Apple: Terrorist's Apple ID Password Changed In Government Custody (buzzfeed.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Apple ID password linked to the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino terrorists was changed less than 24 hours after the government took possession of the device, senior Apple executives said Friday. If that hadn't happened, Apple said, a backup of the information the government was seeking may have been accessible.

Had that password not been changed, the executives said, the government would not need to demand the company create a 'backdoor' to access the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who died in a shootout with law enforcement after a terror attack in California that killed 14 people. The Department of Justice filed a motion to compel the company to do that earlier Friday.

Comments

Not sure I understand this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that the government can issue a warrant, completely in the spirit of the 4th amendment. However, how can they "deputize" or force independent individuals/organizations to do their bidding?

Re:Not sure I understand this.

[Dunbal]

Welcome to the New World Order.

Re:Not sure I understand this.

[russotto]

It's not a subpoena. It's a writ of assistance. These... don't have the best history on this continent.

Re:Not sure I understand this.

[superwiz]

This isn't evidence. They are asking for a program to be written which currently doesn't exist. They are demanding that work be done by a company which does not want the job of doing that work.

Re:Not sure I understand this.

[Lakitu]

What kind of horseshit retard post is this?

The refusal is not a PR stunt. Publishing an open letter may be, but it's not one that can possibly be used as any kind of justification arguing against their behavior -- it's not marketing for increased sales as much as it is an appeal for attention to an injustice which they might be compelled to accept with the full force of the US Federal Government. It's a PR stunt anyone reading this website should be grateful for, so that this injustice and the US government's despicable behavior can be properly viewed by American citizens.

having been presented with a valid warrant

They have very obviously been helping the FBI with their investigation. They have complied with all warrants, and have probably volunteered more information than they needed to. What they have not complied with is a judicial writ ordering them to compromise the integrity of their operating systems. Stop spreading FUD, retard.

If they're hoping to appeal a 225 year old statute as unconstitutional with a 4-4 SCOTUS, umm... Good luck with that.

The most unbelievable horseshit retarded thing in your post. There is not a "4-4 SCOTUS", there is a SCOTUS, and the overwhelming majority of cases they decide are unaninmous or near unaninmous. Why on earth you would think that the perceived political affiliations of the SCOTUS would overrule their jurisprudence and good sense, let alone why you think this would matter more because the statue is old, is unbelievably fucking retarded. What do either of those have to do with anything? Why would Apple shrug and just give up because an old man died?

Seriously hoping I fell for a troll here, because your childish understanding of our legal and political system, and how you present it as having shaped your opinions on what to do, is un-fucking-believable.

Re:Not sure I understand this.

[Aighearach]

Except that the All Writs Act doesn't grant the power to issue other rulings as warrants. It just allows judges to issue rulings generally that are otherwise legal, without requiring a new law to be passed to allow for each specific ruling a judge might have to make. This is normally used at the end of a civil case for a judge to order some sort of resolution, restitution, or punishment.

It is not otherwise legal for search warrant to compel the creation of new speech, and make no mistake: software is legally speech. A search warrant is for the collection of existing evidence, not for the creation of new speech, or even the creation of new physical objects except where they are copies of information that is evidence.

There is no reason to think that the All Writs Act would have to be thrown out for the courts to smack this over-reach down. And that is most obvious result, because US courts do not appreciate the government asking them to compel speech.

Re:Not sure I understand this.

[graphius]

This is what people do not get. This order is asking Apple to create a new operating system that can be loaded onto the phone as an update, but that has no security features so the FBI can look at the phone.
Whether this is even possible is debatable, however it will be expensive, both in terms of resources needed and in terms of harm of Apple's name.
I guess for some definition it is a PR stunt, because Apple does not want to destroy their image of having a good product.

The plot thickens...

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole charade smells of the government abusing this one request to make precedent for future requests.

Re:The plot thickens...

[rahvin112]

I thought that was obvious. But this little detail would present the government in a VERY bad light. To put this in perspective, that change in password would make anything found on the phone inadmissible in any trial as it indicates the chain of custody was broken.

It will be interesting to see how the judge reacts to Apple's revelation that the only reason the government is locked out of the phone is because the government changed the password.

Re:The plot thickens...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose this is a futile effort here on Slashdot, but maybe perhaps reading the FBI's court brief might answer/allay some of the "smell" of the charade (way to murder a metaphor, m8)

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2716011/Apple-iPhone-Access-MOTION-to-COMPEL.txt
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2716011/Apple-iPhone-Access-MOTION-to-COMPEL.pdf

Moreover, contrary to Apple's recent public statement that the
assistance ordered by the Court “could be used over and over again,
on any number of devices” and that “[t]he government is asking Apple
to hack our own users," the Order is tailored for and limited to this
particular phone. And the Order will facilitate only the FBI's efforts to search the phone; it does not require Apple to conduct the search or access any content on the phone. Nor is compliance with
the Order a threat to other users of Apple products. Apple may
maintain custody of the software, destroy it after its purpose under
the Order has been served, refuse to disseminate it outside of Apple,
and make clear to the world that it does not apply to other devices
or users without lawful court orders. As such, compliance with the
Order presents no danger for any other phone and is not “the
equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions
of locks.”

