‘Nightmare Scenario’: Zero-Click Spyware Is Infecting Phones via Targeted Ads
www.wired.com
Researchers at The Citizen Lab have for the first time released technical evidence of sophisticated mercenary spyware being distributed via online advertising.
  • vision@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    11 days ago

    The last time I opened the Wired site was like 10 years ago, it’s still telling me “You’ve read your last free article.” See you in 2036 ig

        • story@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          11 days ago

          This is a difficult question to answer. Antisemitism might be the one issue, the only one, regarding marginalisation, that people don’t necessarily need more awareness of. I think we’re all pretty aware to the extent to which we can help, and the extent to which it’s gonna happen whether or not we do anything.

          Those ads I see (in Kentucky) entangle Zionism with Judaism too tightly, the ‘increased awareness’ smells like a radio show my family used to listen to called “focus on the family”. every Sunday there was story time, and the lesson of the story was usually “damn, if only these soft-hearted parents would learn that is okay to hit your kids, and is actually evidence that you love them with the REAL love.” These ads have the same vibe, because evangelicals are making them, too.

          If you want people to stop thinking conspiratorially then for gods sake call out obvious propaganda, you need an amount of nuance most apolitical people aren’t willing to engage with in order to understand that it isn’t necessarily 'the Jews" making all this pro-Zionist propaganda and shaming you for disagreeing with it.

          this is a shit take I’m sure, what do i know, but if there are enough Jewish anti-Zionists in the world to do this, you are going to need to end your toxic relationship with evangelicals, they are stalking you. get the cultural equivalent of a restraining order (me asking you to employ a tool that probably doesn’t exist)

          sorry for the rant

  • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    What is a DNS sinkhole and how is it related to the content of the article? Didn’t seem to mention DNS

    • chagall@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      11 days ago

      What is a DNS sinkhole

      A DNS sinkhole is a little program that sits in between your computer and the DNS server that provides your internet lookups. It looks at all of your DNS requests in an unencrypted format. If a DNS lookup from your browser, mobile app or any other internet connected machine matches an entry it has in its “blocklist” then it returns a value of 0.0.0.0 (or some other customizable value including NXDOMAIN). But if the DNS entry is not on the blocklist, then that request will be forwarded to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), Google (8.8.8.8), Quad9 (9.9.9.9) or other DNS provider and get an accurate value for the DNS lookup.

      Most of the time, the blocklists consist of adware domains such as Google Ad Services, Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, etc. This has the effect of removing ads from devices that normally are unable to block ads such as ads inside mobile apps, ads in Roku, etc.

      how is it related to the content of the article?

      The article indicated that the malicious spyware was transmitted through viewable ads on the target’s mobile device. This is combated most effectively by using a DNS sinkhole.

      I should note that the article does not mention if current blocklists would have thwarted this attack. However, it does say that the ads were transmitted, in some instances, via Google Ad services, which these blocklists do effectively target.