News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by kevin_b_er on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @10:16AM (#19095684)
Signal: The employee is required to intentionally alter the app to no longer provide security, such that some communication may be intercepted. They are not permitted to publicly disclose that they have done this.

Unfortunately, this goes deeper. The law may be capable of compelling Google or Apple of Australia to force deploy to your phone a malicious version of the Signal app with the "technical assistance notice".

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by underbulb on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:30AM (#19096532)
Don't be fooled by the narrative on the amendment.

The truth is that such interception is normal, in Australia, in other countries.

AA is two things. 1st, the government there legalizing an already existing practise to cover their own liability in the event that the grey practise is eventually exposed. Especially amid the current public awareness of privacy.

Next, more importantly, AA is to get around recent security patches that rendered previous vectors now impossible to use, since these collections were often done covertly. It's law compensating for where a much relied on covert method no longer works. Thus, the 11th hour urgency.

The cover story that it is this huge privacy catastophe is just more noise, to distract from the big story; how interceptions like this have been going on for more than a decade.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by Arnt on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @10:52AM (#19096070)
Will your phone accept an app upgrade which has been signed by Google or Apple instead of by Signal?

If not, is the law capable of compelling your telephone vendor to ship you an upgrade that weakens its upgrade testing enough that Apple/Google can ship you such an upgrade?

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by netheril96 on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:14AM (#19096351)
Apple controls the root CA on iOS devices. I guess that Google controls the root CA on Android too. Therefore it is within their technical ability to issue a certificate that bears the name of Signal and is trusted by almost all devices. They wouldn’t need to ship any OS upgrades to forge the signature of Signal, as they are already the ultimate authority of who is Signal. I won’t speculate on whether they or their Australian employees will actually do so in the future.
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by cesarb on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:47AM (#19096762)
AFAIK, that's not how Android works. Each apk is signed by a standalone certificate (which does not have to be signed by any CA), and the operating system will only allow an upgrade if the same certificate is used. Which means a developer must carefully guard the certificate's private key; if it's lost, the application can no longer be updated, but it must instead be released as a new application with a separate name. And since AFAIK this mechanism is part of the operating system (not the constantly-updated Google Play store), to bypass it would require a full OS update.

(This has other consequences: if a developer releases the same apk to several stores, but it's signed by different certificates on each store, a user who installed the apk from one store will not be able to upgrade it using the other store.)

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by GordonS on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:38PM (#19098176)
I don't know, but I presume Google cross-signs APKs that are approved through the Play Store?
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by Arnt on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:53PM (#19098356)
No.

Easily checked, run jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs some.apk on an APK of your choice. I ran it on 31 just now, no cross-signing visible anywhere.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by somebehemoth on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:11AM (#19096303)
My understanding is that it would not due to the different app signing certificate. This would be a new application unless Apple or Google signs the app using certificate forgery or similar.
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by Klathmon on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:41AM (#19096668)
The Australian government could just force Google or Apple to make updates to their OS to not enforce signatures for some apps, or put in vulnerabilities that could be used by them to bypass signature checking at all.
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by coldcode on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @12:35PM (#19097431)
Good luck with that. How do you have any idea its running in Australia or belongs to an Australian?
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by Klathmon on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @12:41PM (#19097507)
I'm not a lawyer, but from what I hear any Australian employees can be compelled to change code and be threatened with prison if they tell anyone. Any companies with any presence in Aus can be given demands and gag orders to ensure they can't talk about what is happening.

And if this article is trustworthy, this isn't hypothetical, it's already happening right now. Right now people are being served with orders to do things like this and if they tell anyone (including the company they work for and are in essence "attacking"), they can kiss their life goodbye.

That's what makes it so scary. A programmer that is living in Aus that works for Google or Apple could one day get a notice that they are now mandated to modify code for an unknown reason with the threat of prison if they don't or if they tell anyone. Technically even programmers that don't work for those companies can be compelled to make contributions to open source software to introduce vulnerabilities or exploits, and again there is literally nothing the person can do except follow orders or go to jail forever.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by em-bee on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:58PM (#19098416)
and if the change is caught in a code-review, then what?
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by Klathmon on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @02:07PM (#19098543)
I don't know, and I'm not sure if anyone outside of the person who gets the order can know, because these laws are so vague anything can be required.
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by Arnt on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @02:53PM (#19099130)
Maybe Australia would even force Samsung to issue OS updates for as long as an Australian uses the device in question?

Put that way, it sounds like a feature, doesn't it? But perhaps a little implausible?

