All posts tagged: Trenchant

An iPhone-hacking toolkit used by Russian spies likely came from U.S military contractor

An iPhone-hacking toolkit used by Russian spies likely came from U.S military contractor

A mass hacking campaign targeting iPhone users in Ukraine and China used tools that were likely designed by U.S. military contractor L3Harris, TechCrunch has learned. The tools, which were intended for Western spies, wound up in the hands of various hacking groups, including Russian government spooks and Chinese cybercriminals. Last week, Google revealed that over the course of 2025 it discovered that a sophisticated iPhone-hacking toolkit had been used in a series of global attacks. The toolkit, dubbed “Coruna” by its original developer, was made of 23 different components first used “in highly targeted operations” by an unnamed government customer of an unspecified “surveillance vendor.” It was then used by Russian government spies against a limited number of Ukrainians and finally by Chinese cybercriminals “in broad-scale” campaigns with the goal of stealing money and cryptocurrency.  Researchers at mobile cybersecurity company iVerify, which independently analyzed Coruna, said they believed it may have been originally built by a company that sold it to the U.S. government. Two former employees of government contractor L3Harris told TechCrunch that Coruna …

Emin Alper’s Trenchant Political Allegory

Emin Alper’s Trenchant Political Allegory

The title of Turkish writer-director Emin Alper’s Salvation (Kurtuluş) carries a bitter sting, pointing up how a perceived enemy threat can be manipulated to seed survivalist panic that escalates into genocide. Salvation for one side means elimination of the other, and establishing which is the righteous side can be entirely subjective, especially when the aggrieved become the aggressors. Those blurred boundaries are the subject of Alper’s powerful slow-burn drama. The movie is an occasionally confusing but mostly gripping account of inter-clan conflict fueled by the nightmares of an ordinary man, who overnight becomes a mystic religious leader. But it’s also a timely and chilling allegory for strongmen rulers across the globe whose nationalist rhetoric fuels “us or them” hostility. Patient attention is required to sort out the characters and geography but once the fuse is fully lit and the material elevated by the introduction of dreams and superstitions, Salvation burns. Salvation The Bottom Line A provocative allegorical powder keg. Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Competition)Cast: Caner Ci̇ndoruk, Berkay Ateş, Feyyaz Duman, Naz Göktan, Özlem Taş, Eren …