That's not the same argument (and essentially is admitting that your first statement is false, as I pointed out).
  You also seem to forget that the music industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into selling music online in the first place (by Apple no less, beyond some highly limited attempts at subscription services), and that everyone predicted failure since the attitude was "why will people buy when they can just get it from filesharing sites for free?"
  I didn't present a false dichotomy, I was using a device known as hyperbole - moving to the opposite end of the spectrum from curated computing. Again, you suggest the "inherent dangers and evil" of curated computing but fail to actually point any out. And again, why does it affect you? There is still wide choice in computing environments, and those will continue to exist. The fact that Apple has been able to sell user friendly computers to those who ordinarily wouldn't have bought computers before is not a bad thing (you're also mixing iOS and OS X as if they're the same thing, but whatever). I also never stated that iOS was open. I stated that it (and OS X) use open standards - the distinction is important. It means, for example, that if you want to leave the iOS ecosystem you can do so - you can take all your contacts and calendars and music and data with you (not movies from the store at present - those are still crippled with DRM). You can't take your apps with you, but that's not unique to Apple - you can't take your Windows apps to Mac or vice versa without some form of emulation/VM/etc unless you move to a platform-specific version, and with developers targeting iOS and Android, there's always the possibility of an easy move, just as there is in the reverse direction).
  I also didn't say Apple can do "little" wrong (or that they were "near perfect" - my actual words, were "not perfect by any means" which is a long way from "near perfect" which are the words you are trying to put in my mouth - you're just inferring that I think they can do "little wrong" because I have positive things to say about them. Apple's long and recent history is littered with some pretty awful stuff, but it doesn't mean they have no positive aspects.
  The fact that you seem to think my comments imply that I'm saying Apple is "near perfect" and can "do little wrong" when my actual quotes indicate otherwise goes a long way to the impression Apple haters have for people who are positive about Apple - you simply make up what it is we think and say and then demonise us for it as "rabid fanboys who think Apple is [near] perfect".
  On the back of those comments from you, this statement:
  
  [Apple] are objectively and fairly obviously the most evil company in computing today and you consider them near-perfect. That's a reality gap I can't bridge.
  is just hilarious. I don't think the term "objective" is anywhere close. Again, just to make this absolutely crystal clear, I'll quote myself again: Apple are not perfect by any means. I'll also add that I'm not excusing any of the terrible things they have done, but "objectively and fairly obviously" the "most evil company in computing"... that's just amusingly wide of the mark. For a start, you claim to be analysing from an objective position and opened with a clearly false statement about non-US consumers not being able to buy DRM-free music, but that's just for starters. I'll also add right here as a a preemptive reply, I'm not entirely objective either but I'm not making sweeping claims about Apple here.
20. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · 2012-01-12 04:01 · Score: 2
  
  So, where were those "open mobile devices" before the iPhone?
  You are blaming the lack of open devices on the popularity of a single vendor's entry into the market.
  If there's a market for open devices, vendors will sell them.
  There's a lot of Chicken Little sky-is-falling talk about curated computing environments "creeping onto" the desktop while assuming they'll replace what is there currently and there's simply no evidence for that - for example, the presence of the App Store on OS X is a complement to what exists currently, with no evidence that the "freer" side is going away, just that there are now more options for the consumer. The presence of the App Store hasn't removed the non-App Store methods of software distribution, from open source repositories (which the App Store has been accused of copying), from website distribution, boxed software etc. There's nothing stopping someone from using OS X and never even opening the App Store.
  All "curated computing" has done is opened up computers to people who would otherwise find them much more difficult to use. It doesn't mean that the complex, go anywhere, do anything current system has gone away - it just exists alongside.
  Curated systems might not be for you - so simply don't use them, or use a mixed system. Android is a good example of just such a thing - a good mix of a managed environment and an unweeded garden where you are free to do what you like (via sideloading, unofficial markets etc).
  If you think "open computing" is going to shrink down to a niche market then you're simply being alarmist and using that as a justification to rage against the widening of the computer market to include more people.
21. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · 2012-01-12 04:26 · Score: 2
  
