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Federal immigration officers refused to let an armed team of agents into their office to detain the accused conspirator in December’s San Bernardino terrorist attack, government officials acknowledged Tuesday, exposing an embarrassing lack of communication within the Department of Homeland Security. Those who ran the legal immigration benefits office in San Bernardino refused to let a team from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement enter to detain and hold Enrique Marquez so the FBI could interview him later, Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said. It turned out Mr. Marquez didn’t show for the meeting at the...

The FBI's attempts to force Apple to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists is not just about accessing information about the attack, but changing the architecture of the device's mobile operating system, former CIA director James Woolsey said Friday. "The last time I looked into the language on this with some care, it did seem to me as if the FBI was trying to get a right essentially to effectively decide what kind of an operating system Apple was going to have, and that they were not just trying to get into one phone. They...

Viruses aren’t biological, they don’t just live dormant inside a phone. They have to be used, activated or deployed. Zdziarski says he thinks the District Attorney is trying to claim that the shooter was trying to compromise the local San Bernardino IT network with a virus of some kind, but the language used in the filing is just factually incorrect and likely misleading to the court. There is also seemingly no other evidence that would lead investigator’s to believe such a claim.If a serious computer virus did exist on the device with the phone acting as a host of some kind, then the device would have to...

The head of the F.B.I. acknowledged on Tuesday that his agency lost a chance to capture data from the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers when it ordered that his password to the online storage service iCloud be reset shortly after the rampage. “There was a mistake made in the 24 hours after the attack,” James B. Comey Jr., the director of the F.B.I., told lawmakers at a hearing on the government’s attempt to force Apple to help “unlock” the iPhone. F.B.I. personnel apparently believed that by resetting the iCloud password, they could get access to information...

I'm shocked that so many Americans are ignorantly willing to empower this federal government to create a master key to our smartphones. The majority of Americans in a Pew Research poll said they agree with the government that Apple should unlock the iPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist-shooter (Syed Rizwan Farook). My theory on this is that most people have no idea what the actual question is or what is involved in unlocking this phone. The Pew question is "Should Apple unlock the terrorist's iPhone?" Here's what the question should be: "Do you think Apple should be forced to create...

Donald Trump on Friday urged a roomful of voters to boycott the tech giant Apple so long as its chief executive, Tim Cook, refuses to comply with a court order to assist the FBI with hacking into the cell phone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. "First of all Apple better give the security for that phone," the Republican presidential hopeful said during a campaign rally in Pawleys Island, S.C. "What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such time they give that security number. How do you like that?" "I just thought of it," Trump noted,...

The password for the San Bernardino shooter's iCloud account associated with his iPhone was reset hours after authorities took possession of the device. The Justice Department acknowledged in its court filing that the password of Syed Farook's iCloud account had been reset. The filing states, "the owner [San Bernardino County Department of Public Health], in an attempt to gain access to some information in the hours after the attack, was able to reset the password remotely, but that had the effect of eliminating the possibility of an auto-backup." Apple could have recovered information from the iPhone had the iCloud password...

Apple has now responded to a Department of Justice filing that we reported earlier today was attempting to force the company to comply with an FBI request for access to a locked iPhone belonging to a suspect in the San Bernardino attacks. In one statement to Reuters, an Apple spokesperson said the DOJ is "disregarding civil liberties in iPhone unlocking case," while in another it attempts to explain more of the back story regarding past events with the iPhone in question. CNBC reports an Apple exec called the motion "a way to argue the case twice before Apple can respond," a response...

Link only.

The Apple ID passcode for the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone was changed less than 24 hours after authorities took possession of the device, a senior Apple executive said today. And Apple could have recovered information from the phone had the Apple ID passcode not been changed, Apple said. If the phone was taken to a location where it recognized the Wi-Fi network, such as the San Bernardino shooters' home, it could have been backed up to the cloud, Apple suggested. ... The auto reset was executed by a county information technology employee, according to a federal official. Federal investigators only...

More than two months after a jihadi couple opened fire at a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, killing 14 and wounding more than 20, the FBI has still not ruled out the possibility that a third militant was at the scene of the slaughter, officials told ABC News this week. In the immediate hours after the Dec. 2, 2015 shootings, some witnesses told law enforcement officers and reporters that they saw three gunmen at the center. But by the end of the day, the FBI had issued a statement saying there were only two confirmed...

