The checkra1n jailbreak will soon be available for Linux, giving Windows users a way to use the jailbreak without buying or borrowing a Mac.

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The Guardian has now reported that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hacked Jeff Bezos’s cell phone, which is what many of us who work in the information warfare area of national security had assessed shortly after The National Enquirer ran their hit piece on him. What we got in today’s reporting, however, were important and disturbing details! (emphasis mine)

The Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos had his mobile phone “hacked” in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, sources have told the Guardian.

The encrypted message from the number used by Mohammed bin Salman is believed to have included a malicious file that infiltrated the phone of the world’s richest man, according to the results of a digital forensic analysis.

This analysis found it “highly probable” that the intrusion into the phone was triggered by an infected video file sent from the account of the Saudi heir to Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post.

The two men had been having a seemingly friendly WhatsApp exchange when, on 1 May of that year, the unsolicited file was sent, according to sources who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity.

Large amounts of data were exfiltrated from Bezos’s phone within hours, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Guardian has no knowledge of what was taken from the phone or how it was used.

WhatsApp is notoriously insecure and should not be used! It is now owned by Facebook and there are serious concerns about what Facebook may be doing with the data from the app, including the personally identifying information (PII), of its users. Another security flaw is that the app itself isn’t encrypted, just the information while it is in transit from device (user) to device (user). So any spyware, on either the device on the sending or receiving end of the transmission, can pick up what is being sent and/or received.

The larger issue here is that WhatsApp is very popular. We know from reporting that Jared Kushner uses it to communicate with Muhammed bin Salman, as well as others. From the late Congressman Cummings’ March 2019 letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone:

During this period the Committee obtained additional information raising even more concerns about the use of private email and messaging apps by Jared Kushner and other White House officials.

For example, during a meeting with Mr. Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, Mr. Lowell confirmed that Mr. Kushner has been using the messaging app WhatsApp as part of his official White House duties to communicate with foreign leaders.

Jared isn’t the only US official using WhatsApp.

Multiple Trump administration officials are known to have used WhatsApp to carry out sensitive conversations, raising the prospect that their communications have been intercepted.

Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union and a key figure in in the administration’s campaign to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations that would benefit the president, communicated with other US diplomats about the effort over WhatsApp. During Trump’s run for the presidency campaign chairman Paul Manafort regularly sent polling data to a Russian associate via the app.

The problem isn’t isolated just to Jared and other US officials.

Senior government officials in multiple U.S.-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) WhatsApp to take over users’ phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company’s investigation.

Sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the breach said a “significant” portion of the known victims are high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries on five continents. Many of the nations are U.S. allies, they said

Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas were also using WhatsApp!

WhatsApp messages from Parnas to Giuliani and Republican congressional candidate Robert F. Hyde are included in the evidence.

Let’s see what the President’s Cybersecurity Advisor and the First Name in Cybersecurity has to say:

Ruh Roh!

Anyone and everyone who has messaged Muhammed bin Salman using WhatsApp have likely had their phones or tablets compromised. And there is no telling what he collected, who he collected it from, and what he intends to do with it. Though we can be pretty sure it isn’t anything good. WhatsApp is not a secure form of communication. You should not be using it. More importantly, US government officials – from political appointees to civil servants to uniformed personnel to contractors – should not be using it either. Not for personal communications and certainly not for official and work related communication. That the President’s advisors, both those in the White House like his son in law Jared Kushner and those outside of it like Rudy Giuliani, and his other political appointees like Gordon Sondland are using WhatsApp means that over three years worth of official US communications have been compromised. And Muhammad bin Salman is not the only one whose intelligence and security services have compromised WhatsApp. Both the Israelis and the Russians have compromised WhatsApp, So have the Chinese.

Whatever information that Muhammed bin Salman or the Israelis or Putin or Xi have managed to pull off of the phones of US officials, as well as those of other governments, that use WhatsApp is a ticking political warfare information bomb. We don’t know when this information will be used. We don’t know how it will be used. But we do know that it will be used. It may be used subtly to try to force US officials to do something they ordinarily wouldn’t. Or it might be used, as was the case with Bezos’s data, in an almost brutish assault. But it will eventually be used.

Does anyone really want to contemplate what Mark Zuckerberg might do with the information transmitted via WhatsApp, which he owns? Zuckerberg has the ability to blackmail and extort everyone who uses his social media products because those products are designed to suck up everyone’s information and data so that Zuckerberg can monetize it. That is not a good thing.

