Posted on 03/30/2016 5:56:43 AM PDT by rktman
The FBI's announcement that it mysteriously hacked into an iPhone is a public setback for Apple Inc., as consumers learned that they can't keep the government out of even an encrypted device that U.S. officials had claimed was impossible to crack. Apple, meanwhile, remains in the dark about how to restore the security of its flagship product.
The government said it was able to break into an iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California, but it didn't say how. That puzzled Apple software engineers — and outside experts — about how the FBI broke the digital locks on the phone without Apple's help. It also complicated Apple's job repairing flaws that jeopardize its software.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Er... Who built those highly sophisticated crypto devices?
That is classified information that I would never reveal. :)
“You are so missing the point...”
What point?
Do you want to ignore my point that Apple climbed on a stupid little hill for a stupid PR stunt only to lose in a spectacular fashion to the FBI?
Apple didn’t lose.
FBI lost.
Apple won.
Strong crypto won.
Your data won.
My money’s on Abby Schuito
Another way?
They cloned the phone and disabled the 10 failed attempts self destruction feature. Thus able to try all of the combinations?
I was not aware of this. I have some reading to do.
I don’t see why they would get in this fight with Apple, and ensure a public relation nightmare when it was possible for this other company to solve their problem before Apple could ever be forced to comply.
Freegards
Only Top Secret? Not very high on the pole ...
IBM sold Germany the same punch card system it sold the US gov to track Social Security recipients.
He does that, but my experience with him is he's an honest player who fights fair.
He will get the point, but still reserves the right to disagree with it.
IBM doesn’t like to talk about it...
To clarify (as if others haven’t):
Secrecy, both for their own operations and for their customers’ data, is axiomatic (paramount) to Apple. Since the iPhone 4, they’ve been taking serious steps to implement what hopefully & eventually will be unbreakable security (”rubber hose cryptanalysis” aside); some of the intervening implementations have had weaknesses, one of which the FBI just paid a world-class specialist a lot of money to exploit.
Evidence gathering, both thru proper warrants and thru “coerced cooperation”, is axiomatic to the FBI. They’ve long tried to bully people into complying with unenforceable demands (a la “may we search your vehicle?” requests with armed, armored, & intimidating agents); often people will cooperate to their own benefit or demise, but this time their target said “you don’t have a legal basis for your demand, so NO.”
Apple didn’t “climb on a stupid little hill for a stupid PR stunt”, they were demanded to do something they didn’t want to do and which the FBI had no legal basis for demanding. Had they complied, every legal jurisdiction with a criminal case involving an iPhone would have likewise demanded, with precedent - a costly and obnoxious scenario at best. Instead, Apple stuck to “NO”, told the FBI to pound sand, and after a long stare-down in the media the FBI indeed skulked off and found someone else to exploit the known (and now closed) weakness.
FBI didn’t win the case, they lost insofar as they had to resort to normal process: if they couldn’t decrypt the data, they had to find a willing & capable party and pay them to do the job (to wit: hire a locksmith, not compel the lock maker to reveal weaknesses they know). Yes they got the data, however useless it may have been, which is no worse than hiring a locksmith to open a safe.
Apple won the PR battle because customers know that Apple is working hard to increase security (AFAIK there is no exploitable weakness in the iPhone 6 and up), is extending that security throughout their data services, and WILL go to the wall to say “NO” to defend their customers’ data from so much as the US Government. It was a spectacular win.
Good to see someone vouch for another FReeper, even if the latter holds...different views.
Well, they could have opened it on their own and stop the political positioning/marketing OR let a hacker do it and lose cred, they decided the later.
Pretty much. 10,000 possible passcodes. Clone the device, short out the hardware counter (very much a not-trivial task), then tediously enter all possible codes until one works. Trying one code per minute (assuming complications & documentation), 16 hours a day (two shifts), would take no more than 10 days and an average of 5 (right around how long it actually took). I expect the company already had a timeout-disabled device ready for cloning before the FBI actually hired on, so setup may have been just 1 day once the suspect’s phone was handed over.
Opening it on their own would have meant consenting to a legally baseless DEMAND to comply, setting precedent for many other jurisdictions to demand the same thing - an ongoing hostile scenario.
We know computer forensics companies exist precisely for the purpose of extracting data from such difficult circumstances. The exploit was well known/expected, so there’s no surprised that the OBSOLETE model involved was breached by a world-class expert in such matters (involving significant time, money, and likely destruction of the phone).
We don’t demean safe manufacturers for refusing to crack their own safes. We expect them to adhere to the premise that the product cannot be breached, and are not surprised when a master locksmith (or criminal genius) does, with great talent & tools, manage to do so.
Apple WON the PR battle: customers know that Apple will not sell out their data, standing up to the US government itself. I _WON’T_ use an Android device, and sparingly use other Google products, knowing full well that Google’s modus operandi is precisely to mine all the data they can get their hands on, and wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually a CIA front company. I’ll stick with Apple, knowing they actively try to secure my data - even against Apple itself.
You always have to consider that anything you say, write, type, record, email, or any other type of communication, whether electronic or verbal that there is somebody recording your conversations for future use against you.
The only things really safe are the things inside your head, and that may not last much longer.
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