Apple’s iPhone devices are now eligible to test SpaceX-owned Starlink’s direct-to-cell capability that provides coverage from space, according to T-Mobile, a partner in the program.
T-Mobile and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are currently testing the Starlink cell network on a trial basis after receiving approval from the Federal Communications Commission in November last year.
The trial offers ‘text via satellite’, while voice and data features will be added in the future, according to the T-Mobile website.
T-Mobile initially only listed a few Android smartphones as eligible devices to test the network, but has now added iPhone devices with the latest iOS 18.3 software update.
Bloomberg News first reported on Tuesday that Apple, SpaceX and T-Mobile had been secretively working to add support for the network in its latest iPhone software.
Apple and SpaceX did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment outside regular business hours.
In October last year, the FCC had allowed SpaceX and T-Mobile to enable Starlink satellites with direct-to-cell capability to provide coverage for cellphones in areas of North Carolina hit hard by Hurricane Helene.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has issued a chilling warning about Apple’s plans to begin scanning photos of users, saying the proposal will give governments terrifying access to citizen’s private data.
Snowden, a former computer intelligence consultant, who in 2013 leaked classified documents to show the scale of government snooping on U.S. citizens, condemned the new plans in strong terms, and says they set a precedent which will ultimately be abused by corrupt politicians to destroy individual privacy.
He said that Apple had chosen a dangerous path with their scheme to access users’ photos, and that governments will manipulate the rule to give them greater access to data they claim they need access to – such as a phone owner’s presence at a protest.
The Silicon Valley giant will scan all photos linked from iPhones to the Cloud for child pornography – with images cross-checked against a database from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Apple say that any users who do not want their phones to be scanned can switch off the linkage to the Cloud. But many people do not realize their phones are synching with the Cloud – and Snowden said 85 per cent of iPhone users have their phones set up to synch to the Cloud.
He also warned that Apple’s initial opt-out will inevitably be axed if its plans go ahead, meaning people’s phones will ultimately be the property of corporations and governments, and used to spy on their owners.
The update was announced at the beginning of this month, and Apple said the latest changes will roll out this year as part of updates to its operating software for iPhones, Macs and Apple Watches.
Edward Snowden, who leaked classified information in 2013 showing the extent of U.S. government spying on its own citizens, has warned about Apple’s plan to scan peoples’ photosAll photos which are linked from your phone to the iCloud will be scanned, and if they match images on the child pornography database held by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children then they will be flagged
It marks a sea change for the company, which has long prided itself – and promoted itself – as a bastion of privacy protection in a world of increasing surveillance.
Snowden is pictured in September 2019 promoting his book via video conference
Apple was one of the first major companies to embrace ‘end-to-end’ encryption, in which messages are scrambled so that only their senders and recipients can read them. Law enforcement, however, has long pressured the company for access to that information in order to investigate crimes such as terrorism or child sexual exploitation.
Snowden, 38, who has lived in Russia since leaking the classified information, said that Apple was opening Pandora’s Box.
‘If Apple demonstrates the capability and willingness to continuously, remotely search every phone for evidence of one particular type of crime, these are questions for which they will have no answer,’ he warned.
‘And yet an answer will come – and it will come from the worst lawmakers of the worst governments.
‘This is not a slippery slope. It’s a cliff.’
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has long prided himself on his company pushing back against government demands to hand over data from peoples’ phones. Snowden insists that Apple’s new decision will end that protection
Snowden said that Apple’s proposal would make it simple for governments to clamp down on their citizens.
‘What happens when a party in India demands they start scanning for memes associated with a separatist movement?’ he wrote, on his newsletter.
‘What happens when the UK demands they scan for a library of terrorist imagery?
Apple’s headquarters are pictured in Cupertino. The company insist that ordinary peoples’ photos will not be singled out, but Snowden is unconvinced
‘How long do we have left before the iPhone in your pocket begins quietly filing reports about encountering ‘extremist’ political material, or about your presence at a ‘civil disturbance’?’
Snowden said that Apple was setting out ‘to erase the boundary dividing which devices work for you, and which devices work for them.’
He added: ‘Once the precedent has been set that it is fit and proper for even a ‘pro-privacy’ company like Apple to make products that betray their users and owners, Apple itself will lose all control over how that precedent is applied.’
He pointed out that pedophiles would immediately disable the settings, which showed that rooting out sex offenders was not the real purpose of the new scheme.
‘As long as you keep that material off their servers, and so keep Apple out of the headlines, Apple doesn’t care,’ he said.
