Turns out Google killing Android privacy was completely useless as a way to prevent people from being hacked, but they might use this type of stuff to justify even more closing of supposedly "free" paltforms.
Likewise, using privacy messengers like Signal is also useless if they can just take control of your entire device anytime they want.
> useless as a way to prevent people from being hacked
From being hacked by others. Google was just trying to protect their property, which is the ability to spy on their users' every move. Google themselves really don't need to "hack" their users for that, they already have all the access and all the data they could ever want. And they also have the ability to brick their users' devices at a moment's notice the same as Apple does.
I'm sure Google's latest push to make it inconvenient to install apps from outside Google's Playstore, where Google charges a 30% commission, is going to solve that.
If only! I think we can no longer afford to ignore all these security threats and should make online advertising wholesale illegal. But I won't hold my breath.
The ads are getting insane, they're trying to fill every bit of space you can look with ads. You go to a restaurant there's ads on your placemat. You go to the grocery store there's ads in your cart. They put chargers in the parking lot so now there's ads out there.
Streaming services used to be bad enough with ads in the shows, now they put an ad on the screen when you pause it. Peacock just started putting ads in the login screen.
If we don't stop this, pretty soon they're going to have ads in the stars as satellite constellations arrange themselves to sell you Twitter subscriptions. They're not going to stop even when there's an ad no matter where you look.
I doubt it's that easy to click on a link and install malware without the user knowing. Most browsers are highly secure and finding a zero day isn't that easy these days because both sides use A.I. to find vulnerabilities and to secure against them.
It’s not “easy”, it requires a complex infrastructure of exploit devs (who can sell their findings for millions in some cases) and the companies who package these exploits together with implants and sell them.
One side uses AI to find them. The other side probably needs to keep the holes open for NSA, as the multiple 0 click root exploits that happened in the past to the iPhone with very similar techniques suggest.
There is a tinfoil narrative that suggest that entire formats are in bed with intelligence services. It sounds pretty wild, but other zero-click attack vectors have been possible through sabotaging the parsing of file formats. ie. send a message -> hacked. How? the message wasnt even opened. How is, an app like Messenger receives a photo attachment binary, tries to unpack it and in doing so receives an instruction that stops the parser and executes arbitrary instructions.
They use ad network to try to target individual user visiting a page (eg you know your target is a male, 60 years old, living in that area, with a few other checks you can almost uniquely identify your target)
Then the ad network delivers a targeted ad that exploits a vulnerability (eg a broken JPEG decoder that, when sent a bad image, allows to run arbitrary code on your machine), and from there you have access to the computer
It’s to do with hiding malware/spyware in an image which ends up in your cache on device. I can’t go much further into details but all this takes is for you to visit a site that serves it via ad network.
Israel has been known to have some sneaky spyware in the past with Pegasus.
> Reuters has reported that billions of dollars’ worth of Meta’s ad revenue comes from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content. In the US, ICE and other government agencies have bought software that uses ad tech data to track people’s movements.
I don't know if an ad blocker protects against Discover-Tech’s Controlium but in general you'd be a fool to allow ads in your browser in at this point. The ad industry is pretty shady all round.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Download_Valley
* https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targ...
Likewise, using privacy messengers like Signal is also useless if they can just take control of your entire device anytime they want.
From being hacked by others. Google was just trying to protect their property, which is the ability to spy on their users' every move. Google themselves really don't need to "hack" their users for that, they already have all the access and all the data they could ever want. And they also have the ability to brick their users' devices at a moment's notice the same as Apple does.
Streaming services used to be bad enough with ads in the shows, now they put an ad on the screen when you pause it. Peacock just started putting ads in the login screen.
If we don't stop this, pretty soon they're going to have ads in the stars as satellite constellations arrange themselves to sell you Twitter subscriptions. They're not going to stop even when there's an ad no matter where you look.
https://www.packetlabs.net/posts/demystifying-the-market-for...
Article on the CitizenLab website: https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targ...
https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targ...
Then the ad network delivers a targeted ad that exploits a vulnerability (eg a broken JPEG decoder that, when sent a bad image, allows to run arbitrary code on your machine), and from there you have access to the computer
It’s to do with hiding malware/spyware in an image which ends up in your cache on device. I can’t go much further into details but all this takes is for you to visit a site that serves it via ad network.
Israel has been known to have some sneaky spyware in the past with Pegasus.
I don't know if an ad blocker protects against Discover-Tech’s Controlium but in general you'd be a fool to allow ads in your browser in at this point. The ad industry is pretty shady all round.