Judge forces Apple to unlock iPhone

[PokerGuy]

This whole line of thought presupposes that the NSA would agree to do that for the FBI. It appears that the NSA is a DoD agency and part of the intel community and therefor does not work for the FBI. So, I see no basis for this assumption.

Are you telling me that if there's a real "national security" issue involving terrorists that the NSA would just say "naaah, go away, we're busy"? Not likely, considering they ultimately have the same boss, even if they are in different sections of the govt.

I don't think the FBI just wanders into the NSA and has them do stuff for them, but if it's truly a matter of national security there would be cooperation on the matter. What it tells us is that it a) is not really a matter of national security, or b) it's not an issue about this phone at all, that it's just a ploy to gain access in many other cases or c) both. I'm betting on c, both.

Many here say that the FBI is using this case to force a decision, but I think Apple is too. Apple is facing problems in Europe (France and the UK particularly). I think it might be that Apple wants to cement their legal position here in the US before taking on Europe.

Apple isn't the one that initiated this, it is the DoJ that took them to court to force their hand and force them to break the security on their phones. I also don't think what the courts here decide will make much of a difference in how the UK and France governments deal with apple.

 

[zinfamous]

This whole line of thought presupposes that the NSA would agree to do that for the FBI. It appears that the NSA is a DoD agency and part of the intel community and therefor does not work for the FBI. So, I see no basis for this assumption.

Many here say that the FBI is using this case to force a decision, but I think Apple is too. Apple is facing problems in Europe (France and the UK particularly). I think it might be that Apple wants to cement their legal position here in the US before taking on Europe.

Fern

Well, I don't think it really matters if the NSA agrees or not. What matters is that the FBI has no argument before court that the only way to do this is to force Apple to do it for them. A spat between two government agencies that, iirc, are more or less mandated to cooperate and share intel post-911 is a separate issue (though I think that applies more to CIA and FBI, no?).

As far as Apple's goals with this case, I think that is absolutely true. And why shouldn't they be angling to protect themselves from future calls from international governments demanding that they compromise their product? I don't think there is anything cynical about that.

 

[zinfamous]

Yes, anyone with more than a single functioning brain cell and that has a reasonable grasp of modern technology has known from the word go that this has all been an effort to set a precedent and that getting access to this specific phone was never the purpose.


Brian

You give the general public far too much credit. But really, you can be a pretty smart person and not understand the intricacies of this type of technology. There is no requirement to know all of the security features and code behind your iPhone before you are allowed to own and use one.

The way the media has been portraying this, and we can infer that this is what most people are going to understand and take away from this issue, is that yes: Apple is the only outlet that can unlock this phone, it isn't going to compromise their own phones, their privacy, the government really doesn't want to have a precedent to do this in the future--or simply a permanent backdoor into all devices--terrorists bad and Apple is protecting terrorists.

This is actually what very many people understand about this.

 

[sontakke]

FBI says "Never mind!"

 

[Genx87]

Shocking that at the last second they come up with an alternate plan. I think the feds didnt want to lose in court as their claims were ridiculous and they knew it.

 

[CZroe]

Shocking that at the last second they come up with an alternate plan. I think the feds didnt want to lose in court as their claims were ridiculous and they knew it.

Yep. They don't want to set precedent against them so they can try again in the future under different circumstances.

 

[zinfamous]

FBI says "Never mind!"

"An external source approached the FBI with a suggested alternative to get into their iPhone."



That is actually how I heard the report on NPR yesterday, but didn't really check on more than that.

So, basically, one of those Chinese dudes at the thousands of kiosks that sells used iPhones and does this dozens of times per day at $10 a pop approached the FBI and is offering to do it for them for 1 million dollars?

 

[sontakke]

I heard an Israeli firm

 

[Monk5127]

I heard an Israeli firm

Cellebrite is the name of the company in question.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35883441

Beeb got their story from here; http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4782246,00.html

 

[CZroe]

...

