Surveillance Empire That Tracked World Leaders, a Vatican Enemy, and Maybe You

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

sipofwater

60 points

4 comments

motherjones.comTechstory

calmnegative

Debate

40/100

SurveillancePhone SecurityData Privacy

Key topics

Surveillance

Phone Security

Data Privacy

The article exposes a surveillance empire that tracked world leaders and potentially ordinary citizens, sparking a discussion on phone security and the responsibility of tech companies in preventing such surveillance.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

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01Story posted
Oct 14, 2025 at 3:56 PM EDT
3 months ago
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02First comment
Oct 14, 2025 at 6:31 PM EDT
3h after posting
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03Peak activity
1 comments in 0-3h
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04Latest activity
Oct 16, 2025 at 11:38 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (4 comments)

Showing 4 comments

OutOfHere

3 months ago

1 reply

IMHO, it is Google and Apple that are entirely at fault for allowing the software of their phones to grant such open access, with users unable to deny such access. If an ancient protocol mandates a response to be sent, the response might as well be fake. Also, silent exploits of Whatsapp, iMessage, SMS, etc. have existed for about a decade now, which should have been more than sufficient time to close all the loopholes. The only explanation that remains is that Google and Apple are conspiring with a third party to keep phones insecure.

CharlesW

3 months ago

1 reply

This works at the telecom/network level by querying or abusing carrier signalling and interconnects, so feature/“dumb” phones that use a SIM and connect to cellular networks are just as vulnerable.

OutOfHere

3 months ago

That could explain the leak of approximate coarse location data, but it does not explain how these vulnerabilities or APIs are being used to compromise Android and iPhone devices. There is more going on than at just the telecom level.

notanastronaut

3 months ago

One, it's amazing there aren't more comments on this. Two, time and time again we find vulnerabilities because when the tech was new, trust was a given or that proper security would have strangled the technology before it could be adopted.

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ID: 45584052Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 2:18:13 PM

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