this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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When Your Threat Model Is Being a Moron (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 week ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
42 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

One of the most basic tenets of cybersecurity is that you must “consider your threat model” when trying to keep your data and your communications safe, and then take appropriate steps to protect yourself.

This means you need to consider who you are, what you are talking about, and who may want to know that information (potential adversaries) for any given account, conversation, etc. The precautions you want to take to protect yourself if you are a random person messaging your partner about what you want to eat for dinner may be different than those you’d want to take, if, hypothetically, you are the Secretary of Defense of the United States or a National Security Advisor talking to top administration officials about your plans for bombing an apartment building in Yemen.

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[–] liverbe@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Which also means these conversations were on an unapproved app on an unapproved device. Actual government phones wouldn't be able to get Signal, right?

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Government secure phones are special hardware made by the NSA. They are nothing like civilian phones. Obama got the NSA to lock down his Blackberry but I doubt that is doable with today's mainstream smartphones.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STU-III

[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The last stu-3 stopped working in 2009.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Yes they have different stuff now, but same idea.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

I actually wouldn't be shocked if it was possible with modern smartphones. A significant amount of money is available to be made from federal security work, and meeting the NSA criteria has benefits that extend to companies that work in the federal security space as well.

[–] 0xD@infosec.pub 1 points 1 week ago

As long as you can flash them, everything's possible.

In that spirit: Fuck Apple to hell.

[–] darkdemize@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago

I have a government-issued iPhone. It has Signal on it, and I have access to the appstore. It's also not allowed to be used for anything but unclassified communication and isn't permitted inside restricted areas.