  Right, and after the iPhone there were Android smartphones.
  You can compile and run anything you want on them, assuming you pick up one with an unlocked bootloader (vendor may vary).
  Palm's and Win Mobile's exit from the market was not driven exclusively by the iPhone, although it was certainly related. Either way, the vast number of Android handsets out there fill that "open, run anything, do anything" market for those who don't feel the iOS experience works for them. The presence of the iPhone has actually *increased* the availability of those open platforms - Android as a whole is in far better shape and with far more options and viability than PalmOS and Win Mobile combined as they existed pre-iPhone.
  The market changes, but it's hardly *reducing* the number of open options available.
22. Re:I'll just be right here... by Yaztromo · 2012-01-12 08:30 · Score: 2
  
  If I want an open mobile device (as in, lets me compile and run anything I want on it) today there is NOTING I can buy off the shelf, the device would have to be hacked.
  Not true at all -- if you have an iOS device, pay Apple the $99 per year, download the development kit, get yourself the necessary signing certificates from Apple, and compile and run anything you want. You can even get the necessary certificate files to install it onto the devices of up to 100 friends.
  Does this require Apple to put your app in their store? No. Their store, their rules. And they don't have to permit other peoples stores either. But you can still compile and install whatever you want -- you just have to compile and install it yourself, without the aid of a pre-compile app downloadable from their store.
  When Carmack released the first version of Wolfenstein 3D for iOS, he simultaneously put the source and project files online for anyone to download, modify, build, and install on their iOS devices. Anyone with an iOS developer account and a signing key and certificate could change the source however they wanted, whether it would be Apple approved or not, and install it onto their own devices. If I wanted to replace the Nazis with giant walking vaginas, and install it onto my iOS devices (and those of my friends) there isn't anything Apple could do about it. They won't put it in their store, but I can still compile and run whatever I want on my devices.
  Of course, like many anti-Apple ./ers here, you may be someone who really has no intention of ever compiling and installing software onto a mobile device yourself, but what you really want to complain about is being locked into their online store. If that's what you want to complain about, feel free -- but you can't complain about not being able to install stuff you've compiled yourself. That is still perfectly permissible (and always will be -- kinda hard to develop software for a platform if you can't compile or install whatever you want onto it).
  Yaz
Meanwhile in the US... by Darkness404 · 2012-01-11 15:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Meanwhile in the US, telecom companies and every other industry is bending over backwards for our police state. I find it rather funny that this accusation gets press but you rarely find mention of people actually wanting to stop warrantless wiretaps. After all, both Microsoft and Skype have quietly complied with allowing eavesdropping by the government. So honestly it wouldn't surprise me one bit that handsets have backdoors given to the US government which are then figured out by other oppressive governments to spy on their citizens.

--
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Doesn't matter by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2012-01-11 15:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Slashdot community already convicted Apple of this and have moved on.
And yes, I realize it's about Nokia as well as RIM, too - but in the original story discussion very few people paid any attention to those players.

--
#DeleteChrome
1. Re:Doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-11 15:42 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Of course you don't have any evidence. It's funny how conspiracy-theorists are just as faith-based as any religion.
2. Re:Doesn't matter by schnikies79 · 2012-01-11 15:56 · Score: 2
  
  Maybe there is more and maybe not; probably more. We don't know either way so it's nothing more than useless speculation.
  
