MEET “DROPOUT JEEP” — THE NSA’S APPLE INFILTRATION PROGRAM
It sounds like a defective sport utility vehicle, but “Dropout Jeep” is really the code name for a program used by the National Security Agency to access your iPhone.
And no … the new fingerprint security feature on your iPhone 5S won’t save you.
The program – revealed by presenter Jacob Applebaum (@ioerror) at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress – enables the spy agency to remotely monitor, manipulate and steal data from any Apple iPhone.
“DROPOUT JEEP is a software implant for the Apple iPhone that utilizes modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality,” a slide from Applebaum’s presentation reveals. “This functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted.”
Translation? Not only is Big Brother inside your iPhone, he can make it do his bidding.
“Do you think Apple helped them build that?” Applebaum asked during his address. “I don’t know. I hope Apple will clarify that.”
Ya think? They better …
Our founding editor is a loyal Apple user (iMac, iPad, iPod and iPhone) … but he won’t be one if the company has been collaborating with government agencies on invading user privacy.
“Here’s the problem: I don’t really believe that Apple didn’t help them, I can’t really prove it but (the NSA) literally claim that anytime they target an iOS device that it will succeed for implantation,” Applebaum continued. “Either they have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning that they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves. Not sure which one it is.”
Either way, it is among the more frightening revelations about our government’s spy network … which recently received a stamp of approval from a federal judge.
43 comments
Duck and Cover.Build a fallout shelter.More BS propaganda.Knock yourself out,dude.
If you’ve got something to hide – you’d better be more careful than the founding father’s were. Don’t trust anyone, only talk on the lawn when the sprinkler system is on, cover your mouth when you talk, don’t use phones, don’t use computers.
When you go somewhere, walk under a canopy of trees.
use low tech – bicycles, skateboards, skates, feet.
use paper and pen – burn it and blow the residue into the wind.
develop a code based on the text of books that only you and your partner in hiding something know, and don’t tell anyone else what the name of the books are, or what pages you’re using for the code.
wear tin foil on your head, and check your perimeter.
At night, peek through the curtains, and look for shadows moving along the curb. Just peeking sometimes messes up their rhythm.
I talk to the wind.That’s it.If the good lord had wanted us talking on iphones,he would have embedded them in our butts…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql8nTBO0apI
If you don’t have something to hide now, just wait a few more years. Look at Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Cuba, China, etc. One of these days they make something you do as part of your daily routine illegal for your own safety or for the safety of others, and then you’ll wish they hand’t installed spyware on your laptop.
On the one hand, we’re to believe the government is incompetent and incapable of even paving a road. On the other, we’re to believe they’re in fact so competent, that they can process hundreds of thousands of trillions e-mails, phone messages, texts, phone conversations, in person conversations, etc., daily into come sort of coherent understanding to be a substantial violation of just normal joe blow’s constitutional rights?
The technology exists and is capable; the end-user is regrettably, incompetent.
Which is why it’s unlikely this will ever be anything other than another ineffective government program. I’m sure targeted surveillance works much better.
Perhaps, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
It’s all about priorities, basically. Building a road is a low priority, being able to see everywhere you drive your car is a high one.
It depends entirely on WHICH level of government you’re talking about; local municipal government stooges do indeed have difficulties with pot holes. The Federal government – on the other end of the spectrum – have deep pockets and an even deeper need for private information on citizens under the pretension of NATIONAL SECURITY ! What a scam ,,,, the USA is more INSECURE than ever before. And those dummies in DC know it, but how could thye give up the GOLDEN GOOSE that is the NSA?!
I read your comment really fast, in Jackie Chile’s voice
I wish I was important enuf that NSA gave a shit what I had to say.
You’re still able to use your phone? Last time I used mine,it blew up and I lost all hearing in my right ear…
So, you’re left handed now?
Even if you’re not, it still trickles down to you in one way or another. (no man is an island to himself) And second your privacy is your constitutional right.
“Our founding editor is a loyal Apple user (iMac, iPad, iPod and iPhone)’
OK, here is a new one to add to your list—- iFucked
Before you and Mr. Applebaum get carried away with yourselves over whether or not Apple cooperated with the NSA, keep in mind what you might do in the face of a federal warrant.
Don’t be upset with those who cooperated with the federal government, be concerned about the methods used by the federal government to gain said cooperation.
We need more Ladar Levisons and Lavabits. The bottom line is more important than standing up for the people.
Thank goodness the terrorists use prepaid junker phones and not expensive brand spanking new iPhones, otherwise the NSA might actually stop something bad from happening instead of finding out what bar some random schmoe went to last night, plus his drunk tweets and texts, his butt dials, and the frat boy uploading a picture of him passed out with crude drawings on his face to his Facebook wall.
Osama bin Laden used a courier.
…and eventually caught a .556 migraine (after 75% of his command staff caught the more standard “warhead on the forehead” migraines).
Exactly why this sort of surveillance is useless. “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.”
Facebook (Zuckerfucker) is doing basically the samething. The backlash by consumers for their phones will be severe, we can see that coming.
And that is where you are wrong. The American people don’t give a crap. I wish they did, but they don’t.