Every one of these government officials that are using WhatsApp, from Jared Kushner to Ambassador Sondland to those we don’t even know about should have their security clearances suspended pending a full counterintelligence investigation. They have made themselves into insider threats by refusing to follow best information and operational security practices. Rudy Giuliani doesn’t have a security clearance to suspend, but he and his associates who have been using WhatsApp all need to be subjected to a full counterintelligence investigation as well given Giuliani’s pro-bono work as the President’ private attorney and all the activity he has been up to in Ukraine and other parts of Europe.

Open thread!

The post Information Security Is Essential! appeared first on Balloon Juice.

Apple is reportedly asking its chipmaker TSMC to increase production of the A13 processor due to higher-than-anticipated iPhone 11 demand. Bloomberg reports that the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro are selling particularly well in China.

more…

The post Apple reportedly asks TSMC to increase A13 chip production to keep up with iPhone 11 demand appeared first on 9to5Mac.

The impeachment trial of Donald Trump started on Tuesday with debate on trial procedures—namely, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's carefully planned cover-up. The debate has been conducted by the House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team. On Tuesday McConnell released a slightly relaxed version of the dark-of-night procedure he initially proposed, but make no mistake that he and Trump’s team continue to press for a cover-up.

Republicans have voted down one Democratic amendment after another. The House impeachment managers have been eating the Trump defense team’s lunch on both substance and style, but Republican senators do. not. care.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 2:14:32 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Cipollone sets up jeffries with a “do nothing Dems” comment, which allows Jeffries to bomb the Senate chamber with the number of bills that have been sent to rot on McConnell’s desk.

Then Jeffries picks up on a “why are we here” comment from Sekulow and uses it to rip him a new one. By God that was satisfying.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 2:19:42 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Schiff up again. As the day goes on, the lopsidedness of the recitation of facts on the Democratic side, and the sluggish repetition of the same debunked talking points on the Republican side only seems to become more apparent.

And while Schiff seems fresh, Sekulow seems ready to topple off the stage.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 2:21:33 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

x

Hakeem Jefferies ends his comments by quoting by quoting Christopher Wallace:

"If ya don't know, now you know."

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) January 22, 2020

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 2:24:08 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

McConnell searches for what he’s supposed to say … remembers that he’s asking to table the motion on Mulvaney. And here we go again with a vote.

BTW, we may not be down to just witness subpoenas. Schumer may ask for documents from still more departments. They’ll have this whole case laid out before the night is over.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 2:31:30 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

McConnell tries to get Schumer to stack his requests, asking them all at once. Schumer makes it clear that he’s willing to move some votes to tomorrow, but won’t submit them in a heap. Schumer suggests they could continue tomorrow (Yes, please).

McConnell forces a quorum vote.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 2:33:47 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Schumer is standing by with a request for documents from the Defense Department along with requests for more individual subpoenas. Justice Roberts has a case to hear in the morning. It will be interesting to see if McConnell agrees to continue tomorrow afternoon.

Sleep tracking with Apple Watch is a great way to gain new insight into your sleeping habits and trends over time. Apple is apparently working on its own sleep tracking features for Apple Watch, but those features aren’t available just yet. In the absence of a first-party solution for Apple Watch sleep tracking, a handful of incredibly powerful third-party apps have come to the App Store.

more…

The post These are the best sleep tracking apps for Apple Watch appeared first on 9to5Mac.

The organizers of Monday’s massive gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, were very proud that no violence erupted over the course of the day, despite the fears of government that the use of the weaponry being put on display there was being planned. But Monday’s rally wasn’t the end of these concerns—in many ways, it was just the beginning.

An estimated 22,000 people showed. Most of them were openly armed, a majority of those with long rifles strapped to their chests. One man from New York showed off a .50-caliber rifle with a 2,000-yard range, apparently equipped with a scope with a 500-yard range.

Oh, Moscow Mitch. I mean, it’s clear he thrives on being a blatant hypocrite. Normal people’s anger at his total commitment to his complete lack of principle and wanton destruction of our republic seems to be his fuel. So, here we go again. Here’s what McConnell, who is now blocking every effort by Democrat Chuck Schumer to expand the impeachment with documents and witnesses, said in 1999.

"I would have been prepared to vote for whatever the House managers wanted in terms of putting on their trial. That was not the majority view, but I still think we had a mountain of evidence upon which to make a decision," McConnell said. That was after the trial, in response to Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who broke ranks and eventually became a Democrat, when Specter complained about a lack of evidence. He added,  "My view was that we were entitled to witnesses. [...] I voted for live witnesses myself. I voted for the one live witness the House asked for and I voted to allow the videotaping of the witnesses they asked for."

