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Is the DEA Lying About iMessage Security?
First time accepted submitter snobody writes "Recently, an article was posted on Slashdot about the claim that law enforcement made about being frustrated by their inability to decrypt messages using Apple's iMessage. However, this article on Techdirt suggests that the DEA may be spewing out disinformation. As the Techdirt article says, if you switch to a new iDevice, you still are able to access your old iMessages, suggesting that Apple has the key somewhere in the cloud. Thus, if law enforcement goes directly to Apple, they should be able to get the key."
The mere fact that you even have to ASK such a question means the answer is "Yes."
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If you're using software created in the US by a commercial company you can bet the government has access to it. Who would believe any different?
Political dissidents, whistle blowers... and FREEDOM LOVERS.
Unless the DEA is actively 'leaking' in order to attempt to move people into a vulnerable channel with a false sense of security(not impossible; but I'm inclined to suspect that the higher level drug runners take their paranoia seriously, or they wouldn't have lasted long enough to level up, and the lower level ones are probably more often foiled by the fact that they need to solicit customers, any one of which could be a plant), I'd be inclined to a more prosaic explanation.
With SMS, architectural security during transmission is somewhere between pitiful and nonexistent and the entity that handles the messages during their voyage is the phone company, which has substantial legal incentives to, and a long history of, supine cooperation with the authorities.
With iMessage, it looks pretty much like SMS on the handset; but it's all just data to the telco, and Apple presumably included some SSL/TLS or similar implementation that isn't totally broken, meaning that going through the telco is totally useless(this would also be why the leaked memo specifically mentioned that iMessages sent to non-Apple devices, which would be crunched into SMS at some stage, were still often recoverable).
The fact that Apple can, apparently, retrieve your iMessage history for you suggests that, indeed, a subpoena of Apple would leave you in the open; but I imagine that the DEA is much more familiar with, and pleased by, the 'service-oriented' attitudes of the phone companies, who are extremely forthcoming with customer information, with very low bars to clear, and minimal pesky judicial process.
Certainly not a good idea to trust anything that the service operator can 'recover' or 'restore' for you to be secure(since it can't possibly be); but the DEA jackboots probably do encounter significantly greater hassle with a message that is never available to the notoriously friendly telcos. You are still up shit creek if they are building a case against you specifically(or if Apple caves and starts providing bulk access at some future time); but casual fishing is likely to be more difficult.
Yes, that COULD be. In reality there are password reset methods and no company will ever tell a customer that they have just lost all their messages, photos, etc. because they forgot their password. Wake the fuck up.
But they've never lied about the effects of drug usage, right?
Right?
Um, right?
Do you have ESP?
The issue is not that the DEA cannot lawfully acquire the messages... It's that THEY HAVE TO ASK , EVERY TIME.
Most taps are just "wide open" until the warrant expires and the telco turns the tap off... There is very little oversight. Many online services give law enforcement more of an "open ticket" to keep coming back for email or Facebook as often as they need. While the line isn't "tapped" LEOs can refresh every twenty minutes if they want.
They are attepting to bully Apple into allowing a MITM or wide open ticket to people's accounts. The first post on this very carefully NEGLECTED to mention that Apple COMPLIES with lawful requests. Which they most certainly would. The issue is that Apple won't open a giant backdoors and look the other way while LEOs look up their ex-girlfriends, or people with fancy cars to pick on. Apple is probably making them request transcripts with dates and times... And then APPLE SENDS it to them.
Correct. As long as I cannot verify the encryption, then I cannot say it is secure; secure being relative to my needs and concerns. As the U.S. government is one party I would want to keep my encrypted information from, the DOD or any other agency having potential access means that their encryption cannot be considered seriously for my interests.
I was with you until you said this:
Worst that could happen is everyone walking out calmly and in order.
That is far from the worst that can happen. That is in fact the best case scenario outside of no one believing them and there truly not being a fire. Provoking people into violent acts of desperation by instilling the immediate fear of death into them, such that their rationality is severely compromised is outright negligent. This is why we have things like temporary insanity and heat of passion defenses.
I feel that you should be perfectly free to shout "Fire!" in a theater. However I also feel that if you end up causing a situation where someone is injured, you should be held liable for your negligent actions. Freedom of speech should not mean freedom from responsibility of that speech.
What if you told a blind person that the light at an intersection was green and there was no traffic, causing them to walk into the street and get run over? Would you push the free speech argument? You didn't kill him; the guy behind the wheel of the car did. That doesn't mean you weren't immensely negligent as a result of what you said.
As a closer example to the theater, what if in that same situation you screamed in front of a blind man "Everyone get out of the way! A car is heading straight for us!" causing him to jump out of the way and into actual traffic? Would you still feel like you were completely free of the burden of responsibility?
The DEA lies about everything else. Why would this be any different? The very fact that the DEA exists is an affront to personal liberty; We have decades of detailed records of them spreading falsehoods, destroying families, in general doing far more harm than drugs ever did or ever could.
DEA Informers: They lie about who they are, what they do, what their intent is -- and just about anything else they're asked. This is who they are. Liars. But that's not all they are. They're also as dangerous as any government agent you can imagine, wholly without concern for anyone but themselves.
DEA agents: They lie about where the danger comes from; they lie about toxicity; they lie about addictiveness. They lie about consequences (they ARE the primary consequences), and they have been known to attempt to trade your personal honor for your freedom if you fall into their hands. They created the violence underlying the black market drug trade; they created the black market itself. They're not shy of interfering with other sovereign countries, nor of playing fast and loose with our own "justice" system.
So when a DEA "anything" tells you something, you're best off assuming they're lying. It's what they do. Aside from destroying families, that is. If they're not lying, they're likely trying to hurt you some other way. Get away and stay away. Nothing truly good can ever come of contact with people so bereft of personal honor -- or so outright stupid -- that they would work for the DEA.
To heck with them. And the laws they rode in on. And those who made the laws. And those in the general population who thought, and perhaps still think, agencies like the DEA were ever a good idea.
The drug war: It's a war on you and your family and your friends.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Suppose the darkest inner circles of government intelligence agencies actually can crack widely-used and trusted encryption like PGP. If you're merely an international drug dealer and child slave trader (or peaceful anti-war protestor, whichever the FBI loathes more), the tiny cabal of people within the FBI who have the clearance to know about the PGP crack aren't going to do anything that remotely risks leaking such information. Your secrets are perfectly safe with them, because they've got more important targets (like all the Top-Secret-equivalent info from foreign governments and corporations) that they'd lose covert access to if even a vaguely credible hint of a PGP crack leaked to lower levels of government law enforcement (and from there to other countries' intelligence operatives). A PGP crack would simply be too important an asset for covert intelligence to risk exposing on whatever mildly nefarious plots your encrypted emails are hiding.