So once the iCrap is put together and loaded with software in China, Apple/NSA unbox them and put the spy software on them. Must use iTunes update to put the program on. Hmmm, maybe the Chinese are cooperating.
It’s in the firmware that’s stamped onto the motherboard.
By the Chinese?
The way it works is, the Chinese and Apple finalize the final Bill of Materials before loading the reels on the surface mount placement machine.
One of the reels contains EEPROM chips. Inside these chips is manufacturing test software, the product software, and all the secret spy software the government pays to have loaded.
Each printed circuit board goes through the SMP, and comes out the other end with the chip soldered to the motherboard, and with the software ready to run.
If there is a change in software, it is upgraded over the air without opening the case using software provided by Apple.
I would imagine that the encryption techniques that protect these “special” software packages added to the product are world-class and are integrated into the physical design in ways that insure it remains secret – even from 10-year old dweebs with access to 1-micron slicers and electron microscope-sized test points.
Thanks for the explanation.
Holy cow Euwe – that’s the single most erudite post you’ve ever thrown up, well done sir, well done!
When,The Colonel says,’erudite’,I become a little too moist.He gets my vote for sexiest FITS poster of the year…
Salute!
Sorry, but all phones have something that does this. Sometimes it’s an actual application installed onto your phone and the other (100%) of the time it’s an embedded application from your carrier. Pretty lazy attempt a sensationalizing this and labeling it as more NSA intrusion.
And yet another reason to go with the cheaper and more versatile Android operating system. To infect them all, the NSA’d have to go after 8 to 10 different companies, most of whom are not US based – I can just see the conversation between the NSA and Samsung going well “…you want us to do what!?! Go away round eye, you no welcome here!…”.
The ability to co-opt smart phones has existed for as long as we’ve had smart phones. The “smarter” they get the more vulnerable they become, particularly when you have remote operation features like diagnostic tools. The original cell phones generally had to be placed into operation before they were vulnerable but you could listen to most of them with a fairly easy to obtain scanner.
All of our SCIFs and secure areas have phone boxes outside the door. We haven’t allowed phones in since the “smart guys” figured the threat out. The Army has disabled many “smart” features like the cameras in an attempt to further prevent their abuse and misuse.
This poster seems to be so much more informed,and relevant, than the “Founding Editor.” …And that seems to happen a lot.
Naa, anyone who thinks Android phones work as well as Iphones is not that informed. And besides Android is a Google product, and we all know Google has the capability to spy on absolutely everything we do on the internet, and when push comes to shove will turn that information over to the government to protect their profits. As they did in China.
“…anyone who thinks Android phones work as well as Iphones is not that informed. And besides Android is a Google product…” Speaking of not informed dud, er dude – check your mirror.
Android is Linux based and open source, developers tweak it anyway they want – that’s why there are multiple versions currently in use as “the latest version”. The phones OS is actually segregated from the “computer part” of the OS and is far more secure than the Apple series of OSes. The open source nature of Android makes it much more “rootable” and therefore much more closely examined by end users and much more tunable by corporations to enhance their security.
If Androids don’t work as well as Apples, why does 80% of the world use Android? Simple price and versatility. Apples are sexy and cool, and overpriced and over rated. I have and use a 5, a Casio Commando and a Crackberry. The Crackberry is provided by the gubamint and would be better known as a “crapberry”. The Apple is my normal “work phone”, sexy and nice but nothing special. My phone of choice is my three year old, hacked Commando. Water proof and indestructible out of the box.
Thanks Colonel for the info. I was brought up on Apple products, and once swore by them. But I got tired of the snobbery and petty Bull-$#!* Apple plays on its usuers. You have to be stupid to get duped by them. And the the PC side caught up, Android included.
Apple is more of a tech-piety product now…for liberals to feel big, special and better-than-you about ..while they bash everybody else for being greedy and stingy….
You are very correct in your asessment….
why does 80% of the world use Android (up from 3% just four years ago)? Simple, price and versatility.
I would say price and marketing. But price is becoming more and more irrelevant. The Iphone 5C is down to $99 with a two year contract.
I have used both. Iphones still work better for now. Additionally the number of available apps makes it no contest, unless you just want a phone and something to receive text messages. Maybe the Android market will catch up at some point, but not soon.
Price. Hands down Android based phones are cheaper.
Marketing – Apple has some of the most iconic ads ever made.
Apps:
Android – 700,000
Apple – 775,000 (300,000 of which only work on the IPad)
The 5c has been universally panned – the reason they’re $99 is that Apple couldn’t give them away so make the price unbeatable to clear your stock – basic marketing.
Apple was more business-like. In the last year or twin they realized consumers where the main purchasers. That’s why they’re trying new things. Slightly bigger screens, colors, new looks and features are all apart of their effort to make things more consumer friendly.
Two words: Tower Dump.
what….
not that I am surprised
but, what….
still haven’t seen any tangible proof (schematics, program logic) that prove how this works or if it’s actually in place. anyone have any actual code or found anything in the iOS? all the articles just repeat the capabilities. anyone tried rooting and digging in to find the actual code?