In recent internal NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden, Steve Jobs is referred to as ‘big brother’ and iPhone customers are referred to as ‘zombies’.
SPIEGEL obtained access to the documents which indicate the NSA has developed the ability to hack into iPhones, Android devices and even the BlackBerry, previously believed to be particularly secure.
By cracking mobile operating systems and eavesdropping on mobile communications, the NSA has acquired private and sensitive images and data, such as a iPhone picture of a foreign government official who took selfies while watching TV, and a picture of an unknown man, apparently an Afghani fighter, in the mountains of Afghanistan. And remember iPhone’s location bug? That enabled tracking of people over extended periods of time before being fixed by Apple in mid 2011.
As you can see in the slides below titled “iPhone Location Services”, there is a picture of Steve Jobs with the caption, “…that this would be big brother…”. Another slide shows a picture of iPhone customers with the caption, “…and the zombies would be paying customers?”.
In April 2011, researchers discovered that Apple was storing the co-ordinates of every location iOS device owners had ever been to in one unencrypted file. The company was investigated by South Korea, France, Germany, Italy, Senator Al Franken, and others. It was also sued in Federal Court. Apple issued a firmware update to address the problem.
via venturebeat
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