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My suspicion is that. These "exploits" are planted by spy agencies. They don't appear there organically.
by max_ 7mo ago
My suspicion is that. These "exploits" are planted by spy agencies.
They don't appear there organically.
- bell-cot 7mo agoMaybe sometimes? With how many bugs are normally found in very complex code, would a rational spy agency spend the money to add a few more? Doing so is its own type of black op, with plenty of ways to go wrong. OTOH, how rational are spy agencies about such things?
- max_ 7mo agoYes. Of course not all. But some just happen to work too well. But governments do have blatant back doors in chips & software.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo agoSome suspect that Apple secretly backs some of these spyware services. I've heard rumors about graykey but only rumors. Thoughts?
- gruez 7mo ago>Some suspect ... >I've heard rumors ... So like, the comment you're replying to? This is just going in circles.
- zappb 7mo agoThis vastly overstates both the competence of spy agencies and of software engineers in general. When it comes to memory unsafe code, the potential for exploits is nearly infinite.
- xnx 7mo ago> overstates both the competence of spy agencies Stuxnet was pretty impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
- Iolaum 7mo agoIt was also not a bug to be exploited. It was a complicated product that many people worked in order to develop and took advantage of many pre-existing vulnerabilities as well knowledge of complex and niche systems in order to work.
- blackcatsec 7mo agoYeah, Stuxnet was the absolute worst of the worst the depths of its development we will likely truly never know. The cost of its development we will never truly know. It was an extremely highly, hyper targeted, advanced digital weapon. Nation states wouldn't even use this type of warfare against pedophiles.
- 542354234235 7mo agoStuxnet was discovered because a bug was accidently introduced during an update [0]. So I think it speaks more to how vulnerabilities and bugs do appear organically. If an insanely sophisticated program built under incredibly high security and secrecy standards can accidently push an update introducing a bug, then why wouldn't it happen to Apple? [0] https://repefs.wordpress.com/2025/04/09/a-comprehensive-analysis-of-origins-impact-and-legacy-of-the-stuxnet-virus-attack/ https://repefs.wordpress.com/2025/04/09/a-comprehensive-anal...
- kenferry 7mo agoThis kind of mental model only works if you think of things as made huge shadowy blobs, not people. dyld has one principal author, who would 100% quit and go to the press if he was told (by who?) to insert a back door. The whole org is composed of the same basic people as would be working on Linux or something. Are you imagining a mass of people in suits who learned how to do systems programming at the institute for evil? Additionally, do you work in tech? You don’t think bugs appear organically? You don’t think creative exploitation of bugs is a thing?
- max_ 7mo agoI am not saying this one in particular. Of course no one can admit it publicly. But it is something that governments are known to proactively do. You can get dirt on people a la Jeffrey Epstein. And use that to coerce them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor_(computing)
- saagarjha 7mo agodyld has several people working on it now AFAIK