‘Apple’s new system, regardless of how anyone tries to justify it, will permanently redefine what belongs to you, and what belongs to them.’
Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused by governments looking to surveil their citizens.
Apple said its messaging app will use on-device machine learning to warn about sensitive content without making private communications readable by the company. The tool Apple calls “neuralMatch” will detect known images of child sexual abuse without decrypting people’s messages. If it finds a match, the image will be reviewed by a human who can notify law enforcement if necessary.
But researchers say the tool could be put to other purposes such as government surveillance of dissidents or protesters.
Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins, a top cryptography researcher, was concerned that it could be used to frame innocent people by sending them harmless but malicious images designed designed to appear as matches for child porn, fooling Apple’s algorithm and alerting law enforcement — essentially framing people. “Researchers have been able to do this pretty easily,” he said.
Tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others have for years been sharing “hash lists” of known images of child sexual abuse. Apple has also been scanning user files stored in its iCloud service, which is not as securely encrypted as its messages, for such images.
Some say this technology could leave the company vulnerable to political pressure in authoritarian states such as China. “What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for,’” Green said. “Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.”
The company has been under pressure from governments and law enforcement to allow for surveillance of encrypted data. Coming up with the security measures required Apple to perform a delicate balancing act between cracking down on the exploitation of children while keeping its high-profile commitment to protecting the privacy of its users.
Apple believes it pulled off that feat with technology that it developed in consultation with several prominent cryptographers, including Stanford University professor Dan Boneh, whose work in the field has won a Turing Award, often called technology’s version of the Nobel Prize.
The computer scientist who more than a decade ago invented PhotoDNA, the technology used by law enforcement to identify child pornography online, acknowledged the potential for abuse of Apple’s system but said it was far outweighed by the imperative of battling child sexual abuse.
“It possible? Of course. But is it something that I’m concerned about? No,” said Hany Farid, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, who argues that plenty of other programs designed to secure devices from various threats haven’t seen “this type of mission creep.” For example, WhatsApp provides users with end-to-end encryption to protect their privacy, but employs a system for detecting malware and warning users not to click on harmful links.
Apple was one of the first major companies to embrace “end-to-end” encryption, in which messages are scrambled so that only their senders and recipients can read them. Law enforcement, however, has long pressured for access to that information in order to investigate crimes such as terrorism or child sexual exploitation.
“Apple’s expanded protection for children is a game changer,” John Clark, the president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said in a statement. “With so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have lifesaving potential for children who are being enticed online and whose horrific images are being circulated in child sexual abuse material.”
Julia Cordua, the CEO of Thorn, said that Apple’s technology balances “the need for privacy with digital safety for children.” Thorn, a nonprofit founded by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, uses technology to help protect children from sexual abuse by identifying victims and working with tech platforms.
New evidence uncovered by Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories has revealed a massive wave of attacks by cyber surveillance company NSO Group’s customers on iPhones, potentially affecting thousands of Apple users worldwide.
Our forensic analysis has uncovered irrefutable evidence that through iMessage zero-click attacks, NSO’s spyware has successfully infected iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 models. Thousands of iPhones have potentially been compromised.
Deputy Director of Amnesty Tech Danna Ingleton said:
“Apple prides itself on its security and privacy features, but NSO Group has ripped these apart. Our forensic analysis has uncovered irrefutable evidence that through iMessage zero-click attacks, NSO’s spyware has successfully infected iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 models. Thousands of iPhones have potentially been compromised.
“These attacks have exposed activists, journalists and politicians all over the world to the risk of having their whereabouts monitored, and their personal information and used against them.
“This is a global concern – anyone and everyone is at risk, and even technology giants like Apple are ill-equipped to deal with the massive scale of surveillance at hand.
“NSO Group can no longer hide behind the claim that its spyware is only used to fight crime. There is overwhelming evidence that NSO spyware is being systematically used for repression and other human rights violations. NSO Group must immediately stop selling its equipment to governments with a track record of abusing human rights.
“These findings show that the surveillance industry is out of control. States must immediately implement a global moratorium on the export, sale and use of surveillance equipment until a human rights-compliant regulatory framework is in place.”
Background
NSO Group’s spyware has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale, according to a major investigation into the leak of 50,000 phone numbers of potential surveillance targets. These include heads of state, activists and journalists, including Jamal Khashoggi’s family.
