<story><title>Edward Snowden interview: &apos;Smartphones can be taken over&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34444233</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>junto</author><text>Everybody talks about the OS, buy nearly everyone forgets about the base band, the hidden OS on every phone that you have almost no control over.&lt;p&gt;Whilst the media is worrying about Apple iCloud and phone encryption, GCHQ are quietly delving into your base band and enjoying the smoke and mirrors.&lt;p&gt;To use analogy, we are worrying about the government looking under our clothes, whilst in fact they are peeling back or skin and skulls and peering into our humanity.</text></comment>
<story><title>Edward Snowden interview: &apos;Smartphones can be taken over&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34444233</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rm_-rf_slash</author><text>None of this should be a surprise. We should expect that any device with Internet access can be hacked by someone, regardless of their intentions. If it isn&amp;#x27;t the NSA it&amp;#x27;s Chinese &amp;quot;patriot hackers&amp;quot; or Russian cyber-criminals operating with the consent of their governments. Or many others. Instead of seeing this security state as a binary, we should always consider two questions:&lt;p&gt;1: How much do we value our privacy and security versus the needs of society (in the case of backdoors and so on), and,&lt;p&gt;2: How much do we trust the people whose business is having the ability to break into our phones?  I don&amp;#x27;t like how invasive our security agencies are but if they end up preventing major crimes or terrorist attacks I can&amp;#x27;t say what they do is wrong.&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, I want the people defending me to be more powerful than the people attacking me, but I don&amp;#x27;t want my defenders to use their same tools against me.</text></comment>