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This week:  the CIA loses control of its iPhone hacking arsenal, and computer crooks turn your gadgets against you.  Plus: why iPhone 8 may arrive later than you hoped; our favorite Apple Airport replacement routers; and we discuss the non-Apple gear we’re currently obsessing over in an all-new and aptly named What We’re Into   This week:

• The CIA loses control of its iPhone hacking arsenal!
• Computer crooks turn your gadgets against you.
• Why iPhone 8 may arrive later than you hoped.
• Our favorite routers to replace your Apple Airport.
• The non-Apple gear we’re currently obsessing over! It’s all-new, overdue, What We’re Into 💪🏼

 

This episode supported by 

Build a beautiful, responsive website quick at Squarespace.com.  Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off. Squarespace—Build it Beautiful.   CultCloth will keep your iPhone 7, Apple Watch, Mac and iPad sparkling clean, and for a limited time you can use code CULTCAST to score a free CleanCloth with any order at CultCloth.co.   We also want to give Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com a  thanks for the great music you hear on today's show.     On the show this week 

@erfon / @bst3r / @lkahney

 

WikiLeaks: CIA lost control of its iPhone hacking arsenal

http://www.cultofmac.com/470847/cia-used-malware-spy-iphone-users/

• The Central Intelligence Agency has been using malware to spy on iPhone and Android users, according to the largest-ever publication of confidential documents from WikiLeaks — and the spy tools are now in the hands of others.
• “This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA.”
• As part of a covert hacking program, the CIA created a “malware arsenal” and dozens of “zero day exploits” to infiltrate smartphones, tablets and even smart TVs to extract data and turn them into covert microphones.
• But the agency recently lost controls of these tools. Those who have obtained them now have “the entire hacking capacity of the CIA” at their disposal, according to WikiLeaks.
• At the end of 2016, the CIA’s hacking division was made up of more than 5,000 “registered users” who had produced over a thousand tools to infiltrate target devices throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States.
• iOS devices were also a major target. The CIA created and obtained tools from GCHQ, NSA, FBI and contractors like Baitshop that allowed them to bypass the encryption used by apps like WhatsApp and Telegram and collect audio and text message data.

  Global elites’ love of iPhone made iOS a prime target of CIA http://www.cultofmac.com/470881/global-elites-love-of-iphone-made-ios-a-prime-target-of-cia/

• Although Google’s Android dominates the worldwide smartphone market, the CIA concentrated on Apple’s iOS because of its popularity among global elites, WikiLeaks reports.
• Despite iPhone’s minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA’s Mobile Development Branch p