The Pegasus Project is a ground-breaking collaboration by more than 80 journalists from 17 media organizations in 10 countries coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based media non-profit, with the technical support of Amnesty International, who conducted cutting- edge forensic tests on mobile phones to identify traces of the spyware.
The investigation today revealed that Pegasus zero-click attacks have been used to install spyware on iPhones.
Amnesty International was able to confirm that thousands of iPhones were listed as potential targets for Pegasus spyware, though it was not possible to confirm how many were successfully hacked.
Thousands of Google Android phones were also selected for targeting, but unlike iPhones their operating systems do not keep accessible logs useful for detecting Pegasus spyware infection. Among the Apple products successfully infected were iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 models, equipped with the latest updates which were believed to have high levels of security.
Israeli surveillance company NSO Group has been bankrolled by major private equity firms Novalpina Capital and Francisco Partners, with numerous investors behind them. Pension firms in the UK and US also have a stake in the rights abusing company.
The Pegasus Project
NSO Group’s spyware has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale, according to a major investigation into the leak of 50,000 phone numbers of potential surveillance targets. These include heads of state, activists and journalists, including Jamal Khashoggi’s family.
The Pegasus Project lays bare how NSO’s spyware is a weapon of choice for repressive governments seeking to silence journalists, attack activists and crush dissent, placing countless lives in peril.
The Pegasus Project is a ground-breaking collaboration by more than 80 journalists from 17 media organizations in 10 countries coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based media non-profit, with the technical support of Amnesty International, who conducted cutting- edge forensic testson mobile phones to identify traces of the spyware.
“The Pegasus Project lays bare how NSO’s spyware is a weapon of choice for repressive governments seeking to silence journalists, attack activists and crush dissent, placing countless lives in peril,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
“These revelations blow apart any claims by NSO that such attacks are rare and down to rogue use of their technology. While the company claims its spyware is only used for legitimate criminal and terror investigations, it’s clear its technology facilitates systemic abuse. They paint a picture of legitimacy, while profiting from widespread human rights violations.”
“Clearly, their actions pose larger questions about the wholesale lack of regulation that has created a wild west of rampant abusive targeting of activists and journalists. Until this company and the industry as a whole can show it is capable of respecting human rights, there must be an immediate moratorium on the export, sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology.”
In a written response to Forbidden Stories and its media partners, NSO Group said it “firmly denies… false claims” in the report. It wrote that the consortium’s reporting was based on “wrong assumptions” and “uncorroborated theories” and reiterated that the company was on a “life-saving mission”. A fuller summary of NSO Group’s response is available here.
The Investigation
At the centre of this investigation is NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware which, when surreptitiously installed on victims’ phones, allows an attacker complete access to the device’s messages, emails, media, microphone, camera, calls and contacts.
Over the next week, media partners of The Pegasus Project – including The Guardian, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung and The Washington Post – will run a series of stories exposing details of how world leaders, politicians, human rights activists, and journalists have been selected as potential targets of this spyware.
From the leaked data and their investigations, Forbidden Stories and its media partners identified potential NSO clients in 11 countries: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Togo, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
NSO Group has not taken adequate action to stop the use of its tools for unlawful targeted surveillance of activists and journalists, despite the fact that it either knew, or arguably ought to have known, that this was taking place.
The Pegasus Project revelations must act as a catalyst for change. The surveillance industry must no longer be afforded a laissez-faire approach from governments with a vested interest in using this technology to commit human rights violations.
“As a first step, NSO Group must immediately shut down clients’ systems where there is credible evidence of misuse. The Pegasus Project provides this in abundance,” said Agnès Callamard.
Khashoggi family targeted
During the investigation, evidence has also emerged that family members of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi were targeted with Pegasus software before and after his murder in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by Saudi operatives, despite repeated denials from NSO Group.
Amnesty International’s Security Lab established that Pegasus spyware was successfully installed on the phone of Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz just four days after his murder.
His wife, Hanan Elatr was also repeatedly targeted with the spyware between September 2017 and April 2018 as well as his son, Abdullah, who was also selected as a target along with other family members in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In a statement, the NSO Group responded to the Pegasus Project allegations saying that its “technology was not associated in any way with the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi”. The company said that it “previously investigated this claim, immediately after the heinous murder, which again, is being made without validation”.
Journalists under attack
The investigation has so far identified at least 180 journalists in 20 countries who were selected for potential targeting with NSO spyware between 2016 to June 2021, including in Azerbaijan, Hungary, India and Morocco, countries where crackdowns against independent media have intensified.
