The Israeli military has decided to ban Android phones for senior officers
“Under the expected order, commanders from the rank of lieutenant colonel and above will be permitted to use only iPhones for official communications. The step is aimed at reducing the risk of intrusions on senior officers’ handsets, according to the report.”
So it seems that Israel (one of the leading country in hackers spies for hire) thinks that there’s a lot « Hezbollah honey pot » that target android device
Israeli company Cellebrite sells a device to extract data from locked phones, both Android and iPhones afaik. So indeed I’m guessing their government knows some stuff about the security of both platforms.
Fun fact: comments mentioning Cellebrite get immediately shadow-hidden on Reddit, or at least in some of the main subs.
In 2021, Moxie Marlinspike, creator of the encrypted messaging app Signal, pointed to several vulnerabilities in Cellebrite’s UFED and Physical Analyzer software that allowed for arbitrary code execution on Windows computers running the software. One exploit he detailed involved the UFED scanning a specially formatted file, which could then be used to execute arbitrary code on the computer running the UFED. Marlinspike wrote that the code could then “[modify] not just the Cellebrite report being created in that scan, but also “all previous and future generated Cellebrite reports” from all previously scanned devices and all future scanned devices in any arbitrary way.”[27] Marlinspike also found that Cellebrite software was bundled with out-of-date FFmpeg DLL files from 2012, which lacked over 100 subsequent security updates. Windows Installer packages, extracted from the Windows installer for iTunes and signed by Apple, were also found, which he said raised legal concerns.[28] Cellebrite responded that the company “is committed to protecting the integrity of our customers’ data, and we continually audit and update our software in order to equip our customers with the best digital intelligence solutions available.”[29] The report by Signal followed an announcement by Cellebrite in 2020 that it had developed technology to crack encrypted messages in the Signal app, a claim the company later retracted and downplayed.[30][31] The announcement by Marlinspike raised questions about the integrity of data extracted by the software,[32][33] and prompted Cellebrite to patch some of the vulnerabilities found by Signal and to remove full support for analyzing iPhones.[34][35]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellebrite
Sounds like it is just malware to me.
Vulnerable software is different from malware.
Iirc there was also the part of the story where the exploit for Cellebrite’s thing was included in Signal, and Marlinspike said that data on any device scanning Signal with Cellebrite software would be poisoned.
What I’m hearing is that even if you aren’t a Signal user, you might benefit from having Signal installed on your device?
I’m guessing things might’ve changed since then, as this story is pretty old. I doubt it that they gotten newer versions of Cellebrite to screw them again.
The Genius Bar are much more violent these days.
They don’t want people installing GrapheneOS on them.
But isn’t that stupid tho. Like they should want their military officers to be using the most secure OS.
But then again, its funny to see them make stupid decisions.
I wouldn’t assume any news about technology being used by IDF to be true in the first place. It could just as easily be misinformation.
They want to be able to perpetually spy on their military officers to keep them in line. Boot out any dissidents or anyone refusing to carry out illegal and genocidal orders.
Many fascist states like Stalin’s USSR, Nazi Germany, North Korea, etc all have mass spy programs on the most powerful who aren’t the leader.
It shows perpetual paranoia, which is expected as popular support for Israel has fucking collapsed in most Western countries. They know their time is limited.
I would be interested to know what definition of fascism you are using that includes the USSR and North Korea. Fascism is not the same thing as authoritarianism, if that’s the definition you’re going by.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
A significant number of scholars agree that a “fascist regime” is foremost an authoritarian form of government; however, the general academic consensus also holds that not all authoritarian regimes are fascist, and more distinguishing traits are required for a regime to be characterized as such.[2][3]
I’m using the 14 points:
https://public.websites.umich.edu/~rsc/Editorials/fascism.html
Of which the USSR under Stalin, and North Korea in general fit damn near perfectly.
Thanks for your answer.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, among all tech companies, Apple is the closest to the nazi mindset.
Google has decided you cannot turn off Gemini in their newer versions of Android. You cannot install other roms that do either, Google is killing those too. But yea, Apple is the bad guy. Ignore the Google rug pull.
