Coveney claims to have previously been hacked.

Ah, so now the goalposts have shifted from

a) Deleting data is not preduent security advice

to

b) Simon wasn't hacked at all (as per the article in the Irish Times, it appeared he was, a fact ignored by you for the past 24 hours)

to

c) The data was subject to FOI, when this is pure speculation by you.

Not all data is subject to FOI, again people seem to be taking an inch to run a mile with some facts here.

But sure, post up some more memes about Nigerian princes to cover up the fact you seem to be changing your angle of attack numerous times.

Again, you are forgetting some pertinent bits.

The amount of effort to try and get some 'gotcha' moment is both hilarious and deliciously ironic.

Because it limits the amount of information that the hacker can retrieve when/if they access your device.

To give an example, the Israeli hacking tool “Pegasus” was potentially used to hack into a large number of European ministers and leaders phone in 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/revealed-leak-uncovers-global-abuse-of-cyber-surveillance-weapon-nso-group-pegasus

The suspected countries that used this tool are India, Morocco, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Hungary.

The tool allowed the user to remotely pull any data from the phone such as messages and emails, activate the microphone, get the owners GPS, etc.

If these countries are using this tool, you can be sure as **** that countries with more sophisticated espionage technologies like the UK or Russia are using tools on countries in their political interest, like Ireland.

If I were an Irish minister I would be wiping my phone every couple of weeks at the very least.

So why wasn't Leo deleting texts/data?

Do you mean wiping his phone every couple of weeks? If so, I have no idea. I could speculate a couple of ideas:

1). Didnt get around to it/didnt care as much about security. Politicians can be lazy when it comes to security. Trump used a 6 year old Galaxy S3 while he was president. That phone was so old that it could no longer run the latest, and most secure, versions of Android, and there were known unfixed vulnerabilities in the operating system that could be used to take complete control of the device. It was nuts that he was allowed to keep going with it.

2) Leo isnt the minister of Foreign Affairs, so he he wouldnt be as big a target to get hacked by foreign countries as Simon Coveney. Covney was much more involved in Brexit, for example. I can see why the UK, Russia or even the USA would target him more.

3) He did wipe his phone, but kept a backup offline. Apple and Android often do this automatically now, if you wipe it from a computer.

Wasn't Coveney using one of the latest Apple's?

We are asked to believe, Varadkar, involved in Brexit and one time Taoiseach/Tanaiste and Taoiseach in waiting wasn't a target and wasn't following the same security procedures? He kept his texts or a backup of these texts which could not be found in an FOI request, because he was on holidays, even though he was chirping previously on social media that even though he was on holidays he wasn't really fully on holidays. The FOI officer who is conveniently no longer working for the relevant dept apparently didn't think to call him and ask for the relevant, requested text communications or backup?

While Coveney's story has gone from deleting some messages because of data clogging his phone, to 'wiping' his phone completely* because a previous phone and number was hacked?

*Notsure if COveney has actually said he did full wipes or if that was an excuse made for him here.

The Taoiseach has said it is best practice not to delete. But conveniently 'best practice' was not followed here.

without having a backup?

https://circulars.gov.ie/pdf/circular/per/2019/09.pdf

52. Where an FOI request has been made in respect of a record, a person who without lawful excuse and with intention to deceive destroys or materially alters a record shall be guilty of an offence and be liable on summary conviction to a class B fine.

Anyone know what a class B fine is?

Basically I'm the gaffer. A gaffer that does fook all.

That goes without saying. The buck stops here, unless it involves FG.

But the problem is what benefit is that when spyware that is used by intelligence agencies can send all communications back to the hacker in real time? Its of little benefit deleting something that the hacker already has possession of. If you introduce a second intelligence agency and second hack into the scenario then it might have limited benefit but not really if their software has the capability of retrieving previously deleted messages.

But anyway thats of little consequence because intelligence agencies are only going to hack people who hold a position of interest to them. So when Coveney was Minister for Agriculture agencies would have had no interest whatsoever in his texts between him and the President of the Irish Farmers Association discussing the price of beef. But the minute he becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs thats when he becomes a mark and an agency will start intelligence gathering, its only then that his communications are actually valuable to them.

In any case if he has already been hacked it is stupid to continue on using an iPhone anyway. Ive a mate at board level in a Fortune 100 company in the US and they are banned from using iPhones and Android. They used to be able to use Blackberry but thats gone now as well. All of those systems have been compromised by spyware over the last few years. Instead the whole board runs encrypted phones to communicate with each other with each phone costing over $10k a piece and them all being monitored by a counter surveillance company staffed with ex-CIA cyber security experts. They have to go to those lengths because corporate espionage in the US is a very real thing and the information they're often discussing is extremely valuable in the wrong hands.

So if thats the level big companies in the States are going to prevent phone hacks you'd wonder why similar arrangements are not in place here for key Ministries like Foreign Affairs, Defence, Taoiseach, Finance, etc. Especially against the backdrop of Brexit, there was already allegations of spying going on at the EU Commission last year and the British came out and pointed the finger at the Chinese which sounded like a handy cover story. It could have easily have been both the British as well as the Chinese who were hacking persons of interest in the EU Commission.

So if his phone was hacked, did he notify the data protection commission and constituents whose data that was potentially on the device?

TD's get many emails looking for help regarding Passports, medical cards, Disability Allowance appeals etc

Haha! 😁 It could be, that would explain why Micheal Martin keeps referring to Varadkar as Taoiseach https://www.joe.ie/news/micheal-martin-defends-accidentally-calling-leo-varadkar-taoiseach-multiple-times-724861

Thanks, I was trying to find this information earlier but couldn't. This does not bode well for Simon:

10. Any communications relating to official government business issued or received through a private email account or other private messaging service must be forwarded from such account or service to an organisation issued email account or service as soon as is practicable. This will ensure that any such communications can be readily accessed by the organisation should the record fall within the scope of a particular FOI request or for other records management purposes. This is consistent with civil servants’ obligations under the National Archives Act.

So if Simon deleted his messages for security reasons, he should have backed them up to the government servers first.

Leo is happy to let Michael Martin be front and centre stage when tough unliked decisions are being made and announced. Meanwhile behind the scenes Leo is pulling all the strings.

How do you know it was subject to FOI?

You don't know the FOI legislation going by that comment. Maybe more research and less outrage next time.

Didn't Leo apologise and make excuses for them not being available for FOI?

Why would he do that if they were not subject to FOI?

Coveney was tricked into installing telegram with a code that gave access to his contact list https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/simon-coveney-faces-dail-grilling-on-deletion-of-texts-czmmpkf60 he was 'hacked'

yes it does because they got access to some info on his phone, his contact list and the ability to send messages. Probably didn't get access to anything else (we hope) .