  --
  Gone!
3. Re:Doesn't matter by Darkness404 · 2012-01-11 15:56 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Lets see here, there's this law in the US called the CALEA called the "Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act" which states in part:
  
  Sec. 103. Assistance Capability Requirements. (a) CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS.â" Except as provided in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section and sections 108(a) and 109(b) and (d), a telecommunications carrier shall ensure that its equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications are capable ofâ" (1) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to intercept, to the exclusion of any other communications, all wire and electronic communications carried by the carrier within a service area to or from equipment, facilities, or services of a subscriber of such carrier concurrently with their transmission to or from the subscriber's equipment, facility, or service, or at such later time as may be acceptable to the government; (2) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrierâ" A before, during, or immediately after the transmission of a wire or electronic communication (or at such later time as may be acceptable to the government); and B in a manner that allows it to be associated with the communication to which it pertains, except that, with regard to information acquired solely pursuant to the authority for pen registers and trap and trace devices (as defined in section 3127 of title 18, United States Code), such call-identifying information shall not include any information that may disclose the physical location of the subscriber (except to the extent that the location may be determined from the telephone number); (3) delivering intercepted communications and call-identifying information to the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, in a format such that they may be transmitted by means of equipment, facilities, or services procured by the government to a location other than the premises of the carrier; and
  Combine that with the PATRIOT act which basically allows the government to screw with US citizens at its leisure, means that the government can basically tap your phone for any reason that it sees fit.
  
  And the (as you would put it since you obviously don't have a clue what is going on in the world) conspiracy theory website The New York Times reported in 2010 about a bill that the US government was considering that takes CALEA further by mandating that all encryption be able to be decrypted by the government (in CALEA encryption was left up to the government to decrypt on its own) https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html
  
  Also, according to Slashdot, quoting US laws are "lame".
  
  --
  Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
4. Re:Doesn't matter by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2012-01-11 16:12 · Score: 2
  
  10 posts in, and there are already guys like you completely missing the point and going right back to baselessly accusing Apple of things. Slashdot never changes.
  
  --
  "Sufferin' succotash."
5. Re:Doesn't matter by artor3 · 2012-01-11 16:30 · Score: 2
  
  Please explain how "the existence of the CIA" means that the United States is at war with its citizens (since that is what you are responding to, after all). Show your work.
6. Re:Doesn't matter by AHuxley · 2012-01-11 17:41 · Score: 2
  
  The Room 641A wiretapping (recall the AT&T San Francisco office and internet traffic been split to the NSA?) went to court, with paper work and the US gov had to offer retroactive immunity to make it all go away in July 2008.
  Then the US gov had to use its state secrets privilege.
  In Dec 2011 the case came back http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/dragnet-surveillance-case/
  All we know is every packet from Asia and within the US that fed a west coast telco office where split and collected.
  The collection point was not near the landing of the Asia link, the split was at point where US domestic and the Asia link could be split. The idea that your US or international cell phone data/voice/VOIP would be left out seems rather strange...
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
7. Re:Doesn't matter by dissy · 2012-01-11 19:17 · Score: 2
  
  Meanwhile, under the provisions of various US laws and policies your iPhone on a US network can still be wiretapped and information accessed.
  
  https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying
  You said it yourself, the US NETWORK is what is tapped. Apple is not a phone network in the US or anywhere else.
  The wiretaps are done at the phone company. AT&T even admitted such and it was covered on slashdot multiple times. You trolled that thread too so you are well aware of it.
  The US government doesn't need a backdoor in any phones, the data is intercepted and logged at the phone company, and the government has retroactively indemnified them of any wrong doing.
  
  So I'm supposed to say good job to Apple for standing up against the Indian government (which is really no concern of mine) while bowing to the slightest pressure of the US police state?
  No you are supposed to say good job Apple for for not bowing to anything you have claimed. But you're too pissed off at their success to bother with pesky facts and the truth, as normal.
8. Re:Doesn't matter by fatphil · 2012-01-11 21:42 · Score: 2
  
  Well, I can assure you that at the kernel level, Nokia's linux phones have no such back doors in. You don't have to take my word for it, I'm only the gatekeeper who vets every patch that gets included in the kernel, you can freely grab the source and diff it against upstream and check for yourself.
  
  Of course, there would be ways of adding back doors to the phone subsystem which is a separate core running its own OS. But all communication to the modem goes via the AP, so you could easily modify our kernel and sniff all communication between userspace and modem.
  