Beeb got their story from here; http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4782246,00.html

Dammit. When did Apple start letting embedded videos play sound when your switch is in the silent setting?! It didn't even go to full screen like most embedded videos! Oh boy. Mobile browsers are going to be as noisy as desktop browsers before Adblock. FWIW, I do have Purify configured in iOS.

 

[lopri]

Just to make a point about the frivolous argument made in this thread that Apple is somehow forced to provide an involuntary servitude (or other libertarian-sounding BS) - Before the sudden development of yesterday, the DOJ floated the idea that they might subpoena the entire code base of iOS instead of asking Apple to "do" anything affirmatively.

Would Apple prefer that option because that relieves it and the employees from having to provide whatever labor that is necessary to extract the data from the phone in question?

Of course not.

Given the choice, Apple would choose to unlock the phone even if that means having to waste a few employee hours instead of handing over the entire codes of iOS, for obvious reasons. This again shows the folie of formalism trying to determine who is being "forced."

 

[Brian Stirling]

Just to make a point about the frivolous argument made in this thread that Apple is somehow forced to provide an involuntary servitude (or other libertarian-sounding BS) - Before the sudden development of yesterday, the DOJ floated the idea that they might subpoena the entire code base of iOS instead of asking Apple to "do" anything affirmatively.

Would Apple prefer that option because that relieves it and the employees from having to provide whatever labor that is necessary to extract the data from the phone in question?

Of course not.

Given the choice, Apple would choose to unlock the phone even if that means having to waste a few employee hours instead of handing over the entire codes of iOS, for obvious reasons. This again shows the folie of formalism trying to determine who is being "forced."

Can you restate this in English?


Brian

 

[Ichinisan]

Just to make a point about the frivolous argument made in this thread that Apple is somehow forced to provide an involuntary servitude (or other libertarian-sounding BS) - Before the sudden development of yesterday, the DOJ floated the idea that they might subpoena the entire code base of iOS instead of asking Apple to "do" anything affirmatively.

Would Apple prefer that option because that relieves it and the employees from having to provide whatever labor that is necessary to extract the data from the phone in question?

Of course not.

Given the choice, Apple would choose to unlock the phone even if that means having to waste a few employee hours instead of handing over the entire codes of iOS, for obvious reasons. This again shows the folie of formalism trying to determine who is being "forced."

OK. So Apple could have been forced to comply with the lesser of 2 evils (even though Apple might refuse to comply with either one). What's your point?

It's an intrusion by government. It's also basically saying that an American company is not allowed to make and sell a secure device. Oh well. Let the rest of the world take over the secure smartphone market...

You cannot have 100% security without giving up 100% of your freedom.

 

[Brainonska511]

http://nyti.ms/1XZ3tLn
US says it has unlocked iPhone in question and is ending the lawsuit.

 

[Fern]

http://nyti.ms/1XZ3tLn
US says it has unlocked iPhone in question and is ending the lawsuit.

My guess is that this is more the beginning of this saga and not the end. E.g., will the FBI give this info to Apple so they can plug it? Will US law enforcement give the hack to their Euro anti-terrorist partners? If Apple manages to get the hack one way or another and patches it will we be right back square #1? I.e., with no hack will the US govt go to the courts again and will the Euro countries try to fine Apple?

I think we're far from a resolution to this issue.

Fern

 

[sactoking]

My guess is that this is more the beginning of this saga and not the end. E.g., will the FBI give this info to Apple so they can plug it? Will US law enforcement give the hack to their Euro anti-terrorist partners? If Apple manages to get the hack one way or another and patches it will we be right back square #1? I.e., with no hack will the US govt go to the courts again and will the Euro countries try to fine Apple?

I think we're far from a resolution to this issue.

Fern

The answers to your questions are likely fairly obvious, I think:
No.
No.
Yes.
Yes and Yes.

 

[Fern]

The answers to your questions are likely fairly obvious, I think:
No.
No.
Yes.
Yes and Yes.

