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Judge Tells Apple To Help FBI Access San Bernardino Shooters' iPhone (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader writes: After a couple shot 14 people in San Bernardino, CA before being killed themselves on December 2nd, the authorities recovered a locked iPhone. Since then, the FBI has complained it is unable to break the device's encryption, in a case that it has implied supports its desire for tech companies to make sure it can always have a way in. Today the Associated Press reports that a US magistrate judge has directed Apple to help the FBI find a way in. According to NBC News, the model in question is an iPhone 5c, but Apple has said that at least as of iOS 8 it does not have a way to bypass the passcode on a locked phone.
Is it contempt of court to refuse to try and do something that one already knows they cannot possibly do?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...and, as I understand it, the IP Address is 512.276.128.17.
I've noticed TV shows lately have started using the non-routeable class Cs, rather than completely invalid IP addresses. Which actually makes very good sense, since the 555 telephone exchange is the direct equivalent.
The right to encryption and by extension privacy is more important than any one crime. The State has to accept its limitations, not wail and moan about how its 'not fair' they cant have absolute control over humans. Some things are beyond government's reach, accept it.
Good-bye
It should be possible to bypass the erase operation with physical access to the device. Most NAND devices have a write protect pin which when pulled low will disable program and erase operations.
It may also be possible to add a socket and duplicate the encrypted flash chip so that the original is never in the phone. This could be complicated if the flash device supports a unique ID and the encryption platform makes use of it. I could think of several ways to bypass even that though. One way is to use an FPGA to create a flash emulator that can simulate the NAND device. One other advantage of this is that it could guarantee that the data is never erased. The encryption hardware itself must also store the number of authentication attempts in some non-volatile storage. Usually this would be on another chip or die since it's still not very common to mix flash and logic on the same chip.
Unless the encryption and erase functionality is built into the Toshiba NAND device Apple uses it should be possible to pop the NAND device and use an FPGA and/or other hardware for forensic purposes since the iPhone is not built to FIPS standards (which usually pot the boards in epoxy and provide a number of methods to prevent physical intrusion).
Even the secure keys that are not known by Apple should be accessible with physical access to the device. It's expensive, but it should be possible to read the blown fuses by digging through the layers if the exact location is known on a chip.
https://media.blackhat.com/bh-...
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
You are describing some aspects of my day job. I know the statistics of these operations.
Replacing a BGA is one thing. Pulling a BGA, depackaging it and FIBing it is likely to fail. This isn't a problem if you can just do 10 and pick the ones that work. But if it's a single chip from a single phone, the odds are not good.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.