  Plenty of stuff in userspace is open source too, and again such claims can be easily disproved. Even if you don't have the source, most of the inter process communication is via dbus, all of that can be sniffed trivially.
  
  Were there really to be backdoors in Nokia's linux phones, then it would be trivial to point to the actual source code, or show traces where it happens. The lack of such evidence highlights the emptiness of the claims.
  
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  Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
X-Files Episode by Proudrooster · 2012-01-11 15:48 · Score: 4, Funny

This reminds me an X-files episode where you are left not knowing what to believe. Do you believe the convincing evidence or the "official denial" of the convincing evidence. Hmmmmm..... I guess I just won't carry around one of those personal tracking devices until I know the truth.
1. Re:X-Files Episode by bruno.fatia · 2012-01-11 15:58 · Score: 2
  
  Maybe you should get yourself a tinfoil hat while doing so, won't hurt :) I know I do!
2. Re:X-Files Episode by onefriedrice · 2012-01-11 17:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Sure, Apple might not give a backdoor to the Indian government, but chances are it (or your cell phone service provider) is giving a backdoor to the US government, pursuant to CALEA and other laws. And Skype is mandated to put in backdoors too...
  
  It's cute that you think the US government needs handset manufacturers to include backdoors in order to wiretap. It's much easier to just control the networks. \tinfoil
  
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  This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Good news. by Voline · 2012-01-11 16:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

As the submitter of the original story, I'll be relieved if the leaked memo is a fake. It gives me an excuse to put off migrating from Mac OS X to Linux, which was going to be a good deal of work.
But the earlier case of RIM agreeing to provide in-country servers to enable government surveillance in the UAE, India and Saudia Arabia shows the leverage that governments can wield over companies that operate within their territory. Vigilance is warranted.
Android phones are made in the USA, out of hemp, by Brannon · 2012-01-11 16:32 · Score: 4, Funny

with union labor.
They certainly aren't tracking you; because you by Brannon · 2012-01-11 16:34 · Score: 2

don't matter. Now you know the truth.
Re:recant. i recant it all by NiceGeek · 2012-01-11 16:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

Find me a computer of any brand that doesn't use Foxconn parts. Take your time :)
CALEA by bl968 · 2012-01-11 17:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

What these companies have done is grant the same access the CALEA law gives the US Government to other countries. Other countries have taken this authority and used it for espionage. Thus these companies statements that "We didn't build a back door for India" then is correct. They built it for the U.S. Government.

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"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
1. Re:CALEA by CheerfulMacFanboy · 2012-01-11 21:40 · Score: 2
  
  What these companies have done is grant the same access the CALEA law gives the US Government to other countries. Other countries have taken this authority and used it for espionage. Thus these companies statements that "We didn't build a back door for India" then is correct. They built it for the U.S. Government.
  ...which is probably not correct; the EU, for example, has a council resolution concerning requiring capabilities for "lawful interception of communications" and I suspect the Member States have implemented laws for that. I.e., they built it for all countries that require lawful interception capabilities, which probably covers most countries in which they sell mobile phones.
  What both of you are missing is that all of these laws are about wiretapping at the network level, not at the device level.
  
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  Fandroids hate facts.
Re:recant. i recant it all by fatphil · 2012-01-11 21:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Pretty sure my Nokia N900 and N9 (consumer version) weren't.
My N950 (developer edition) wasn't either, but that was from a small run, and might be considered a prototype.

A handy hint for finding counter-examples is looking for companies who still maintain their own manufacturing facilities. A lot of the new kids on the block have never had such facilities, they're clearly more likely to be customers of foxconn and their ilk.

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Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Re:Wizard's First Rule by Hentes · 2012-01-12 00:20 · Score: 2

This holds in spite of evidence to the contrary or the absence of any corroborating data.
A simple denial is far from evidence of the contrary.

Doubly unfortunate is that assertions like this ask the accusee to prove a negative, knowing full well that proving it would necessarily reveal source code and/or trade secrets and/or secret agreements with governments.
And why exactly revealing those is unfortunate?