It's secret like Area 51 is secret. We know it's there, we know the government is doing something with it, but we don't know fully what, when, why, or how.
I don't think the US Govt backdoors phones anymore ... mostly because they don't need to. They find other ways to get the information, like warrantless surveillance of Google and Apple notification servers.
The other reason I don't think it happens is that there are just too many security researchers trying to find exploits and backdoors. Also it's pretty well known that any backdoor can be used against you. The NSA has an interest in domestic phones being secure.
Granted, international models might have some alterations/backdoors... Even then, that would be egg on the face that they don't really need if they got caught with a backdoor that applied only to international phones.
The backdoors the NSA uses are known vulnerabilities, 0days, USB drops, all the normal hacker tools... and if it's a target of sensitive enough in nature, maybe a warrant requiring Apple Update/Windows Update/whoever or whatever device needs spied on, to deliver a payload to that specific machine.
I'm sorry if I act like an asshole, but doesen't this mean, the same as the comment you answered to?
Edit: I'm dumb. The person answering just added some info in the post.
I'm aware, but if that's the answer why not include other nations, then? It's always just the US and I find that very curious and kind of annoying when any criticism is drawn to China on Lemmy. It's always the same knee-jerk reaction.
Because from what I see, the degree to which that happens is kind of wide and involves way more countries than just the US and China.
Source
How is it a loaded question if the answer is a resounding "yes, it's not a secret"? I think you mean that it's a narrow question. If the answer is "but look at all these other nations" it would've been more than China and the US. By your logic, it's also quite a loaded answer, then, don't you think?
The US is a very different country than any of the 30 other NATO members and often acts in direct conflict with the rest of the Western world. If I did the same and used China to represent the entirety of Asia I'd get chewed out for it, so why is the USA the face of all things people disagree with on this side of the world? Besides, using the US to contrast China creates a false dichotomy and oversimplifies the issue of mass surveillance, obfuscating both the extent and the nuance that people here claim to champion. Stop being so thick.
Why is it loaded? It really is a direct question about a particular company. Everything else people brought with them into the conversation was preconceived bias. You felt like the question was loaded and ran with your feelings needing to act like it was a hypocritical question when no other countries or phone brands were in question. If I asked if PT Cruiser was a reliable car and people started answering with China's cars aren't all reliable either that answer would be strange to you right? China isn't made of tissue paper, they don't need people to act as their protector. Sometimes the answer should really just be, the PT Cruiser is unreliable, Chrysler made a mess of some things. (the direct answer to the question)
NSA is a common focus for conspiracy theorists because much of their work is secret, they can't just come out and say "we don't do that" or "we do that" because explaining capabilities helps people avoid those technologies to avoid targeting. Specifically, their mission is foreign intelligence, they can only support domestic warrants on individuals through the FBI using a court system called FISA here in the US. However, because of their ability to purchase metadata about phone calls in bulk so they can gather information about foreign communications, Americans assume it's so they can spy on other Americans. That's the mission of the FBI though... Which people are fine with for some reason.
Meanwhile, FBI does whatever they want in broad daylight while people are busy being paranoid about what the NSA or CIA might be doing in the shadows. Conspiracies just need a grain of truth, and while everyone is looking over one shoulder paranoid about nothing, law enforcement on all levels from city to county to state to federal are all standing right there looking over the other shoulder and no one seems to mind.