Re:The plot thickens...

[93 Escort Wagon]

This whole charade smells of the government abusing this one request to make precedent for future requests.

I have to admit... I've been wondering if this whole charade is related to some sort of parallel reconstruction attempt; as in the NSA has figured out how to break AES 256 but doesn't want to publicize that fact.

Re:The plot thickens...

[niftymitch]

I suppose this is a futile effort here on Slashdot, but maybe perhaps reading the FBI's court brief might answer/allay some of the "smell" of the charade (way to murder a metaphor, m8)

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2716011/Apple-iPhone-Access-MOTION-to-COMPEL.txt
https://assets.documentcloud.o...

Moreover, contrary to Apple's recent public statement that the
assistance ordered by the Court “could be used over and over again,
on any number of devices” and that “[t]he government is asking Apple
to hack our own users," the Order is tailored for and limited to this
particular phone. .....

Yesm It is important to note that this court and this writ does not ask for access to all phones
with a magic key. However it does establish a service that other courts (domestic and
international) can compel.

i.e. having demonstrated your ability that this is possible ... we also demand the same service
in pursuit of the issues before this (different?) court.
i.e. having demonstrated your ability we demand you price and deliver such a service for
our internal investigation into suspected illegal affairs by the estranged spouse of, the
priest accused of, the child suspected of taking a selfie photo that qualifies as child
pornography.
Because this is a court order there is only complying.
It is clear that this is the first phone.... many more cases will demand such a service.

Re:The plot thickens...

[dunkindave]

To put this in perspective, that change in password would make anything found on the phone inadmissible in any trial as it indicates the chain of custody was broken.

And you would fail the bar exam. The password change would allow the opposing side (presumably defense) to challenge the validity and source of whatever information was obtained, but it would still be admitted so that the court (judge and/or jury) can decide how much it should be trusted. Think about a person running from the cops who throws a bag during the chase, and after catching him, go back and find the bag. What they find in the bag is still admissible even though it was out of the suspect's and the police's custody for a period of time. Even if a passerby picked it up and took it, then the police later came and asked if he had it, and he gave it to them, it would still be admissible. The defense would try to argue it could have been tampered with, but would likely lose (barring some evidence of tampering or that the second person had a known grudge against the suspect).

Well, THAT'S interesting.

[He Who Has No Name]

They have somebody on the inside to mess with it? Chain of custody for evidence in major federal incidents is usually watertight specifically to avoid this kind of thing.

Re:Well, THAT'S interesting.

[Jeremi]

which again leaves me wondering about the relevance of not being able to back it up to the cloud.

The idea was that they could bring the iPhone back into range of a WiFi network it already knows (e.g. the WiFi network at the terrorists' condo) and within a day or two it would do another automatic cloud backup.

Once that completed, Apple (and therefore the government) would have access to that backup, and therefore could try to break the backup's encryption via brute force without triggering the 10-attempt-failure auto-erase that is present on the phone.

However, since the password was changed, it seems that now the phone will be unable to initiate a backup without someone logging in to the phone first.

Was this guy really a terrorist?

[rsilvergun]

or just a asshat nutcase? He targeted a place he worked. Back in my day we just called this "Going Postal" and acknowledged that whatever flimsy excuse the shooter used was largely irrelevant. I don't know, but I do hate seeing crap like this scaring the hell out of Americans and making them willing to chunk freedom and demands for better living/working conditions out the door if only someone will please protect us from these terrorists...

Re:Was this guy really a terrorist?

[He Who Has No Name]

There were two shooters, and they had documented terrorism involvement prior to this, once the investigation traced back far enough.

Most people don't bring their wives with them to help with "random and impulsive" workplace shootings, or set up a bomb factory in their garage weeks / months ahead of time.

Re:Was this guy really a terrorist?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Was this guy really a terrorist? or just a asshat nutcase?

All terrorists are just asshat nutcases. They are only criminals with guns and bombs and slightly weirder motivations than most other criminals with guns and bombs.

There is no such thing as a terrorist, as a legal distinction. There are military combatants and there are civilians. If a civilian plants a bomb, he's still a civilian. He's just a criminal civilian. If a civilian shoots a bunch of people with an automatic weapon, he's still a civilian. He's just a criminal civilian. If a civilian gets together with a bunch of his buddies and plants bombs and shoots a bunch of people with automatic weapons, he's still just a civilian.

We even have a name for that. We call them mobsters.

Attempting to create terrorism as a legal distinction is stupid twice. Once because you're playing in to their narrative, giving them far more credence than they deserve, and twice because it's being used to foment fear and trample rights here at home. One is cowardly, the other treasonous.