As much as I don’t disagree, I think the “Apple is closest to Nazism” comment touches on something different. Other massive American companies have awful practices but they don’t care particularly how their way of making money looks. Apple wields a specific aesthetic power that generally dictates a hegemonic uniformity, that strays the line of being to their detriment at times. I don’t think any other big tech company would care in the same way if not for their desire to copy Apple.
What roms does Apple let you install on iPhones?
Apple never opened that door. Google did, but they never intended to keep it open. it was there to catch up with apple. they never intended to do any good here. it was there to speed up development and win people over, then after they are already there, google can close the door and screw them all. That’s what’s happening now. It was a bait and switch.
Yep. The attract phase is completed for Android, now on to the extract phase.
Both are the bad guys, not either.
Like most things in contemporary society, we are given the choice between two terrible options, and then encouraged to go all in on one of those terrible choices, or you’re a LOSER.
Modern life is just Pavlov’s lab.
Wasn’t it also just reported a few weeks ago that Samsung installs Israeli spyware on android devices sold in MENA?
https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-appcloud-spyware-controversy-3616325/
Doesn’t seem like anyone has ignored Google. They doing it is old news.
Bullshit. I have it turned off on my pixel 9pro and Samsung s24 plus
You actually turned off geminis ability to serve YOU. You never turned off Gemini itself. Google won’t allow that. It’s still running in the background send your data to Google and its advertising partners. Google has publicly stated this is the intended design and they will not allow turning that off.
Show me.
I don’t have to show you. Google, the people who made the fucking OS, told you that’s how this works!
No. They provided me a nice little button that allows me to disable Gemini, and they have allowed me to opt out of any usage. So again. Show me that it is still active after I have disabled it.
I was curious so I searched. This is the best info I could find.
https://proton.me/blog/turn-off-gemini-on-android
Proton claims that even if you turn everything off, it will still watch in the background because Google is replacing assistant with Gemini. That still hasn’t happened on my phone. I can still use the regular Google assistant, but I feel like I’m not smart enough to evaluate the claims to know whether it is really running on my phone or not.
Proton also has a profit motive in making people upset with Google, so I don’t know.
Let’s say I install a button on your car that flips from “broken” to “fixed” my itself. Anytime you complain something is wrong, I flip that switch to “fixed.” That doesn’t change anything. The switch just tells other things to do something. It doesn’t enforce anything. It’s basically telling Google whether you want it or not, not actually obeying you.
No. They provided me a nice little button that allows me to disable Gemini, and they have allowed me to opt out of any usage. So again. Show me that it is still active after I have disabled it.
I’ve lost features that used to work without Gemini, but I believe it is disabled on both my Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 8 I have access to.
Nope, it’s still running in the background. You just turned off its ability to interact with you but can and does still interact with others.
Do you have some sort of evidence for this claim?
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/how-to-disable-gemini-on-android/53771/ and https://proton.me/blog/turn-off-gemini-on-android were easy enough to find. If I remember correctly the grapheneOS guys spoke on this too.
The first one does tell you how to “completely remove Gemini from your smartphone” under that heading. I do not have the Gemini app installed.
The second one says:
Can you fully disable Gemini on Android?
No, and that’s by design. While you can turn off activity tracking, revoke permissions, and even uninstall the Gemini app on some devices, Google is actively replacing its Assistant app with Gemini.
But, I’ve also disabled Google Assistant across all applications, so I don’t share data with Gemini/Assistant. I had to lose some features to do so.
Overall, your reply serves to confirm for me that I have disabled Gemini on both of my Android devices. Still, I appreciate the links!
Trust him bro…
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me either way. There IS a lot of telemetry and other BS that is definitely still on my phone, included in OS updates, and not uninstallable (I can “uninstall updates”, but that would also give me back any security issues). But, I don’t think that it is Gemini, or at least predates that naming convention.
To get free of Google telemetry, I’d have to install a non-Google ROM, and I haven’t ever tried that.
Telemetry certainly can be abused, and Google should be legally (by regulation) required to provide a simple opt-out. BUT, telemetry really is a fairly normal thing to include in “web-scale” deployments and is primarily used to discover issues that have escaped into production without affecting a testing environment–or, at least, that what the telemetry systems I’ve interacted with as an software developer were for. So, I’m not too worried about non-personalized data collection.
EDIT: I confirmed that Google says I have no Gemini activity to delete, so while I’m sure my phone is reporting stuff, it’s not to Gemini.
