Or that Apple could either run searches on the names of affected users against publicly known members of government or have close relationship with governments to flag exactly this.

If he knew he was compromised, and was okay with it for one reason or another (like money or other coercion), this is what his cleanup would look like.

Not saying this is likely. Just another possibility.

It's possible, if the attacker controls the device enough. I don't think a big "you're being targeted" warning is something you don't notice, or forget.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102174

>A Threat Notification is displayed at the top of the page after the user signs into account.apple.com.

>Apple sends an email and iMessage notification to the email addresses and phone numbers associated with the user’s Apple Account.

You can see what it looks like in https://reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1c10jai/i_have_received...

I wonder how they detect it, is it for known IOCs that they've already found elsewhere, or do they have heuristic detection that flags things that might need further investigation.

Fairly sure that if anybody using a advanced piece of hacking software, they are also going to delete any messages that are related to detection of such hardware.

PC viruses used to do that stuff going back so many years ago. Suppressing any notification under Windows, by disabling the AV software, its notifications, windows notifications related to it.

So it will amaze me that this is not done by any modern espionage software. Especially as the notification methods are known. Given that his device is hacked, that means a lot of avenues are under control of the espionage software. Even mails etc ... So impersonating the end user, to confirm they read a warning, is extreme easy.

I find it rather odd that people are so fixated on the idea if Kouloglou read it or not.

That's certainly the feeling the story is meant to engender yes.

US does spy on Five Eyes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_espionage_in_Aus...

"In December 2010, leaked US diplomatic cables indicated senior New Zealand Defence Ministry officials had been spying for the United States, secretly briefing the United States embassy on Cabinet discussions about the Iraq War."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_espionage_in_New_Zeala...

> As far as we know that directive has remained in force with each successive administration as well.

People can state a lot, as long as your not caught.

Nothing prevent you from having the UK spy on the Germans, and feeding that intel back. Or Israel, or ... Hey, the US did not spy on a EU ally. Well, not directly and it neatly bypassed any official statements.

They might have simply gone to one of those secret court hearings and have it bypassed with a gag order in place. Officially its not done, unofficially, its been approved.

The whole "as long as you do not tell me your doing it" approach, and the politicians involve maintain deniability (even if they had the wink).

And you do not need to specific target the head off state. Plenty of side routes to still get information on meetings, that involve those heads of states. Even if your not "directly" spying on them.

So no, its a naïve way of thinking. Maybe in 20 years from now we find out, that they did spy on EU leaders. Maybe directly, maybe indirectly ... even with that directive in place. I will be amazed if they did not. Its the US we are talking about.

> The US does not spy on Five Eyes government leadership or that of Israel.

Doubt.

> unless there was a compelling national security reason

There always is.