Another question: Will the party (apparently Israelis) who supplied the FBI with the hack give it to the Euro anti terrorists agencies? (This negates having the FBI give it to them.)

Fern

 

[sactoking]

Another question: Will the party (apparently Israelis) who supplied the FBI with the hack give it to the Euro anti terrorists agencies? (This negates having the FBI give it to them.)

Fern

My guess: they're not giving it to anybody, they're selling it to the FBI. They'll likely sell it to any government willing to pay. They may not be selling it for cash money but they're at least making sure they get some influence and control over future contracts.

 

[blankslate]

Another question: Will the party (apparently Israelis) who supplied the FBI with the hack give it to the Euro anti terrorists agencies? (This negates having the FBI give it to them.)

Fern

I'm betting yes. While security agencies of different countries are prone to rivalry depending on the situation. Dealing with ISIS linked terrorists, imo, should be a common goal unless I'm just overlooking something.


I'm not surprised it was an Israeli company.

The Intel engineers based in Israel came up with the Pentium M which helped Intel turn it around after about 2 years of AMD putting out better chips.

___________

 

[Humpy]

My guess is that this is more the beginning of this saga and not the end. E.g., will the FBI give this info to Apple so they can plug it? Will US law enforcement give the hack to their Euro anti-terrorist partners? If Apple manages to get the hack one way or another and patches it will we be right back square #1? I.e., with no hack will the US govt go to the courts again and will the Euro countries try to fine Apple?

I think we're far from a resolution to this issue.

Fern

It's pretty unlikely that Apple doesn't already know what was done to access the phone. This is such a silly game.

 

[Paratus]

If the Internet is right the "hack" was actually a hardware attack. The appropriate flash memory chip was de-soldered and copied. Then each pin was tried. When the software blanked the chip it was just copied over and they kept trying.

It's been what a week? Probably about the right amount of time if he had 4 digit pin and they had to stop and reload every 5-9 tries

Choosing a long alphanumeric passcode is still your best chance against this and any other brute force attack.

 

[Ns1]

If the Internet is right the "hack" was actually a hardware attack. The appropriate flash memory chip was de-soldered and copied. Then each pin was tried. When the software blanked the chip it was just copied over and they kept trying.

It's been what a week? Probably about the right amount of time if he had 4 digit pin and they had to stop and reload every 5-9 tries

Choosing a long alphanumeric passcode is still your best chance against this and any other brute force attack.

so basically a super slow brute force hack against hardware copies. surely somebody at the FBI must've been able to think of this plan by themselves?

 

[Jaskalas]

If the Internet is right the "hack" was actually a hardware attack. The appropriate flash memory chip was de-soldered and copied. Then each pin was tried. When the software blanked the chip it was just copied over and they kept trying.

It's been what a week? Probably about the right amount of time if he had 4 digit pin and they had to stop and reload every 5-9 tries

Choosing a long alphanumeric passcode is still your best chance against this and any other brute force attack.

As I said last month:

Brute force?
Physically dismantle and remove the data card.
Copy the encrypted data to a cloud network.... clone virtual machines that simulate an Iphone so the software loads and thinks its legit. Enter in the password as many times as necessary until you crack it. Its protections to limit brute force are meaningless in a virtual environment.
/thread.

 

[Vic]

Did they actually find anything?

 

[Paratus]

As I said last month:

Looks like you called it.


Just to clarify what they were decrypting was the key and not the actual data. Only the NSA might have the capability to brute force the encypted data in less time than the heat death of the universe.

Someone more knowledgeable than I can correct me but I don't think this hardware hack works on the newer iPhones with the secure store. The A6 and older phones stored the key on a section of flash that can be directly read once the flash chip is removed. The A7 and later SOC store the key in the CPU itself and can't be directly read even if you de-solder the CPU. You'd have to use acid and electron microscopes to try and read the transistor states to get the key. Which has a high likelihood of damaging the CPU beyond readability.