Pinboard (guardiantech)

Security researchers claim Apple technically capable of intercepting iMessages >> TechCrunch

guardiantech — 2013-09-19T21:10:14+00:00

Techcrunch: Is this attack something you feel can be widely distributed or leveraged, or is it so difficult that this is not likely?
Cyril Cattiaux: The iMessage protocol is strong. Only Apple or a powerful institution (NSA is randomly chosen as an example) could tamper with it.
TC: Does it require physical access to a user’s device? If not, then can you give some details on what info you need to make it happen?
CC: Basically, if you are Apple or the NSA, it doesn’t require any prerequisites.

Await the demonstration: next October 17-18 at the HITB Security Conference in Asia.

Apple's iMessage encryption trips up feds' surveillance >> CNET News

guardiantech — 2013-04-04T17:13:16+00:00

Declan McCullagh and Jennifer van Grove:

Encryption used in Apple's iMessage chat service has stymied attempts by federal drug enforcement agents to eavesdrop on suspects' conversations, an internal government document reveals.
An internal Drug Enforcement Administration document seen by CNET discusses a February 2013 criminal investigation and warns that because of the use of encryption, "it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices" even with a court order approved by a federal judge.
The DEA's warning, marked "law enforcement sensitive," is the most detailed example to date of the technological obstacles -- FBI director Robert Mueller has called it the "Going Dark" problem -- that police face when attempting to conduct court-authorized surveillance on non-traditional forms of communication.

Text Messaging – the phoenix of the digital age? >> OpenSignal Blog

guardiantech — 2012-12-05T11:16:02+00:00

For the first time since text messaging entered general use there has been a fall in the number of texts sent in the UK. Following two quarterly declines the number of text messages sent this year has fallen to 38.5 billion in Q2 2012 from a high of 39.7 billion in Q4 last year. This phenomenon is not simply UK based, with the United States showing a similar decline and the Finnish carrier Sonera showing a fall of over 20% in the number of text messages sent on Christmas Eve 2011 when compared with Christmas Eve 2010. What is clear is that alternative forms of electronic communication are slowly chipping away at the dominant position that text messaging has occupied in the lives of mobile users over the last 20 years.

In general, if a headline ends with a questionmark, it can be answered "no".

Stolen iPhone? Your iMessages may still be going to the wrong place >> Ars Technica

guardiantech — 2011-12-15T15:45:33+00:00

Stolen iPhones despite being wiped on US network Verizon still hold iMessage data. "'I can only speculate, but I can see this being plausible," Zdziarski told Ars. 'iMessage registers with the subscriber's phone number from the SIM, so let's say you restore the phone, it will still read the phone number from the SIM. I suppose if you change the SIM out after the phone has been configured, the old number might be cached somewhere either on the phone or on Apple's servers with the UDID of the phone.' "In other words, iMessage may be pulling the old phone number from a cache somewhere and continuing to use it on the device if the SIM was removed after it was configured as a new phone. We were unable to test this theory (and keep in mind that it's just a theory), but it certainly sounds like one of the more logical explanations for this phenomenon." One wonders too why Verizon and US carriers don't, like the UK carriers do, block IMEIs of stolen phones. That would stop it too. (Thanks @rquick for the link.)

Apple’s iMessage cannibalizes SMS but is no threat to operators >> if connected

guardiantech — 2011-10-17T21:27:19+00:00

Ian Fogg's analysis is broad and insightful. There isn't a short version, but equally, it isn't long.

October 12, 2011: The Day SMS Began To Die >> TechCrunch

guardiantech — 2011-10-13T05:32:07+00:00

"October 12th, 2011. Mark it down, and come back and yell at me in a few years if I’m wrong. Today is the day SMS begins to die. "It begins with today’s launch of iOS 5. Or, really, it begins with iMessage." Actually, this is wrong; SMS is already peaking in a number of western countries, but not because of iMessage, but because of the availability of cheap data plans allied to services such as instant messaging and Twitter and Facebook. Tomi Ahonen has pointed to a peak in SMS in Holland last year. That's before iMessage.