According to the AP, it mandates Apple to supply the FBI with software that would prevent the iPhone from being permanently locked after too many unsuccessful password attempts. Apple has long maintained that following iOS 8, it can’t access information on a passcode-encrypted device. This ruling is kind of a way around that: it’s not mandating Apple to break the encryption per se, just help the FBI with what I assume is a very boring brute-force attack. Let’s just hope the passcode isn’t 1234.

Months after the tragic shooting at a health clinic in San Bernardino, FBI agents are still unable to unlock the phone used by one of the attackers, according to new statements by FBI director James Comey. Speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey mentioned the case as a prime example of device encryption hindering an investigation. "In San Bernardino, a very important investigation for us, we still have one of those killer's phones that we have not been able to open," Comey told the Committee. "It's been over two months now. We're still working on it."

The FBI's top investigator in the San Bernardino terrorist attack said Friday that the husband and wife who shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2 intended to detonate an explosive device inside the room, though the exact timetable of the plot remains unclear. David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, said Friday that investigators now believe that Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, attempted to detonate a pipe bomb hidden inside a bag at the Inland Regional Center. What investigators still don't know is whether they planned to detonate the...

Federal investigators are seeking the public's help in filling out the timeline of the San Bernardino terrorists' moves on the day of the massacre last month. Los Angeles FBI official David Bowdich said at a news conference Tuesday that officials are specifically seeking information about an 18-minute gap in the timeline between the attack at the Inland Regional Center on the afternoon of December 2 and the shootout with police in which both Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were killed. Bowditch told reporters that investigators hope to find out if the assailants contacted anyone in that period, between 12.59pm and...

The mosque at the centre of the San Bernardino terrorist attack is back in the spotlight after one of the organisation's clerics, Roshan Abbassi, was found to have had repeated contact with terrorist Syed Farook in the months before the deadly attack which left 14 people dead and 24 people injured. Mr. Abbassi and his fellow teachers at the mosque had previously claimed that they barely knew Mr. Farook, despite his repeat attendance at the Dar al Uloom al Islamiyyah mosque in San Bernardino.The mosque is now believed to be a haven for Tablighi Jamaat activists - a fundamentalist, proselytising Islamic...

The British Muslim family banned from entering the U.S. this week were on their way to meet relatives in California who prayed at the same mosque as terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who murdered 14 people in San Bernardino this month. On Tuesday, Mohammad Tariq Mahmood, his brother and nine of their children were pulled from a queue at Gatwick airport by British Border Agency guards and barred from traveling to the U.S. on the instruction of the country's Homeland Security agency. He has claimed that they were stopped from traveling to California to visit family and Disneyland...

The cleric acting as spokesman for the San Bernardino mosque where terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook worshipped claims he barely knew Farook and didn't know his terrorist wife at all. But phone records and other evidence uncovered by federal investigators cast suspicion on his story. The FBI has questioned the cleric, Roshan Zamir Abbassi, about his phone communications with Farook - including a flurry of at least 38 messages over a two-week span in June, coinciding with the deadly Muslim terrorist attack on two military sites in Chattanooga, Tenn. Abbassi maintained at a press conference that he didn't know Farook any...

He don't know nothin' about nothin': The cleric acting as spokesman for the San Bernardino mosque where terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook worshipped claims he barely knew Farook and didn’t know his terrorist wife at all. But phone records and other evidence uncovered by federal investigators cast suspicion on his story. The FBI has questioned the cleric, Roshan Zamir Abbassi, about his phone communications with Farook including a flurry of at least 38 messages over a two-week span in June, coinciding with the deadly Muslim terrorist attack on two military sites in Chattanooga, Tenn.Abbassi, a Pakistani, insists he had nothing to...

However, the exit month and date on Malik's passport was illegible, Goodlatte said, citing a translation provided by the Congressional Research Service. Furthermore, Malik had a visa that was valid for only 60 days, which showed her entering Saudi Arabia in early June 2013 while Farook's passport indicated he did not arrive until October 1, casting further doubt on whether they were in the country at the same time. "Even if Farook and Malik were in Saudi Arabia at the same time, this does not provide evidence that they met in person," Goodlatte said. The Republican congressman accused President Barack...