What a difference having a Republican president makes, if you’re Moscow Mitch.

This is the new normal in Trump’s America:

An Iranian student planning to attend Northeastern University was removed from the country overnight Monday in defiance of a court order, his lawyer said, and a federal judge said Tuesday there was nothing that he could immediately do.

And in case you are wondering exactly what threat the fearsome Mohammad Shahab Dehghani Hossein Abadi, 24 years old, posed to the United States…consider this:

According to the legal filing, Hossein Abadi was admitted to Northeastern for the 2018-2019 academic year and submitted his visa application in 2018. After a background check that took nearly a year, the State Department issued Hossein Abadi a student visa last week, the petition says.

HE HAD A VISA.

The US State Department, not exactly a hotbed of radical Islamic activism, granted him one after an exhaustive inquiry.  And still, CBP agents stopped him at Logan, and then defied a federal judge’s order not to deport him until a hearing could be held. They lied to the judge about the deportation, asserting that he was being kept in the country when he was already on an Air France flight to Paris.

Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said Hossein Abadi had been put on an Air France flight out of Logan late Monday night. It was not immediately clear why he Hossein Abadi was removed in spite of the judge’s emergency order that he be detained here and brought to court Tuesday morning.

It’s pretty fucking clear, I’d say: CBP agents, operating under the accepted lawlessness that flows to and through their organization from the Oval Office on down, don’t see themselves as bound by anything so 2016ish as the rule of law.

What adds to my fury is this:

“There seems to be some history of CBP ignoring district court orders, which should concern the court,” Doyle said during the hearing. She asked that Hossein Abadi be returned to the US, but the judge said there was little he could do now that the student was gone.

“I don’t think they’re going to listen to me,” Stearns said.

How about starting by holding every agent involved, and their supervisors, in contempt. Throw them in jail. Fine the shit out of them. I’m sure that Barr’s “Justice” Department will pry them loose fast enough, but put at least a little bit of consequences into the equation.

This is why Trump — and every Republican in elected office everywhere in this country — needs to go. The spectacular corruption and egregious crimes grab the headlines, but it’s the daily acts of cruelty, and the brick-by-brick destruction of US governance in every domain that will leave us bereft.

Salt their fields.

Image: Unknown artist, Shoki (The Extermination of Evil), 12th century.

 

The post Annals Of Lawlessness appeared first on Balloon Juice.

Amazon is planning to give more data on counterfeit goods to law enforcement in a further crackdown on fakes listed on its e-commerce sites. Reuters reports: In the past, the world's largest online retailer has informed authorities of counterfeit peddlers when it thought it had enough information for police to pursue a culprit. Now, the company plans to disclose merchant information to European and U.S. federal authorities every time it confirms a counterfeit was sold to customers, increasing the frequency and volume of reporting to law enforcement, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Why the new program was happening now was not immediately clear. In recent weeks, Amazon has held meetings with government authorities and related organizations to discuss its new counterfeit reporting strategy and how the company can further their enforcement efforts, the person said. The hope has been that Amazon's coveted data will help law enforcement make connections about criminals. According to the source, Amazon will report a merchant's name, company name, product and contact information to authorities, after it confirms a business was selling fakes, closes the seller's account, and the account holder does not make a successful appeal via Amazon's typical processes.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to a new report from Bloomberg this evening, Apple’s upcoming low-cost iPhone will enter mass production next month. This is the device that has commonly been referred to as the iPhone SE 2 and iPhone 9.

more…

The post Bloomberg: New low-cost iPhone entering production next month, could be released in March appeared first on 9to5Mac.

The impeachment trial of Donald Trump starts Tuesday with debate on trial procedures—namely, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's carefully planned cover-up. The debate will be conducted by the House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team. On Tuesday McConnell released a slightly relaxed version of the dark-of-night procedure he initially proposed, but make no mistake that he and Trump’s team continue to press for a cover-up.

Republicans have voted down one Democratic amendment calling for new evidence. The House impeachment managers have been eating the Trump defense team’s lunch on both substance and style, but Republican senators do. not. care.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 12:28:37 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

Of all the baffling statements from Trump’s attorneys during these opening statements, the idea that Barack Obama withholding military assistance from Egypt shows that there was no problem with Trump’s actions is maybe the most out there.

