You know that iphone the FBI just unlocked?

[ImpulsE69]

Yea..they immediately spilled water on it and killed it.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/boro...hless-after-f-b-i-spills-glass-of-water-on-it

 

[Ns1]

not sure if srs.

 

[BeeBoop]

Fake...the article is in the humor section.

 

[ImpulsE69]

not sure if srs.

Unfortunately, no.

 

[Ns1]

Unfortunately, no.

still not sure if srs

 

[ImpulsE69]

still not sure if srs

I didn't realize it was in the humor section as it was a headline on 2 or 3 sites. When I searched for more info I found it was a joke....a dumb joke, because the karma would have been hilarious.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm not convinced that they ever unlocked the phone. They just finally realized what a laughing-stock they were for not being able to get into a phone. They'd much rather you think that they can get into anything and decrypt any encryption.

 

[disappoint]

I didn't realize it was in the humor section as it was a headline on 2 or 3 sites. When I searched for more info I found it was a joke....a dumb joke, because the karma would have been hilarious.

The very first paragraph:

WASHINGTON (Satire from The Borowitz Report)—Moments after successfully unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone, the F.B.I. rendered the phone permanently useless by spilling a glass of water on it, an F.B.I. spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.

Where it says satire from The Borowitz Report. They are like the Onion.

 

[thesmokingman]

OP even posted this into the political forum.

 

[destrekor]

I'm not convinced that they ever unlocked the phone. They just finally realized what a laughing-stock they were for not being able to get into a phone. They'd much rather you think that they can get into anything and decrypt any encryption.

Nah, I bet they got in, not on their own, but with the assistance of a third party "hacking" team. The last rumors I saw, of the solution they were going to employ, was basically copying the memory contents as they are, and then running their code-breaking routines on it, limitless without any timeouts.

They could have easily gotten into the phone already had the iPhone not threatened total destruction of data after 10 failed tries (it was unknown if that was enabled, but there is no way to tell), nor if they were hampered by the exponentially-increasing lockout time between attempts. Once you get past that limitation, it's child's play for any serious hacker.

But I imagine there was something a little more involved that simply copying the memory, because the encryption is two-factor: a hardware ID + passcode. Replicating the memory, through normal means, may normally render the data irrecoverable... but I'm not sure how that works.
If it was a simple copy of the data, I cannot believe it took so long for that solution to be proposed. I believe it was a third party company who handled that cracking routine. There may be some extra special sauce that was needed to be able to reverse-engineer the cryptography without the physical device. Perhaps it was a multi-step deal, where they ran hash-table attacks on the copied memory, and once they landed on the right passcode, then just input that onto the iPhone to unlock it. But I imagine it takes knowing the hardware ID that acts as one half of the crypto key. I'm not at all aware of what the iPhone uses so I'm really just making semi-educated guesses here.

 

[destrekor]

I didn't realize it was in the humor section as it was a headline on 2 or 3 sites. When I searched for more info I found it was a joke....a dumb joke, because the karma would have been hilarious.

Well that's only part of it - the humor section itself isn't a satirical section, it's just a section where they put funny news. But they do have their own satirical column, which they clearly cite as the "wire service" source, which is the Borowitz Report. But they have otherwise real news in the humor section as well.

When satire sites were still fairly new, it was easy to be shocked by some headlines (then again, it still happens if you watch your Facebook feed ), but these days, I immediately suspect satire whenever I read something that is remotely "off" in tone. It's usually almost always a correct assumption.

 

[waggy]

LOL that would be great IF it was real.

 

[ImpulsE69]

OP even posted this into the political forum.

Yea, rather than start a new thread I remembered that thread....didn't know it was in P&N. Didn't feel like going there. blah blah, oh well

 

[SKORPI0]

Will they reveal how the iPhone was "hacked".

 

[Capt Caveman]

Will they reveal how the iPhone was "hacked".

Rumor has it that they basically took the phone apart and were able to copy the data on the memory chip, allowing them to then just continually try passwords with copies of the data til they were able to figure out the password.

 

[Schfifty Five]

I didn't realize it was in the humor section as it was a headline on 2 or 3 sites. When I searched for more info I found it was a joke....a dumb joke, because the karma would have been hilarious.

And after reading the article that you linked, the content and writing style didn't give it away? You're not the sharpest tool in the shed are ya?

 

[Blackjack200]

Nah, I bet they got in, not on their own, but with the assistance of a third party "hacking" team. The last rumors I saw, of the solution they were going to employ, was basically copying the memory contents as they are, and then running their code-breaking routines on it, limitless without any timeouts.