Taliban, Al Queda, blah blah, these are just mobs. Organized crime. Treat them as such.

Re:Really ???

[tranquilidad]

A known way around the encryption, if you backup to iCloud, is to reset the password on the iCloud account and restore the iCloud backup to a new device.

Re:what changed? permanent policy needed

[whipslash]

To quote the article:

Asked why the company is pushing back so hard against this particular FBI request when it has assisted the agency in the past, Apple executives noted that the San Bernadino case is fundamentally different from others in which it was involved. Apple has never before been asked to build an entirely new version of its iOS operating system designed to disable iPhone security measures.

Exit process for terminated employees

[RubberDogBone]

This phone belonged to the place where this guy worked. So when he murdered a bunch of people, I am sure HR started a process to terminate his network access and revoke his use of things like this phone, in part by changing the passwords.

He may have died in a shower of bullets but god damn it Sally in HR was gonna cross every T and dot every i on that termination form!

Enrique Marguez

[Irate Engineer]

The FBI arrested the guy that supplied the guns used in the shooting. He is currently charged with providing material support to terrorists, which means they need to find evidence that he provided the weapons with the intent to support this particular attack. Otherwise they probably only can push weapons-related charges.

As he was buddies with the owner of the iPhone, odds are all they evidence they want against this guy is on that phone.

Password change was by San Bernadino county

[Swampash]

http://www.politico.com/f/?id=...

DOJ filing, page 18, footnote 7.

(credit: https://twitter.com/grimmelm/s... on twitter)

It's getting ridiculous

[superwiz]

"Ownership" is the right to say "No." If Apple can't say no to writing a new way to access their own devices, then they don't own Apple. The FBI is not asking for access. They are asking for a service to be performed.... and not by any one individual... by a company. Last I heard, there is no enlistment right for corporations (yeah, yeah, despite corporate personhood). You can buy something, you can lend something. But if you can't tell someone "no" when they request your services, they own you. And FBI does not own Apple. They are not asking for something which already exists. They asking for work to be performed at their behest. This case is becoming about more than the right to privacy. It's becoming about the right to not be deputized at a judge's pen stroke. If Apple can be compelled to write code because FBI so chooses, then anyone can.

Re:It's getting ridiculous

[tomkost]

There is a big difference between a cop telling you not to speed, and cop or court telling you MUST speed. What's happening here is that they are attempting to compel Apple to do something they don't want to. That's completely different than telling them to stop breaking the law or punishing them for breaking the law.

You're oversimplifying it

[rsilvergun]

And just adding fuel to the fire. Real terrorist have an agenda. They're trying to accomplish something. Asshat nutcases are either mentally ill or financially desperate.

There's two distinct classes there. You can't do much about the mentally ill except watch out for them and give them what help our science has. For the destitute you can stop oppressing them. We do horrible, horrible things to people in the middle east. We do worse to folks in South America. These people don't hate our freedom, they hate what we've done to them. Isis aren't terrorists. They're a bunch of men with no jobs and no wives. I suspect the shooter in San Bernadino was severely mentally ill.

Given a chance most people will choose honesty if their brain chemistry allows it. That's why the Mob eventually got busted. Rather than rail on against them as criminals start asking why they turned to crime in the first place. Start getting at root causes and the real social distortions that take what started out as a young boy and turn him into a killer ready to throw it all away.

Re:tampering with evidence

[Sir Holo]

9. Apples refusal doesn't have jack to do with user privacy concerns it is all about Apple's bottom line.

The two are one-and-the-same. If users find that their privacy is not respected, then they will buy products from another company.

That is, it is a smart business move on Apple's part.

Not a 4th Amendment issue, per se.

[hey!]

I don't think you've got the issue here quite right. There's a couple reasons to believe that the 4th Amendment is not applicable in this case. The user of the phone is dead, so a lot of his privacy and autonomy interests are nullified now. He has no papers or effects that belong to him because he's a legal non-person. At best you could argue a chilling effect for other iPhone users -- and that's a pretty good argument. But thing this wasn't even his phone, it belonged to his employer. So while I think the 4th should be applied to phones owned or leased by living users, if the employer has no objection to the government searching the phone I don't see how the 4th applies in this case.

I've heard two serious issues actually raised, namely (1) that what the government is asking Apple to do is bad for the privacy of Apple's customers and (2) that the government has overstepped its authority in what it can compel Apple to do. This isn't a case of Apple sharing documents it has access to with the government, in fact Apple has already done that; the government is in effect asking Apple to develop a new tool that will give it easy access to any iPhone, any time, not just this one.

Aside from the fact that if Apple did it's job well (what are the chances?) developing this tool should be non-trivial, in absence of some kind of established oversight mechanism for using such toolsk the public shouldn't be too keen on letting the government have them.