this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
180 points (98.4% liked)
Privacy
31855 readers
207 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They install malware on your device, if your device is susceptible. They don't require backdoors or anything like that. They'll have to hack your device first, which you can usually prevent if you keep your OS up to date and make smart choices about the links you click on.
Things like the iMessage exploits governments used before are harder to prevent because Apple is exposing a lot of complicated functionality in their background messaging app, but if you have an iPhone you can default such malware by occasionally rebooting your device.
The chat app was actually infiltrated by the police for ages, I doubt the French police will be able to do that to any reputable chat service without causing a massive shit storm. They also pushed uodates that uploaded the keys back to them (the chats themselves were securely encrypted).
Ok, so I guess the risk is not really big if you use common sense and use some digital hygiene. The bigger OS exploits can't really be protected against anyway as an end-user...