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John McAfee Offers To Decrypt San Bernardino iPhone For the FBI and Save America (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Wondering what John McAfee is up to these days? It's not sniffing bath salts nor is he fleeing foreign countries as a person of interest in a murder investigation and faking heart attacks (been there, done all that) ; instead, he's on a mission to save America. How so? By cracking the code on the San Bernardino iPhone that's causing such a ruckus. McAfee didn't just criticize the FBI; instead he offered a potential solution. Let him and his team of hackers break into the iPhone without any help from Apple. "With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet. These hackers attend Defcon in Las Vegas, and they are legends in their local hacking groups, such as HackMiami. They are all prodigies, with talents that defy normal human comprehension," McAfee said. Eccentric rant aside, McAfee's offer is simple - give him three weeks and he will, "free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone" with his team of hackers. He'll do it using mostly social engineering.
McAfee is clearly off his rocker.
I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet. These hackers attend Defcon in Las Vegas, and they are legends in their local hacking groups, such as HackMiami. They are all prodigies, with talents that defy normal human comprehension,
Hey, if these hackers are the ones that starred in his last video, and he's going to make another one describing how he plans/executed this hack, I'm all for it.
Not on this iPhone they're not. It's a 5c, not a 5s. It has no secure enclave. There's absolutely no technical reason Apple can't help the FBI, they just aren't for - well, who knows. My best guess is because they're afraid it would shake confidence in Apple Pay if it came out that it was possible for the FBI to decrypt an iPhone.
If I were more charitable I'd say it was because they value their users' privacy but they're a giant company. They don't give a shit about anything other than their customers' money. They already by default constantly track the location of every iPhone and the iPhone constantly phones home to Apple about what apps you're running and where you are. The idea that they care about users' privacy is ridiculous, which means they're refusing to help the FBI for some other reason, and you can be sure that reason is ultimately the bottom line.
The whole thing is bullshit-on-hold. I already know the narrative; I've modeled the current government in abstract from bits and pieces I've picked up while not really paying attention.
You want to know how it plays out?
The government cracks the phone. It finds evidence of the shooting on there--possibly explicit, possibly vague. Regardless, it's evidence. They hold up this evidence and say, "If this hadn't been encrypted, we could have stopped this shooting!"
That's contingent on them actually cracking the phone, but it's the direction they're going. Notice the huge flaw in logic: They weren't in possession of the phone pre-shooting, and any software on the phone would be able to bypass the encryption. Network monitoring would have given them any unencrypted information. Encrypted messaging is a different facility, and any systems to look for certain key words would face both an incredible wall of false positives and misdirection by simple codes ("did you remember to pick up eggs?" "I'll buy them tonight around 8." Shooting is at 8pm). Doesn't matter; the narrative is swallowed by the masses, because people in groups don't think.
I doubt they'll fabricate evidence and claim they broke the encryption. They may be using this case as pressure, hoping to bring multiple such cases forward and continuously claim people are dying because of encryption. That's more conjecture; I'm pretty firm on their political play at the masses, but not on the power buildup via repeated demands for backdoor decryption capabilities through multiple tragedies. My models give me movie plots, but not firm projections; more data will elevate some of those movie plots to firm projections.
Just watch when they *do* break someone's encryption in one of these cases. Watch what they say after. They'll spin a narrative about how the encryption allowed the crime to occur, about how they could have stopped it if only there was an encryption back door.
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So John McAfee can make a boast that won't get tested. He gets to proclaim himself supreme ninja badass knowing nobody will call his bluff, AND illustrate that when the government doesn't take him up on his offer it is because they are after something other than what they claim.
*golf clap*
Well played, Mr. McAfee.
-- "Oh. This guy again."
I think they're also aiming to (eventually) use OS updates - which can be done remotely - to hack phones without having to have physical possession. Because seizing the phone can't be done without the owner knowing it, and getting warrants means dealing with judges. If they can do it remotely, they can ignore due process.
It'd be easy to test. Throw him a another phone and ask him to unlock it. But they don't need him to unlock it, so they won't ask.