Apple Device Privacy V. FBI/DOJ Ping!
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Posted on 03/19/2019 11:28:23 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Investigators asked for court permission to use Michael Cohen’s Face ID and fingerprints to access Apple devices belonging to the president’s former fixer and personal attorney, newly released warrant documents show.
Apple has historically resisted providing a backdoor to law enforcement, including in the investigation of the 2015 shooting massacre in San Bernardino, California, when the FBI asked the company to help it unlock an iPhone belonging to the shooter.
At the time, Apple CEO Tim Cook argued that if it were required to unlock the suspect’s phone, the government “would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data.”
The request in Cohen’s case differs, however, in that it would not require Apple to step in for authorities to access the contents of his devices. Apple declined to comment on the warrant documents.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
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Not necessarily. The FBI’s internal policies may limit the use of hacking to certain cases like terrorism and national security or only after all other methods have been exhausted.
Thanks Swordmaker.
I still eep minimum data on my iPhones X and 5se and when pulled over by law enforcement I turn them OFF so face ID or thumbprints won’t work on initial restart..... pass phrase or 6 digit numerical pin # is a MUST to the best of my knowledge. I haven’t even configured the prints option on either.
why would they need his face/prints if he’s actively cooperating? or did this date back to 2016-7?
Oh BS! The FBI and police departments around the country bought the GrayBox devices from GrayKey by the dozens and were going through the thousands of iPhones they had in evidence. The FBI made an announcement they could now use normal search warrants to unlock iPhones without worrying about erasing the devices or getting around fingerprint and FaceID due to their acquisition of this new technology.
Apple announced they had closed the vulnerability a couple of updates ago. This is proof those $15,000 boxes are only good for the iPhones/iPads already in the evidence lockers.
That sounds about right as to cop world work arounds. Still, I suspect that the FBI has formal policies along the lines indicated and they profess to follow them.
Good tip about turning off the phone to force manual entry on restart!
Now I just need to undo that saved password for www.icloud.com in mac Safari.
Swordmaker:
Can you confirm, does turning off later model iPhones w facial ID indeed require typing password after restart/before reenabling facial ID (like it does for older with fingerprint ID)?
“Apple has previously declined to provide a backdoor into its devices for law enforcement, including in the investigation of the 2015 shooting massacre in San Bernardino, California.”
I recall it being a bit more complex than that. Apple offered to unlock the terrorists’ phones for the FBI and hand over the data but the FBI wanted the technology to unlock ‘all the phones’ and Apple balked.
Passcode is required after any restart, whether cold or warm.
I recommend using a complex alphanumeric passcode of at least seven characters including a symbol. Since there are 223 characters including symbols one can utilize on an iPhone that means there are approximately 27,424,200,000,000,000 possible passcodes. Even if GrayKey or Cellebrite were to find another vulnerability to exploit, the physical time limitations built-in to the Apple Devices would require more than 800 million years to try all of them by brute force.
They wouldn't.
Apple and their deep state friends put this story out to make folks think the things are actually secure.
They were not cheap to use $30,000 for a GrayKey machine and unlimited unlocking license, or $15,000 and a ten device license with more license with ad hoc pricing. . . and the vulnerability the found to exploit lasted less than four months. Apple closed it quite quickly. Cellebrite’s Unlocking only worked on older iPhones.
Used GreyKey devices were being dumped on eBay for under $400 until GrayKey put a stop to it as a violation of the sellers’ licensing agreements because they had agreed they could not be resold.
Does that extraordinary amount of time depend on available computing power?
I don’t think he was cooperating at first?
“Incidentally, this is proof that the Apple iPhones and iPads are no longer susceptible to the Cellebrite and GrayKey hacking. . . otherwise the FBI wouldn’t need court permission to force Cohen’s participation in unlocking his own Apple devices.”
Whoa, not so fast there... it does not state that FBI was seeking court permission to force Cohen’s personal participation anywhere. It only states that the FBI sought to use Cohen’s face and fingerprints, which the FBI would have from Cohen during the arrest/arraignment process. This implies (to me anyway) that they would not need to force Cohen’s personal participation to access the iphone data behind the facial recognition and/or fingerprint lock. Personally I think the best way to defeat big brother is to keep as little info on cell phones as possible, allow the phones to lapse into blocked access mode or turn them off whenever possible, and never volunteer any info to police if asked, always politely deferring all questions to one’s lawyer including the all important cell phone unlock code that police always want to know right from the start of a “detention.” For ordinary folks, police can and do regularly lie to them to obtain information, which they can then keep forever if they get it, even without any arrest or formal charges. That’s *your* personal private information, if you are so unfortunate as to attract their attention and get in their path. When the police lie, they will tell you literally anything to get your personal info which they can then use for anything they want, without a warrant...
. . . but of course with any luck at all you’d hit the right combo in half that time. So there’ that . . .
Thank you.
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