The revelations show the real-world harm caused by unlawful surveillance:
In Mexico, journalist Cecilio Pineda’s phone was selected for targeting just weeks before his killing in 2017. The Pegasus Project identified at least 25 Mexican journalists were selected for targeting over a two-year period. NSO has denied that even if Pineda’s phone had been targeted, data collected from his phone contributed to his death.
Pegasus has been used in Azerbaijan, a country where only a few independent media outlets remain. More than 40 Azerbaijani journalists were selected as potential targets according to the investigation. Amnesty International’s Security Lab found the phone of Sevinc Vaqifqizi, a freelance journalist for independent media outlet Meydan TV, was infected over a two-year period until May 2021.
In India, at least 40 journalists from nearly every major media outlet in the country were selected as potential targets between 2017-2021. Forensic tests revealed the phones of Siddharth Varadarajan and MK Venu, co-founders of independent online outlet The Wire, were infected with Pegasus spyware as recently as June 2021.
The investigation also identified journalists working for major international media including the Associated Press, CNN, The New York Times and Reuters as potential targets. One of the highest profile journalists was Roula Khalaf, the editor of the Financial Times.
“The number of journalists identified as targets vividly illustrates how Pegasus is used as a tool to intimidate critical media. It is about controlling public narrative, resisting scrutiny, and suppressing any dissenting voice,” said Agnès Callamard.
“These revelations must act as a catalyst for change. The surveillance industry must no longer be afforded a laissez-faire approach from governments with a vested interest in using this technology to commit human rights violations.”
Exposing Pegasus infrastructure
Amnesty International is today releasing the full technical details of its Security Lab’s in-depth forensic investigations as part of the Pegasus Project.
The Lab’s methodology report documents the evolution of Pegasus spyware attacks since 2018, with details on the spyware’s infrastructure, including more than 700 Pegasus-related domains.
“NSO claims its spyware is undetectable and only used for legitimate criminal investigations. We have now provided irrefutable evidence of this ludicrous falsehood,” said Etienne Maynier, a technologist at Amnesty International’s Security Lab.
There is nothing to suggest that NSO’s customers did not also use Pegasus in terrorism and crime investigations, and the Forbidden Stories consortium also found numbers in the data belonging to suspected criminals.
“The widespread violations Pegasus facilitates must stop. Our hope is the damning evidence published over the next week will lead governments to overhaul a surveillance industry that is out of control,” said Etienne Maynier.
In response to a request for comment by media organizations involved in the Pegasus Project, NSO Group said it “firmly denies” the claims and stated that “many of them are uncorroborated theories which raise serious doubts about the reliability of your sources, as well as the basis of your story.” NSO Group did not confirm or deny which governments are NSO Group’s customers, although it said that the Pegasus Project had made “incorrect assumptions” in this regard. Notwithstanding its general denial of the claims, NSO Group said it “will continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action based on the results of these investigations”.
Tech giant Apple Inc has released a new iPhone upgrade after bugs in the recently released iOS 13 caused charging malfunctions in their recent released products iPhone11, iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max.
Apple was forced to roll out iOS 13.1 just days after iOS 13 released due to a variety of bugs and issues that plagued the early software, and although it was certainly an improvement, even iOS 13.1 wasn’t up to Apple’s usual standards.
The iPhone maker was forced to work on iOS 13.2 immediately, and after four developers and public betas, the final version of the update has been seeded.
Aside from the bug fixes, the number one reason to download iOS 13.2 is to gain access to the Deep Fusion camera tech that should make all of your photos especially in low and medium light look way better. There are also new emojis, new privacy controls for Siri, and some other subtle upgrades iPhone owners will appreciate.
India has slashed off taxes impossed on manufacturing and production in a move to attract global phone manufacturers like Apple to move production of their devices to the country.
India introduced new tax legislation which lower taxes in its manufacturing sector. The move aims at making the country more appealing to both local and international manufacturers.
“We have redone the entire architecture of taxation law as far as manufacturing is concerned. As of now, this corporate tax cut in itself is massive. Mobile phones already are a success story.” Prasad told The Economic Times
India’s Communication Minister believes that the tax cuts will attract players like Apple, Foxconn, and Flextronics planning to scale production in India.
“We are already the second biggest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world. Now, even Apple is coming in a big way, Foxconn 2 and 3 will launch base.” Prasad said.
Indian minister has said that they are setting up the country as main replacement of China as the ideal manufacturing destination for electronics.