LINUX PHONE
This is a completely different thought.
It is not.
oracle
SCO Group.
says everything about iPhones ‘security’ & ‘privacy’
repeats it
This is it right here. I can’t believe the nonsense I’m reading in this thread. Just goes to show how absolutely uninformed most people are when it comes to security and privacy
also illiterare on sarcasm too lmao i see my comment got 60 upvotes and your unsarcastic comment got downvoted
AppleThe Official Phone Of Genocide
Lets face it, the more you know about ol’ tyranty boy StevieJobs the more it makes sense.
frankly this is because israel knows exactly how much spyware they’ve gotten their partner, Google, to put into android. the iphone is also chock full of spyware, and they do want to spy on their military force to make sure it’s as ideologically and racially pure as they need it to be to continue their genocide. further consider that budget iphones don’t exist and you realize that their systemic impoverishing of the indigenous Palestinian people means that all of the targets of their genocide are much more likely to be android users than iphone users. given this, israel is in real time creating a new signifier of jewish-israeli identity. soon having an android phone as civilian will be evidence of HAMAS.
and again.
i want to remind everyone that google is a major partner to israel. this is not a case of iphones bad guys, android phones good guys. this is a case of both being components in a system of torture. i can’t tell you yet to divest yourself of both to switch to linux phones like postmarketos because even i can’t do that without buying a new device, but please watch that space. and until you can, if you’re using a google pixel please consider installing grapheneos, and if you’re not please consider using a de-googled lineage based rom. israel greatly values the intel they get from their partner google.
IDF rules:
OK things to do:
- Kill children,
- Rape women,
- Kill prisoners,
- Destroy peoples property,
- Use iPhone.
Not OK things to do:
- Use Android OS
I thought Apple doesn’t let the bad guys … oh wait, that’s just in Movies and TV shows.
It’s also just not true, the villain/killer/etc has iPhones in many shows and movies already, including multiple AppleTV shows.
Guess we now know what the “i” stands for.
Androids are obviously Hamas
Or Hez…
not surprising . Android phones are insecure and basically Google snoop devices.
Really depends on the phone and how the controlling organization (whether it’s a private company or the IDF) uses MDM/MAM. It’s totally possible to poorly manage iPhones, and if you do they’ll be insecure as hell. If you were to restrict everyone to a specific Android phone model with hardened software, then you could theoretically do better than deploying all iPhones. Hell, you could even put GrapheneOS on them, but that would be quite an undertaking, and I’m not aware of any company doing it at scale.
Because of the homogeneity of iPhones and how strictly Apple controls them, it’s generally simpler for organizations to manage them and ensure all of their employees are using updated software on a relatively secure phone. So that (in my opinion) is why we’re seeing a lot of organizations just say “screw it, only iPhones allowed”.
It’s secure if you’re not stupid and you don’t turn off the safety protocols it literally warns you not to turn off. Stupid people need apple’s domineering control to protect them from themselves
deleted by creator
If ever anyone still doesn’t get how Western countries still support Israel despite the populations of those countries widely hating Israel, this shit is why.
They have blackmail on all our politicians, but moreover they can sell their domestic surveillance spy tools (such as malware) to bad actors (such as the US gov) to spy on their own citizens too.
Israel is the #1 perpetrator and exporter of fascism and police states.
The reason for this is because Pegasus is better used on iPhones than Androids and you can flash GrapheneOS on them while iPhones are locked down.
I was already thinking of getting a Linux phone next, this is helping to seal the deal. Fuck Apple the genocide enablers.
please do explain how Apple is doing anything here. If Israel wants to provide their military with iPhones they’re going to no matter what Apple does.
They don’t have to do business with/in Israel.
This is an American company. They will do what their leaders from Israel want because no company seems to have the stones to tell them to pound sand.
That still will not stop a nation state (especially Israel) from getting their hands on Apple devices.
Mind sharing any linux phones candidates you are considering?
PinePhone.
Android is technically based on Linux so maybe go with a custom ROM like Grapheme? I’ve found the experience on it to be enjoyable personally and feel a lot better about my security even if I don’t lock it down as hard as some people.
FLX1s from furilabs.com is the one I’m going to try.
Having to rely on webapps is a pain but Steve Jobs was right after all.