They could have easily gotten into the phone already had the iPhone not threatened total destruction of data after 10 failed tries (it was unknown if that was enabled, but there is no way to tell), nor if they were hampered by the exponentially-increasing lockout time between attempts. Once you get past that limitation, it's child's play for any serious hacker.

But I imagine there was something a little more involved that simply copying the memory, because the encryption is two-factor: a hardware ID + passcode. Replicating the memory, through normal means, may normally render the data irrecoverable... but I'm not sure how that works.
If it was a simple copy of the data, I cannot believe it took so long for that solution to be proposed. I believe it was a third party company who handled that cracking routine. There may be some extra special sauce that was needed to be able to reverse-engineer the cryptography without the physical device. Perhaps it was a multi-step deal, where they ran hash-table attacks on the copied memory, and once they landed on the right passcode, then just input that onto the iPhone to unlock it. But I imagine it takes knowing the hardware ID that acts as one half of the crypto key. I'm not at all aware of what the iPhone uses so I'm really just making semi-educated guesses here.

I don't know all the techniques, but the security researchers that I follow on Twitter have been saying all along that there are many ways to get into a phone like that, and it's unimaginable that the NSA would not be able to open it for the FBI. It was just a cynical tactic for the FBI to get a skeleton key from Apple. Fuck the FBI. Seriously.

 

[Blackjack200]

Glad that this bullshit prompted Apple and other firms to continue improving the security in their devices and cloud services. What a complete backfire.

 

[Charmonium]

I heard on the Daily Show that Apple asked the FBI to tell them how they did it, but I don't know if that's true. It would make sense that they'd be curious so it's not a ridiculous idea.

 

[destrekor]

I don't know all the techniques, but the security researchers that I follow on Twitter have been saying all along that there are many ways to get into a phone like that, and it's unimaginable that the NSA would not be able to open it for the FBI. It was just a cynical tactic for the FBI to get a skeleton key from Apple. Fuck the FBI. Seriously.

Yeah from what I read, either a current or former employee (or was it Director? I can't recall correctly), stated that the NSA could easily tackle the project.

Which figures, the FBI most certainly did not tackle every avenue of approach available. They wanted to set a precedent. They want mandatory backdoors into civilian encryption. End of story. Next case they get that has "serious national security implications," they'll be back in court. Dammit I hope someone finally shuts them down. We can't have our cake and eat it too in this scenario. If we want to have strong security on our national and personal data, we cannot allow backdoors and unpublished, secret exploits. Yes, it sets back our ability to look into the activity of evil-doers, but frankly, the privacy, security, and rights of the public outweigh those concerns. See sig. Benjamin Franklin, who may have adapted it from another fellow, understood this problem perfectly.

We mustn't allow this, or else it WILL, guaranteed, be exploited by nefarious users, be they foreign state-sponsored hackers or random assholes. Suffice it to say, the sanctity of our data is paramount, above what the federal authorities may or may not be able to gleam from the personal devices of any potential or verified threats.

 

[haedon]

I read that in news. If FBI can do such thing i.e., can hacked smartphones even without permission by the manufacturer. Then, they shouldn't asked Tim Cook permission since they can cracked the encryption by themselves.

 

[pcgeek11]

I heard on the Daily Show that Apple asked the FBI to tell them how they did it, but I don't know if that's true. It would make sense that they'd be curious so it's not a ridiculous idea.

If so the FBI should tell Apple to go pound sand.

 

[John Connor]

You know that iphone the FBI just unlocked?

"You know that sound you're looking for?" "Well listen to this!" Ah shit I just dropped water on my phone.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm just picturing the scene, where it's sitting on the table, cover off, with temp lead wires soldered to the SMD chip hooked up to their cracking device, which is then connected to a fibre port on the wall going to their mainframe. Basically some rather "mad scientist" looking setup. Then a bunch of guys start to cheer on as the little LED on the cracking device goes from red to green and it beeps indicating that it's cracked, and the workstation next to it starts to load the data, then suddenly, *SPLOOOSH* one of the guys accidentally knocks over a coke while reaching for the mouse of that workstation, and an error is immediately displayed saying it could not finish loading the data.

 

[John Connor]

I'm just picturing the scene, where it's sitting on the table, cover off, with temp lead wires soldered to the SMD chip hooked up to their cracking device, which is then connected to a fibre port on the wall going to their mainframe. Basically some rather "mad scientist" looking setup.