That suspension wasn’t made in secret. It was public. And it was made with the knowledge and urging of members of the House and Senate. Between the time the aid was allocated and the time it was to be sent, Egypt underwent a military takeover. Aid was suspended until 2015 when Obama worked with Egyptian President al-Sisi to restore assistance.

That anyone in the Senate would think these were equivalent is just … strange. This reads like something that Sekulow picked up from a Hannity broadcast and didn’t spent two minutes checking before taking it before the U.S. Senate.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 12:30:01 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

As expected, McConnell has moved to table the request for documents from the OMB and Republicans are now undergoing the ritual display bowing to Trump. Someone wake up Risch.

Wednesday, Jan 22, 2020 · 12:32:11 AM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

And again, not a single Republican wants to see any evidence.

Schumer responds by directly subpoenaing Mick Mulvaney.

Welcome to our Daily Deals column, where we round up the best tech deals from around the web. Here you’ll find discounts on everything from Apple products to accessories, video games and much more. But you better hurry, these prices won’t be around forever!

Boeing confirmed that it has stopped building 737 Max airplanes in Renton, Washington, as it waits to get permission for the plane to fly again following two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. CNN reports: Boeing will not furlough or lay off workers because of the shutdown, but pain will ripple through its supply chain and could hurt America's economic growth. Boeing would not release a headcount for people who had been working on the plane. The company said the employees will be reassigned to other duties during the shutdown, and there are a number of reasons for that. The 737 Max has been grounded since March following two fatal crashes that killed all 346 people on board. Although Boeing couldn't deliver the 737 Max planes to customers, the company continued to build the jets, albeit at a slightly reduced pace of 42 a month. It now has about 400 completed jets parked in Washington and Texas, waiting to be delivered to airlines around the world. The company hoped that the plane would fly again before the end of 2019. But in December Stephen Dickson, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, announced approval would not come until some time in 2020. Shutdown plans were announced a week later.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Donald Trump is on trial for trying to cheat Americans out of a fair election, and now Senate Republicans are cheating Americans out of a fair trial. Although tiny rumblings in the GOP caucus resulted in small rule changes, Senate Republicans now appear poised to vote down every amendment Democrats offer to include witnesses and documents in the trial, just like they did they first and second one.

Americans, the vast majority of whom want a fair Senate trial with witnesses, should be outraged. And vulnerable Senate Republicans toeing the party line, should be getting more uncomfortable with each vote. Yet as NBC News pointed out Tuesday morning, Senate Democrats are putting little-to-no pressure on their Republican counterparts. "Indeed, according to our ad trackers at Advertising Analytics, there are 11 impeachment-themed TV ads airing across the country right now, and all 11 are by Republicans and GOP groups," NBC writes.

A second thread, as Adam Schiff takes the stand and points out again that everything Trump's lawyers just said was either 1) an outright lie, or 2) a distortion of reality.

We've now gotten a glimpse of the Trump team's strategy. They're not making legal arguments, they're parroting Trump's lies and evasions. It's Trump by proxy. A performance for an audience of one.

The Senate impeachment trial of President Trump continues on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Senators will consider the rules for the trial and other legislative work is possible. https://cs.pn/2Ro4t0b

MojoKid writes: Today AMD launched its latest midrange graphics card based on the company's all new Navi architecture. The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT slots in under $300 ($279 MSRP) and is based on the same Navi 10 GPU as AMD's current high-end Radeon RX 5700 series cards. AMD's Radeon RX 5600 XT is outfitted with 36 compute units, with a total of 2,304 stream processors and is essentially a Radeon 5700 spec GPU with 2GB less GDDR 6 memory (6GB total) and a narrower 192-bit interface, versus Radeon RX 5700's 8GB, 256-bit config. HotHardware took a Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 5600 XT around the benchmark track and this card has a BIOS switch on-board that toggles between performance and silent/quiet modes. In performance mode, the card has a 160W power target, 14Gbps memory data rate, a Boost Clock of 1,750MHz and a Game Clock of 1,615MHz. In silent/quiet mode, things are a bit more tame with a 135W power target, 12Gbps memory, and 1,620 MHz/1,460MHz Boost and Game Clocks, respectively. In the gaming benchmarks, the new Radeon RX 5600 XT is generally faster than NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2060 overall, with the exception of a few titles that are more NVIDIA-optimized and in VR. Though it lacks the capability for hardware-accelerated ray tracing, the new AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT weighs in $20-30 less than NVIDIA's closest competitor and offers similar if not better performance.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EA's latest updates for its Tetris games has revealed it will be retiring the puzzle games on April 21, 2020.

