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India Mobile Handset Backdoor Memo Probably a Fake

Posted by samzenpus on 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."

11 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Or maybe not... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can never prove a conspiracy false, because any evidence against it is dismissed as disinformation planted by the conspiracy.

  2. Doesn't matter by 93+Escort+Wagon · · 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 Darkness404 · · 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".

      --
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  3. Re:I'll just be right here... by bonch · · 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.

  4. Re:Or maybe not... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, that's just what they *want* you to think.

  5. Re:I'll just be right here... by Anonymous Coward · · 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"?

  6. X-Files Episode by Proudrooster · · 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.

  7. Android phones are made in the USA, out of hemp, by Brannon · · Score: 4, Funny

    with union labor.

  8. Re:I'll just be right here... by Anonymous Coward · · 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 Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  10. Re:I'll just be right here... by jo_ham · · 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.