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Hacker Teaches iPhone Forensics To Police
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Mercury News reports that former hacker Jonathan Zdziarski has been tapped by law-enforcement agencies nationwide to teach them just how much information is stored in iPhones — and how to get it. 'These devices are people's companions today,' says Zdziarski. 'They're not mobile phones anymore. They organize people's lives. And if you're doing something criminal, something about it is probably going to go through that phone.' For example, every time an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone snaps a screenshot and stores it. Savvy law-enforcement agents armed with search warrants can use those snapshots to see if a suspect is lying about whereabouts during a crime."
"For example, every time an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone snaps a screenshot and stores it." - TFS What?
I ate your fish.
You would think most criminals would know not to carry a cell phone at all, since the cell towers tracks and record their location at every moment.
Say, can I borrow your cell phone tomorrow afternoon? Just for an hour or so.
It is also illegal when your electronics spy on you.
This is an interesting idea, where do you get that from? Some places have anti-spyware laws, but AFAIK taking a screenshot to make drawing faster when the app opens again is not covered under that. Nor should it be.
Qxe4
the relevant question though, is does Android have similar 'features'?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Hilariously, it seems like the purpose of the article is to make us feel safer.
Most smart people find other work for two reasons:
1) When you are smart, you have options. Smart is a talent people want, particularly practical smarts of the problem solving nature. So you find that when you have that, you have options of where to work and what to do. Makes crime less attractive.
2) Smart people can better understand the consequences for crime, and the likelihood of getting caught especially on repeated attempts. So even if crime is tempting, they don't do it because they are smart enough to think ahead and realize it isn't worth the risk over all.
Most criminals are just not that bright. A friend of mine has worked with the public defender's office and the stories he has of the stupid criminals they try to defend and just amazing. They get caught and busted by their own stupidity more than anything else. They love to run their mouths to the police, they never plan their crimes, etc, etc. More or less the only time they were able to get someone off the hook was when the police made a mistake. Otherwise, the criminals sunk themselves.
A good question would be if this screenshot is overwritten every time or if a new one is written every time the program is closed. The latter would make no sense, and the former would make it nearly useless to authorities.
European privacy laws. I know nothing about U.S privacy laws. But in all of EU and EEA member states this is in fact illegal. Countries outside EU and EEA might have different law (except Switzerland due to bilateral agreements with EU).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Privacy_and_Electronic_Communications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive
Or at least ones with half a brain do. I'm not much of a criminal, but were I to become one, the last thing I'd use would be a smartphone. It's just not economical to toss in the garbage if you feel like you're being watched.
This is just making it even easier than it already was.
If it was really necessary, it is possible to triangulate the location of your phone by determining which towers your phone was communicating with.
If your phone has a location feature, you'll notice that when you try to disable it you will be presented with the options "Location On" or "911 Only". There doesn't seem to be any way to completely disable this feature. At least this is the case on Motorola and Blackberry phones.
If you are concerned about someone being able to track your location via your cell phone, the safest way to ensure it won't happen is to pull the battery.
=
instead of "checking if the suspect" is lying, how about "verifying what he says". Would sound nicer, especially taking into account that the screenshots were not originally designed for tracking persons.
Nobody would ever be clever enough to generate false data.. for an iAlibi? ..or clever enough to hack into and plant incriminating evidence? (not that there's ever been a security breach!)
..don't panic
If you're a criminal and you're using a cell phone or, especially, a smart phone to conduct your criminal activities, you deserve what you get. Stupidity often solves a lot of problems that way.
It is also illegal when your electronics spy on you. So in fact apple software breaks the law by taking a screen shot of the map application and storing it.
As far as I know, caching an image by the OS is not illegal in any jurisdiction. Taking an image and transmitting it to someone who is not the owner of the device, without their permission would be a problem in some jurisdictions. But then, that's not what anyone is claiming is happening.
Just WTF is a "former hacker"? That's like a "former scientist" or a "former student" or - - I suppose if you accept "hacking" to mean "criminal cretin living in his mother's basement breaks into email accounts and spreads bots around the internt" - then someone COULD be a "former hacker". A real hacker never stops hacking. It's more than a way of life - it's a way of thinking!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
one thing i have noticed is that google maps stores the voice cache right at the top of the SD card in its own folder. so anyone with an SD card reader can plug in your phone and listen to the voice prompts for your route. i am sure that it using the same kind of caching for screens....but you dont need to be a "hacker" to find the voice prompts.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell, those laws apply to remote data gathering, not storage on your own computing device. Otherwise every program that caches something would be illegal.
Qxe4
Iit will depend on the application, I assume the iPhone is the same way as it is fairly typical of devices with fairly limited resources.
