About the security content of iOS 15.8.5 and iPadOS 15.8.5

It's interesting Apple is doing this specifically to protect old devices from seemingly nation state sponsored attacks:

> Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.

I think they are doing this to protect millions of people from mass attacks once the nation-state attack gets RE’d in the next few hours/days and deployed by non-governments, much more likely.

People who might be targeted by nation state actors should really be running a phone that’s on the latest OS. It wouldn’t cost that much to not use a 9 year old phone. If you’re remotely afraid of your government, you can afford a phone released within the last 5 years. It’s worth it!

> If you’re remotely afraid of your government, you can afford a phone released within the last 5 years.

Why in the world would you think that? Who do you think governments target, Bond villains?

Journalists mostly. Also prosecutors, judges, opposition party members.

These attacks are also applied against all manners of enemies of certain regimes, as well as law enforcement with hacking warrants.

There are plenty of people who get hacked by governments. A smattering of targets got leaked here: https://www.occrp.org/interactives/project-p/#/

I wouldn't expect a Kazakh artist/activist to have the money for the latest and greatest iPhone. Nor would I expect an activist against an industrial plant on the US side of the Mexican border to need to worry about nation-state level malware.

And frankly, my PC has been used safely since much longer than iOS has been supported, and I don't know why I shouldn't expect my phone to last that long. The rate at which phones got performance improvements has stagnated into gimmick-level power increases (like "AI accelerators") a long time ago.