this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 56 points 11 months ago

Hidden hardware feature.

Not a backdoor at all.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Why am I hearing about iPhone attacks so much recently? But none on android?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago

I think it's mostly just been this one hack that keeps getting reported on because of how impressive it was. Apparently people are still discovering noteworthy things about it.

Not that there aren't others. Software is ever-moving. This one has just been especially interesting.

[–] Gigasser 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It can often be more important to inform apple users of attacks and exploits because android users aren't often under the illusion that they're immune from such happenings.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I feel like safe browsing practices and digital hygiene should be taught in middle schools. That's the age I was taught things about computers in the early 2000s, like how to use a word processor, do research, save to floppy disks, not visit shady websites, and don't click on ads. People just assume all that malware has been scrubbed from the Internet by now, but it has not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Elementary. Now people get access to the internet earlier on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Darn whippersnappers

[–] TheRealKuni 2 points 11 months ago

Power users, sure. But the average Samsung user is just as ignorant as the average Apple user.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Probably because this is @technology, where everyone is obsessed with apple because they would never use it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

People here fucking haaaaate Apple. As a person with servers, a bunch of computers I’ve built myself, and an iPhone/iPad… it’s quite funny to me.

[–] pete_the_cat 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I just hate how they claim to be the best at everything and they came up with everything, even though Android users have had the same features for years. They also charge an arm and a leg for products simply because they can. They take advantage of people that know nothing about tech.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Heavily disagree when it comes to their phones and tablets. They’re top-tier lil machines with insane lifespans and they’re priced accordingly. I’m using an iPhone XS Max still—how old is that, five years? Still fully supported, original battery lasts all day.

For tablets, I don’t even have to justify anything. No Android tablets come close.

You might be right about computers, though—I haven’t kept up with those! I still use a 2011 MacBook Pro, just swapped the optical drive out for a solid state drive, and maxed out the RAM. That fucker was expensive originally (2.2k USD retail, but I got it for a steal cuz my old laptop got warrantied to death) but fuck me if it doesn’t still run wonderfully for being 13 years old. Doesn’t update to latest OSX though, which sucks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I have a Oneplus 5t that I still use for miscellaneous tasks, battery life is good, updates stopped a few years ago, but Lineage runs very well on it. And it was probably less then half the price of the iPhone XS Max.

When's the last time you used an android Tablet? We have a Samsung Tab S6 and it runs excellently, there was a long period where they were downright bad, but if you don't buy some super cheap no-name brand, they're much better these days.

[–] pete_the_cat 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Android is open source so thousands of people have eyes on the source code and can find security holes. iOS (along with everything else Apple does) is closed source, so only they can review the code. This makes Linux based devices inherently more secure. Also, a lot of prominent people have iPhones so they're the targets of attack.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

So theoretically, you should hear more about Android holes than iPhones since people easily see the vulnerability and try it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You would think so but what seems to happen with open source is: for every person with evil intent that sees the flaw and exploit it there is more persons with good intent that sees it and report/fix it.

During that time, closed source have the opposite balance, less people can fix flaws, but the same amount of evil people than open source finds them and exploit them.

[–] Neon 2 points 11 months ago

Let's be real:

Nobody of us looks at the Source-Code unless we're paid to do so. Especially for a huge project like AOSP.

[–] pete_the_cat 9 points 11 months ago

Not really, all of that happens on GitHub.

[–] Kumabear 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I have to say, while not a huge fan of apple…

Most of these hacks I’ve seen seem to have long been patched out.

I still feel iPhones are largely more secure overall even if simply because on average I’m pretty confident the fleet of iPhones in use are using much more up to date software than android devices.

[–] danielfgom 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Wrong. According to the companies who pay for iOS and Android exploits in other to make tools like Pegasus, they say it is far harder to get a working android exploit than it is too get a working iOS exploit and as a result they pay more for Android exploits because ios exploits are far more common.

Why is this? Because Google has an Android security team that actively seeks exploits and patches them and Google also invites people to Hackathons and pays them for exploits.

Android is now harder than iOS.

https://www.wired.com/story/android-zero-day-more-than-ios-zerodium/

[–] guyinachair 6 points 11 months ago

The only thing that makes iPhones more secure is the ability to lock them down, even then it would never be perfectly safe. Governments would stop at nothing to crack iPhones because of their ubiquity. Not saying android is miles better but the variety of hardware, and open nature is a solid foundation for fighting against universal exploits. Never assume a connected device is impenetrable