PJ Vogt

Alex's larger theory about what was going on here was that the unescaped ampersand had perhaps triggered one of the security systems built into the iPhone's internal code. I did not know about these security systems. And Alex started to explain to me how they worked and why Apple's developers created them in the first place.

Alex's larger theory about what was going on here was that the unescaped ampersand had perhaps triggered one of the security systems built into the iPhone's internal code. I did not know about these security systems. And Alex started to explain to me how they worked and why Apple's developers created them in the first place.

Alex's larger theory about what was going on here was that the unescaped ampersand had perhaps triggered one of the security systems built into the iPhone's internal code. I did not know about these security systems. And Alex started to explain to me how they worked and why Apple's developers created them in the first place.

And have there been issues in the past where because there's so many programs that are now sort of entering into iMessage, someone might find a vulnerability in like Memoji and then be able to get it and grab somebody's text messages or something? Oh, yeah.

And have there been issues in the past where because there's so many programs that are now sort of entering into iMessage, someone might find a vulnerability in like Memoji and then be able to get it and grab somebody's text messages or something? Oh, yeah.

And have there been issues in the past where because there's so many programs that are now sort of entering into iMessage, someone might find a vulnerability in like Memoji and then be able to get it and grab somebody's text messages or something? Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

And if somebody, nobody would ever do this to me, not that type of reporter, but if it happened to me, what would happen? Like one day I would get a text message from an unknown number with a funny emoji and that would be them breaking in?

And if somebody, nobody would ever do this to me, not that type of reporter, but if it happened to me, what would happen? Like one day I would get a text message from an unknown number with a funny emoji and that would be them breaking in?

And if somebody, nobody would ever do this to me, not that type of reporter, but if it happened to me, what would happen? Like one day I would get a text message from an unknown number with a funny emoji and that would be them breaking in?

Let me tell you a story about what Alex means when he says, it's really bad. So one of these iPhone exploits was discovered by NSO, that Israeli hacker group Alex mentioned. And NSO sold it to the Saudi government. Here's how they used it. One day in 2018, a flight attendant gets taken into custody at the Dubai airport.

Let me tell you a story about what Alex means when he says, it's really bad. So one of these iPhone exploits was discovered by NSO, that Israeli hacker group Alex mentioned. And NSO sold it to the Saudi government. Here's how they used it. One day in 2018, a flight attendant gets taken into custody at the Dubai airport.

Let me tell you a story about what Alex means when he says, it's really bad. So one of these iPhone exploits was discovered by NSO, that Israeli hacker group Alex mentioned. And NSO sold it to the Saudi government. Here's how they used it. One day in 2018, a flight attendant gets taken into custody at the Dubai airport.

While she's being interrogated, someone opens her phone and covertly installs the exploit on it. Not because they're interested in her, but because they're interested in her partner, a man named Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, a columnist at The Washington Post. He'd been critical of the royal family. Five months later, Khashoggi is murdered, quite brutally, by agents of the Saudi government.

While she's being interrogated, someone opens her phone and covertly installs the exploit on it. Not because they're interested in her, but because they're interested in her partner, a man named Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, a columnist at The Washington Post. He'd been critical of the royal family. Five months later, Khashoggi is murdered, quite brutally, by agents of the Saudi government.

While she's being interrogated, someone opens her phone and covertly installs the exploit on it. Not because they're interested in her, but because they're interested in her partner, a man named Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, a columnist at The Washington Post. He'd been critical of the royal family. Five months later, Khashoggi is murdered, quite brutally, by agents of the Saudi government.

Presumably, Apple built these security systems to prevent events like this one. But Alex thought that here, perhaps one of those security systems, built for a very important reason, was behaving in an overzealous way. The rogue ampersand. The fact that it just confused the iPhone for a moment. Maybe the system saw that as a vulnerability and stopped the message from transmitting at all.

Presumably, Apple built these security systems to prevent events like this one. But Alex thought that here, perhaps one of those security systems, built for a very important reason, was behaving in an overzealous way. The rogue ampersand. The fact that it just confused the iPhone for a moment. Maybe the system saw that as a vulnerability and stopped the message from transmitting at all.