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by coldcode on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @12:32PM (#19097379)
Good luck with that.
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by Silhouette on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:41AM (#19096670)
This would be a new application unless Apple or Google signs the app using certificate forgery or similar.

What if Apple or Google changes the OS security mechanism itself?

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by akvadrako on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @10:52AM (#19096065)
If they are ever forced to do that and it becomes public knowledge, I think it will finally be enough for a critical mass of security-conscious people to buy phones with user-controlled platforms where it becomes impossible.

In a way this might be a blessing.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by WrtCdEvrydy on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @11:29AM (#19096519)
No, they won't.

They'll buy the newest Apple phone because it's 10 nanometers thinner and it's a status symbol.

Apple Cloud was hacked and celebrity pictures were stolen and noone batted an eye.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by saagarjha on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @12:25PM (#19097293)
> Apple Cloud was hacked and celebrity pictures were stolen and noone batted an eye.

iCloud was not hacked; the celebrities were spear phished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud_leaks_of_celebrity_phot...

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by WrtCdEvrydy on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:13PM (#19097885)
> We didn't give random people loans in your name, your identity was stolen.

When you shift responsibility from the provider to the customer, you play right into the security blame game.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by indigo945 on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:29PM (#19098082)
So, if I put a post-it with my PIN and SSN on my credit card and give that to a random stranger, it's the bank's fault?
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by WrtCdEvrydy on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:41PM (#19098203)
So, the celebrities put their password in a post-it on their iPhone?
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by lotsofpulp on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @12:25PM (#19097291)
Figuring out people's easy passwords and password recovery methods isn't a weakness in iCloud, and shouldn't be counted as hacking iCloud. And if you were concerned with security, and had to buy a smartphone, what device is better than an iPhone?
Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by WrtCdEvrydy on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:14PM (#19097891)
> We didn't give random people loans in your name, your identity was stolen.

When you shift responsibility from the provider to the customer, you play right into the security blame game.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by lotsofpulp on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:33PM (#19098129)
Analogies are useful for illustrating a thought, not for supporting arguments. And identity theft (where the victim can do nothing to protect themselves) is not analogous in the first place.

Using multi factor authentication, using long, difficult passwords, and don’t let your security questions be obvious. If someone knocks me out, uses my finger to TouchID into my bank’s app and transfer money, that’s the price I pay for the convenience of not wanting to login with my password. Same with using weak passwords and questions.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by WrtCdEvrydy on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:51PM (#19098320)
You can't seriously say that a multi-million dollar company can't enforce those security features by default.

This is the same as having a car recall and having people dying before the letters reach their homes and saying 'they should have known this company's cars could explode'

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by lotsofpulp on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:59PM (#19098431)
I don't understand the purpose of using analogies (valid or not) in this discussion.

Apple could have forced people to use multi factor authentication, and whether or not they should have forced it is a separate discussion that can be had. But I was claiming that your original comment was that iCloud was "hacked" is incorrect, since it implies there was some weakness on Apple's technical backend.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by WrtCdEvrydy on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @02:03PM (#19098476)
Not forcing secure by default practices in your secure devices is a weakness on Apple's technical backend.

Maybe they should take a couple of notes for their broken cloud implementation from another phone manufacturer in the space that takes security seriously:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/30/iphone...

https://www.cso.com.au/article/577197/apple-tells-ios-9-deve...

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by xvector on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @12:39PM (#19097477)
> Apple Cloud was hacked and celebrity pictures were stolen and noone batted an eye.

Phishing. I think your comment is pretty disingenuous as Apple has generally showed a strong commitment to privacy and security.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by WrtCdEvrydy on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:14PM (#19097894)
> We didn't give random people loans in your name, your identity was stolen.

When you shift responsibility from the provider to the customer, you play right into the security blame game.

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by GeekyBear on Thursday February 07, 2019 @10:06AM (#19105607)
The celebgate phishing attacks involved more Google accounts than Apple accounts.

>According to court filings, Collins stole photos, videos and sometimes entire iPhone backups from at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, “mostly belonging to celebrities,” between November 2012 and September 2014, when the photos were posted online.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/03...

Re:Notices have already been issued under Australia’s new en... by msla on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @01:14PM (#19097897)
> Signal: The employee is required to intentionally alter the app to no longer provide security, such that some communication may be intercepted. They are not permitted to publicly disclose that they have done this.

Replace "Signal" with "OpenBSD" and watch the freaking fireworks.

(Why OpenBSD? De Raadt hasn't promised to be "nicer" recently. Linus has.)