Honored to have won Jacquelyn's endorsement. pic.twitter.com/tGpNZjXacu

— Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) January 20, 2020

He likes people, actual individual humans… and they like him, in response. This is rarer than seems reasonable, even among long-term successful politicians.

The contrast between Biden walking into the NYT's elevator and being told "I love you so much" by the working class African American woman in it, then getting dismissed by the NYT editorial board, is a perfect microcosm of this entire campaign. https://t.co/xF1rG5S7k0

— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) January 20, 2020

the security guard loving biden is more meaningful and informative for why he's in the position he's in than anything he says in the interview

— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) January 20, 2020

Biden not getting the Times endorsement (or even making the short list) is gonna make it really difficult for the Bernie Bros to argue that "the establishment" kept Bernie from getting it, but I have faith in them.

— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) January 20, 2020

The campaign staff of Trump’s preferred opponent reacted as expected:

This is garbage from the Sanders campaign. Disagree on policy all you want, but this is a ludicrous argument about someone who has spent his life fighting for Democratic values. https://t.co/6nMbHQUy5w

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) January 20, 2020

One thing, at least: Sanders has a representative who can Gish-Gallop as fluently as even Kellyanne Conway!

These are the people Bernie hires to represent him.

More than happy to launch sleazy submarine attacks on other candidates.

Floundering fools when called out to defend them.

pic.twitter.com/4v6i3vTCJC

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) January 20, 2020

Either go after Biden like a man, or don't. This is some weak shit and is getting repetitive. https://t.co/LxXXtPkvAu

— The Bearded Crank (@beardedcrank) January 21, 2020

Time to play: gaslighting or dysfunctional campaign? https://t.co/GdKJK3QjUq

— Reject Ophidiophobia (@agraybee) January 21, 2020

IONO, y'all. Big Biden got Bernie apologizing for shit now.

— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) January 21, 2020

Meanwhile, from the Biden campaign:

Dammit, Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/PdkRgn67U4

— gregarious (@GRYKING) January 20, 2020

The post Election Year Open Thread: Joe Biden’s Gift appeared first on Balloon Juice.

Aside from the brazen lying and their own co-conspirator status, one of the reasons the Trump defense team's rhetoric has seemed to fall flat, during today's Senate impeachment opening moves, is that they seem to have been prewritten with little care for what House impeachment managers would actually be arguing. House managers are treating the debate on these opening amendments, which would force the Trump administration to produce documents and testimony to the Senate that they have refused to provide to the House, as their true "opening statements." Trump's legal team, however, is treating them as perfunctory.

One of the clearly pre-written claims from Trump's allies is that the request for documents and testimony from Bolton, Mulvaney, and other key White House officials shows the House "isn't ready" to present their case. Lead manager Rep. Adam Schiff spent a bit of rebuttal time blasting that claim into low orbit.

x

Trump's lawyer claimed the House isn't ready to present our case.

We’re ready.

The House calls John Bolton to testify. The House calls Mick Mulvaney.

We’re ready to present our case, ready to call witnesses, ready to see the documents.

The question: Will the Senate let us? pic.twitter.com/MD5d1bqsxU

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 21, 2020

Schiff has been subtly and not-so-subtly hammering his Senate listeners on this very point: Impeachment managers have a case to make, and if the Senate chooses to block that case on behalf of Trump and their own party then that is on their heads, and on their records. The public will know. We know what documents and witnesses are being requested, but are being withheld by Trump's allies: The Schumer amendments described them in detail. Two thirds of American voters believe the Senate should call those witnesses and obtain those documents.

If Senate Republicans block those efforts nonetheless, that will not make the evidence disappear. It merely delays the day when each bit of evidence does come out. And it makes it crystal clear that Senate Republicans were not just dismissive of that evidence, but acted as co-conspirators in Trump's attempts to hide it.

The impeachment trial of Donald Trump starts Tuesday with debate on trial procedures—namely, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's carefully planned cover-up. The debate will be conducted by the House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team. On Tuesday McConnell released a slightly relaxed version of the dark-of-night procedure he initially proposed, but make no mistake that he and Trump’s team continue to press for a cover-up.

The early arguments show that 1) the House managers are better lawyers than Trump’s defense team and 2) the House managers have more facts, and more interest in talking about those facts. This should not be reversing the trend in which polls say a majority of Americans think Trump should be removed from office and a large majority support calling witnesses in the trial. But 3) Senate Republicans are unlikely to care about any of it.