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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?
I think one of the main problems law enforcement has with iMessages is that it is ridiculously easy to get a pen register from a telco for a phone number. This is a list of the calls made to/from that number and a list of SMS/MMS to/from that number. iMessage bypasses SMS/MMS if both the origin and destination device are iMessage capable, so those interactions do not show in a pen register. The same could be said for many other text/chat services, but iMessage is the default texting client for a large number of people and does not require the user to do anything special to message others without the telco knowing, unlike many other services.
iMessage isn't that special, the memo could just as easily been talking about FaceBook messages, which also won't appear in a pen register.
Just because your messages are accessible on a new device, it does not necessarily mean that your messages are readable or key is accessible by Apple. For instance, if the decryption key for iMessage were encrypted with your Apple ID password, then your key could be transferred around between devices, but Apple or the DEA would still have to brute-force/social engineer/whatever to get your password and decrypt the key. Whether or not it's actually set up that way...
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.
But they've never lied about the effects of drug usage, right?
Right?
Um, right?
Do you have ESP?
Every government statistic or statement on the drug war is not to be believed. There might be some truth in some of it, but after 80+ years of lies, it's not the way to bet.
They're quite knowledgeable about DRUG TRAFFICKING. Expertise in other areas relevant to law enforcement should not be assumed. Apple either has a copy of your key or can crack their own encryption when they need to. The NSA could probably crack it too, but why would the DEA go to the NSA and why should the NSA concern itself with helping the DEA crack cases? That's not their job.
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.
Everyone should. Not because they're breaking a law, but because laws are changing. And rapidly so. What is very legal today may be illegal tomorrow. And then try to prove that you stopped the behaviour just because it became illegal. What is that you say? They have to prove that you still did it after it became illegal? You think you'd be the first to be in jail because there is "strong evidence" (read: someone hinted at it) that you did again what you did before?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It may not be the most elegant solution, but hosting your own Mumble server works pretty well for secure private IM and voice chat. There's a really slick Android client called Plumble, and I believe iOS has a basic one as well. The built-in authentication and encryption is sufficient, and the newer builds support the OPUS codec.
Remember the fuss just a year ago when India and other gov'ts complained about Blackberry? How is this different?
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
If they were the only ones who said so, I'd be inclined to distrust it too. However, RSA has been around for 36 years now with no serious challenges, so either there is a world-wide conspiracy that controls every single mathematician (or several that between them control all the mathematicians), or it's unbroken.
It's also possible that there are a few mathematicians decades ahead of current research that all work for various governments, but considering how much of mathematical work is derivative now, it seems far too unlikely that some unaffiliated researcher wouldn't have stumbled across the discovery independently.
(Well, or the NSA has a working quantum computer that can do work on a useful scale, which goes back to "decades ahead of current research".)
We are a God fearing Christian Nation
I thought church and state were separate?
And getting a pen register dataset can mean enough linkages can be shown to a "known drug dealer" or a "known felon" that they will then have probable cause to get a warrant, even if the number of linkages is so high that you're not the "friend of a drug dealer" or even the "friend of a friend of a drug dealer" but even "(friend of a)^5 of a drug dealer".
.
When you get links that are that long, you can ensnare everyone in the world, whether or not they are truly guilty of anything, just from guilt by association. See the comment about 6-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon or the one about Bacon numbers and Erd''os Numbers.
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.
I'm pretty sure they're doing their best to figure out what Jesus would do and then do the opposite...
You can think that all you like, but the reality is that Americans have an immensely negative view of atheists. Here, observe that Americans consider atheists more objectionable than blacks, women, Catholics, Hispanics, Jews, Mormons, gays, or Muslims for political office. And that study does not discriminate about which political party you're discussing!
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.
I think you don't understand what "literally" means. Your post gets sillier from there.
Who would believe any different?
If the source is open, it's actually possible to check if the data safety is sane.
Exemple: Mozilla's Sync.
It *does* store web passwords on the server.
Data sent and received from the server is always encrypted. (the server never has access to the clear text, only to the encrypted form)
Without the password that the user keeps for him/herself, all the rest is useless.
Three-letter agencies could subpoena all that they want, there simply isn't a technical way to extract the data. All that they can get is only a bunch of random-looking encrypted data, which is useless without the password stored into the user's head (or a nearby post-it... saddly, no matter how much advance an encryption scheme is, there are always users who will screw up badly).
Counter example: Skype
Skype's license clearly state that they will collaborate with local authority as required by local law.
It's closed source, so you can't actually check, but given the license, you can safely bet that there is very likely a backdoor somewhere inside to comply with the various wire-tapping law.
(very probably in the form of a way for law-enforcement forces to obtain the encryption key, so it's possible to later decrypt any intercepted network traffic).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]