There are life cycles of an android application, some of them (say loosing focus) means they tend to store states so that when you return to them they are where you left off. There are also state changes where the OS totally kills the application and nothing is saved - if you write for the Android platform you *must* assume under a heavy load this will occur. However it is rare. So for the most part they can probably get it but it isn't guaranteed. Nor do I know of any way to force a random application to do such a thing - you would most likely need to get the Android source and modify your own ROM. While possible it isn't likely and that behavior will break a number of applications as it isn't a normal application process life-cycle.
A more relevant question is there any device that doesn't leave similar types of trails? If you carry a recording device that monitors you location, your schedule, your e-mail, your search patterns, and a great deal of your life do not be surprised when law enforcement can get a hold of it.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
That is a good question; from reading the article, it seems like a lot of the data they are able to collect is because the file-system (and the tinySQL database that a lot of apps use) uses lazy deletion: it marks the items as deleted, but doesn't actually write over the bits until the space is needed. So you'd need special software to find that stuff.
Qxe4
Do ALL people who work on horse farms have an IQ higher than Einstein's? Or is it just most of them? Or is he just basically a freak case that proves nothing?
I guess you grandfather smoked 80 cigarettes a day since he was 12 and he got run over by a truck one day short of his 120th birthday while training for a marathon.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Your iPhone is clearly not your friend, and this isn't the only story about why today. It's the fink waiting to rat you out at the first opportunity. Go look up the new Safari html 5 database tracking that uniquely identifies you to advertisers. Until the phone comes with strong enough encryption to defeat this hacker in addition to remote wipe that truly wipes the phone, you shouldn't be sleeping too well at night, courtesy of Mr. Steve Jobs.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Technically, meager insults anger just about anyone of any age. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how upset people get over mere words.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I had fun with that once when i plugged my android phone into my car stereo via USB and mounted it to play mp3's.
Like, this whole AC bit has one or possibly more people that are a few fries short of a happy meal? That isn't/aren't the sharpest block(s) of cheese? A die short of a game of Yahtzee? A bun short of a Big Mac?
I could go on, but really...I don't want carpal tunnel by 25.
I don't post AC. I like my -1, Flamebaits. Trump/Sheen 2012 on the Batshit Insane ticket!
Perhaps I misunderstand something here but wouldn't the 'locating data' only tell something about the whereabouts of the PHONE?
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/09/rldguid-tracking-cookies-in-safari-database-form.ars ....
I wonder how many will soon be tracked via Flash-based cookies and deep stored history options.
The Safari database seems to be an open and safe way to track a user via a normal 'ad' after a site visit.
Stop giving state task forces and feds signals intelligence via a next generation of toys in your pocket.
Go simple and swap any used device out asap.
Try a collection of dumb devices with no networking or life long databases.
Recall the Malcolm X script... "Don't never write nothing down
Cause if they can't find no [iphone] they ain't got no proof..."
The serial numbers, hidden databases, location services ect, almost makes you think someone really put thought into tracking.
Any ex CIA director's investment banks seed money linked to funding this stuff?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"...Savvy law-enforcement agents armed with search warrants can use those snapshots to see if a suspect is lying about whereabouts during a crime."
Yes, and now that it has been announced to the world, saavy criminals will figure out a way to turn off this caching.
It really does amaze me sometimes the blind ignorance in thinking there are no criminals out there that are computer saavy that also might happen to read articles online.
Sometimes, the best "secrets" are ones that you keep that way.
I'm sorry, but how many criminals carry iPhones? I thought criminals used Blackberrys to arrange their complex board meeting schedules.
Apple can easily change this and / or make so if you jailbreak then EULA says you no longer have the right to use ios? so you are stealing ios? Just like how they calm that useing payed boxed copys of osx non apple systems is stealing.
I am a [European] lawyer and the Directive is clearly not applicable. The highlighted text explains the addresses:
The first general obligation in the Directive is to provide security of services. The addressees are providers of electronic communications services. This obligation also includes the duty to inform the subscribers whenever there is a particular risk, such as a virus or other malware attack.[5]
The second general obligation is for the confidentiality of information to be maintained.[6] The addressees are Member States, who should prohibit listening, tapping, storage or other kinds of interception or surveillance of communication and “related traffic”, unless the users have given their consent or conditions of Article 15(1) have been fulfilled.
Searching your phone is covered by other laws.
As the article states, Jonathan Zdziarski has been doing this for several years. He's the author of iErase/iWipe (which seems to have been in the App Store previously but is Cydia-only now), runs iPhoneInsecurity.com, and has a blog with quite of bit of stuff related to iPhone forensics and security. He even has a post specifically addressing the "screenshot leak".
How can a screenshot being a cache information ? Explain that and prove me wrong.
By the way, I am well advised on how mobile phones, Windows, Linux works and use cache information. It is nothing like the screenshot "feature" of the iPhone.
Why would anyone use an expensive smart phone to handle communications for illegal enterprises? Cheap, pre-paid, zero audit trail phones are the way to go. Why ditch a $600 phone every few days?
A few sandwiches short of a picnic...
Beware of the Leopard.
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