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Comment by dontbenebby | Hacker News Reader

>This is not a tip about Tesla watching what its employees are doing on its own equipment and data networks.

I'm curious about details on this. Modern phones (well, iPhones at least) are pretty hard to break into.

I wonder if it was something like having them install a root certificate to use the company wifi, then using that root cert to spy on other traffic traversing the network (such as leaks to reporters)

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A statement from the whistleblower's attorney said Tesla had hired former members of Uber's intelligence team (that had been spying on drivers, regulators, and competitors a while back) and referenced a proposed settlement agreement for the wire tapping & corporate espionage charges that outlines the tactics (allegedly) used by Uber.[1]

It also mentions Tesla installed "specialized router equipment within its Nevada Gigafactory designed to capture employee cell phone communications and/or retrieve employee cell phone data."

Sounds like some sort of man in the middle attack? I didn't catch any similar references in the Uber document but its heavily redacted and the entirety of my knowledge in this area comes from Dinesh's criminal girlfriend so it's very possible I missed it.

[1]https://www.scribd.com/document/367287753/Uber-Jacobs-Letter...

>It also mentions Tesla installed "specialized router equipment within its Nevada Gigafactory designed to capture employee cell phone communications and/or retrieve employee cell phone data."

I might be not using the right term but sounds like a... stingray? (Well, some sort of cell site simulator)

Most MDM's install both a cert and a profile on iOS devices that allow the MDM admin to do just about anything. Any company-owned device is going to come to the user with this pre-installed, and non-removable by the user. I'd be astounded if a company the size, and with the security stance of Tesla didn't use the most intrusive MDM available.

It is very easy when the phone is left unlocked...

I suspect millions of affairs have been discovered using that elaborate hacking technique. The same thing can be done at work.

Looking over the shoulder is another low tech but quite effective option.

Anymore these days its been my experience that cert pinning prevents this from working. Adding a new root cert does not force any of the apps to use the root cert if they've enabled pinning.

Interesting tidbit, I'll stash that for the next time an SRE argues that pinning requires too much overhead (in terms of managing/paying for the certs rather than CPU) :)

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