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Me to my course attendees: As you can see iPhone/Android persistence vulnerabilities are the most expensive, so if you reboot your phone regularly you’ll probably be fine. They probably won’t waste that on you.

NSA: reboot your phone once a week.

@Patricia Really? Never heard of rebooting just at random points, not connected to updates, being important before. Could you say a bit more about why that is?

@forteller like others have said, to survive a reboot you need some way to come back up. That kind of mechanism is called “persistence” - these kinds of vulnerabilities have become progressively harder to find in phone OSs, so the price for a good one (with an exploit) can be in the millions of dollars range. But if they are found they could potentially be fixed by the vendor. So they are used carefully. Otherwise it’s money out the window. So unless you are a high value target they probably won’t risk using it for you. And without persistence, reboot will clear it. Of course you have all sorts of spyware you (or someone with access to your phone) might’ve installed on purpose, but that’s another matter.

Patricia Aas

@forteller tech people often forget about intimate partner abuse. But protecting against someone who is regularly in physical proximity to your devices is a whole other thing. Often requiring many layers of protection, because it might not be safe to refuse them access. Another reason why the Microsoft Recall thing is an absolute dumpster fire. And a reason to not have a windows machine if they do release it. “Opt-in” isn’t opt-in if you are not safe to refuse.

@Patricia @forteller Apple just showed off a feature to lock or hide an app an your phone, and the prevailing discourse was “hahaha it’s for porn.” These dudes (of course they were all men commentating) never even considered the domestic abuse case, where privacy on your own device isn’t a given, and it’s no joke—it’s about personal safety.

@dgregor79

Also thinking the "hide an app" feature could be used by a stalker/abuser too, and overcomes the persistence issue. Sneak a Where Is My Device? tracker app on there, hide it, and bam.

@Patricia @forteller