“Apple reportedly is going to open its biggest state-of-the-art shop in Mumbai, and Samsung is withdrawing from China,” Prasad went on.
While Microsoft is heavily investing in Africa, India might likely win the deal owing to the previous production of low-cost iPhone models as well as the new tax cuts.
Apple has been very is open to the idea of shifting manufacturing from China to reduce its dependence. Moreover, RT reveals that Apple asked its suppliers to shift up to 30% of its production away from China.
Apple Inc, an American multinational technology company headquartered that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services has already started making its fanatics to admire the next series of its unreleased products. iPhone 11 Pro was released just a few weeks ago!
According to an exciting new patent application from Apple, the company is looking to replicate the familiar feeling of typing on a keyboard to touchscreens. The patent, uncovered by Patently Apple, explains how haptic motors and electrostatic charges would make the virtual keys feel more like physical ones.
“Electrostatics may use an electrical field to attract and/or repel conductive objects, such as a user’s finger. Changing the normal force between a surface and a conductive object directly affects the friction between the two, and the resulting forces may be perceived as texture when the object moves,” the patent reads.
Basically, what Apple is saying is that this is something that looks like a keyboard on-screen that ‘feels’ like keys thanks to the imagined ‘texture’ and it should feel just like you’re typing on a regular keyboard. I don’t know if the theory FEELs from your end, me thinks this looks like a modernized past, and yes, I mean this feels good from my side. Or you are waiting to see it to believe it!
Still, it’s a fascinating idea and could prove a viable alternative for iPad keyboard cases and the like for people who only occasionally use their tablets for long-form writing.
But as ever, patents should come with a health warning: very few of them actually get made into products you can buy, especially with Apple which has over 80,000 of them. Whether we’ll see this particular one in a product likely depends on how well it works in practice.
Samsung, a South Korean multinational coalescence and mobile marker headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul has invigorated its partnership with Microsoft Inc through a new series of apps and features such as OneDrive storage for photos and better syncing between the phone and computer in a move to take on the massive market dominance that Apple, the iPhone maker has since enjoyed for decades.
During the Unpacking event of the new rather, redesigned Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the new features will also help Samsung to better take on the Apple’s iPhone that launched their iPhone XR mid this year.
Samsung and Microsoft have been working together to offer features that have now made the Galaxy Note 10 phones work more easily with PCs. The phones will include Microsoft’sYour Phone appby default, allowing text messages to sync between a phone and a Windows-powered PC.
According to Samsung, their mobile users will be able to make and receive calls on the PC later this year too when finer detailed and upgraded features will be finalized.
Samsung’s phones can also use Microsoft’s OneDrive service to store photos. And Microsoft’s popular Outlook email program, as well as its Office productivity suite of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will be included with each Galaxy Note 10.
“From calls and text messages to emails and photos, we’re making these everyday experiences great and the interactions between all the devices seamless,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said this at Samsung’s Unpacked launch event that was held in New York yesterday.
This partnership, which expands on Microsoft’s previous work with Samsung, isn’t just a marriage of convenience, Nadella said. “The combination of Microsoft intelligent experiences and Samsung’s powerful, innovative new devices, like the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Book S, make this possible.”
Tech is a field for the best innovators and makers. The battle between Apple and Samsung seems to have taken a different route, as it has been, Apple the iPhone maker has always had an upper hand with its sleek software updates and upgrades. iPhone’s handoff technology lets you start an email on an iPad and finish it on the Mac.
Apple’s iWork productivity suite, including its Pages word processor, Numbers spreadsheet app and Keynote presentation software, is free to every Mac and iPhone user. According to genius tech minds, Apple’s iCloud Photo Library service is considered to be the best competitor to Google Photos.
The features merger between Microsoft and Samsung can begin to bridge that gap and sooner or later, HiOS makers, which are the biggest global mobile distributors, can seat at the table and comfortably talk Tech with iOS markers.
“The ability to take that magic between an iPhone and Mac and bring that to Samsung is big. The tie-up makes even more sense when you consider that most people tend to use whatever comes with their phone. So using Outlook email by default will give Microsoft a boost,” said Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi.
“Microsoft has always struggled to do well in mobile and to have a strong mobile partner. Microsoft may also benefit from offering access to Microsoft services in a way that’s not just through an app, but rather directly integrated into the phone. It makes the Note a real productivity device,” said Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
Personally, I think that Microsoft will even, if not sooner, start selling Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 in its stores if everything goes as planned, which will be a genius step for the almost being irrelevant corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services.
