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FBI May Be Opening A Security Hole To Federal Agencies (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: In its rush to gather information, the FBI blew its chance to retrieve data from the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists when it ordered his iCloud passcode to be reset shortly after the attacks. Now in its fervor to force Apple to create software that can break its own encryption algorithm, the FBI may be opening a security hole to federal agencies. Over the past four years, the federal government has largely shifted its use of mobile devices from Blackberry to iPhones. One major reason for that is -- you guessed it -- the strong native security. If Apple creates an iPhone skeleton key, it not only threatens the public's privacy, but the security of the federal government as well.
how's that Hope thing working out?
Given how thoroughly large government organizations keep getting hacked - such as we've recently seen with the OPM and IRS - it's not as if there's any information on government employees' phones which isn't already in the hands of the Chinese, Russians, and various criminal syndicates.
#DeleteChrome
The security of the iPhone is hinged upon OS binaries signed by an Apple security certificate. The FBI wants Apple to sign and/or produce binaries with weakened security. Having achieved this, the FBI and all parties in possession of said binaries simply have to swap out the old secure binaries for their version since the phone trusts anything signed by Apple.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Apple rather slickly has each update of each recent iOS be specific to a phone. ONE physical phone. Probably to prevent the skeleton key scenario.
Each "copy" (not really an appropriate word here) of the update is unique (I don't know the details) which makes it hard to just use the same binary to on every phone. Each "copy" only works on one phone.
I find it hard to take the FBI seriously on iPhones when their own IT department's security is so lax.
Agent Mulder's work issued computer didn't even have a password protected lockscreen when the machine was idle. Thank goodness it was only Scully/Miller/Einstein - anyone from a double agent to a passer-by such as a cleaner or a vending machine technician could have accessed sensitive, classified information.
If it is possible for Apple to "create a backdoor" after the fact, then that itself is a back door. The FBI wants apple to release a version of it's OS that can disable certain security features and push that update out to the terrorist's phone without any confirmation from the (now deceased) user. Apple seems to confirm that this is indeed possible and has said that it would be dangerous to even create this version of it's OS because it might fall into the wrong hands and be abused. I would argue that it is already in the wrong hands, because it is in the hands of Apple, and even if Apple fights the FBI, they may be forced by a court to cooperate.
What Apple *should* do (and should have already done), is to create a security system that they would not have the ability to help the FBI hack into. They have already indicated they are working on this.
The IOS security is already broken. The only thing keeping the FBI from cracking it, is their own incompetence, and Apple's limited will to challenge the government. I doubt many people at Apple are willing to go to jail over this (nor should they be).
My advice to Apple, is to help the FBI hack into this phone, and come out with a real security system that is actually secure.
The skeleton key applies to the court system. If the court forces Apple to open this phone, the FBI will start filing motions to open thousands of other phones. Sort of like FISA I imagine it being a rubber stamp process.
The House Committee on the Judiciary Hearings, The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans’ Security and Privacy (Streamed live on Mar 1, 2016) :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Try around the 4:05 point in. 200 phones are in line for the same skeleton key needs. As mentioned, that federally demanded, universal "skeleton key" will be ready as an overlap for State and Federal courts
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Nope. Companies are creating things LEO's cannot defeat. (and in the case of iPhones, something even Apple cannot defeat. Unless they start recording the UIDs of every device.)
Except, of course, the court order specifically allows for Apple to NOT give the binaries to the FBI and the FBI requested it that way to address exactly that issue. But hey, I just read the writ, not the bullshit lies on the Internet.
Okay, I'll bite.
What happens the next time the FBI (or any other LEA) has an iPhone that they need information off of? The FBI has divulged that there already exist about a dozen phones that need breaking. They have also admitted -- in public testimony -- that this case would set a precedent.
So please tell me, specifically: how exactly is this just about a single phone, when the actual head of the actual FBI has admitted that it is categorically NOT about a single phone?
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Apple hasn't written the software they need to do it. It doesn't exist right now. Once they write it, it's written. Precedent is set and a floodgate of requests will begin and there won't be much Apple can do to make them stop.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote something similar on this topic a few weeks ago for a blog post at work, though I went into more technical detail than TFA did:
http://blog.acumensecurity.net...
AC the "revoke" issue wont work to try and keep it for "one" physical. The request is for code that is on a drive that is given to the US gov. The computer code can then be used to open product lines at a state and federal level.
The code as a method on a computer hard drive is been conscripted for a generation of phones, not one physical phone.
Again the House Committee on the Judiciary Hearings, The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans’ Security and Privacy (Streamed live on Mar 1, 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
4:44 and onto 4:45 has the details on the request made.
Tool was to be put on a hard drive.
Hard drive with the new tool was to be sent to US gov.
A gov computer would then perform the task. Portable, reusable.
More details at (March 2, 2016)
http://nypost.com/2016/03/02/f...
"“The request we got from the government in this case is, ‘Take this tool and put it on a hard drive, send it to the FBI,’ and they’d load it onto their computer,”"
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I'll address this in a few parts.
:)
1) BB was a good platform for its time. It's near absolute inflexibility from a development perspective made it a good platform for security since it was hard enough to code, it was pretty hard to hack. Palm Pilot wasn't bad either in its time.
2) BB10 is not BB. It is based on QNX which (I have extremely extensive experience coding for at a system level in direct coordination with QNX themselves) and is otherwise an entirely new operating system consisting of millions of lines of code produced by hundreds of developers over a short span of a few years.
3) To suggest that much new and untested code (no it hasn't been) is sheer silliness and doesn't belong in a forum for people who claim to understand technology. It is mathematically impossible to develop that much code that fast with that many people and have a secure platform.
So, let's talk about this... an iPhone and a Blackberry compared side by side are equally insecure. Sure, the obvious routes probably aren't a problem, but hackers don't use obvious routes... well sometimes the do... depends on what you consider obvious
I have always hated people saying things like "I don't even run antivirus, I'm running a Mac. Unlike a PC, it's secure!". I would respond "Just because no one is openly hacking it currently doesn't mean it's secure".
BES is secure until the messages hit the phones. Once they reach the phone, all security is absolutely gone. Secure messages require secure keys. Secure keys are 3072 bits or longer (for now according to the NSA... this means they can crack 3072 but they believe others can't). Unless you are manually typing 768 hexadecimal characters into the phone every time you log in to use BES, the key used for decrypting your messages is stored on the phone somewhere.
The key to decrypt the keys is probably a pin code or possibly up to a 10 character password convenient to type on the BB keyboard without too many shifts, controls, etc...
If I can locate the store of the key, locate the code to decrypt the key, find the location of 2 or more messages which contain headers (all do), then with the proper computational power, I can obtain the key to decrypt all messages stored by BES on the phone. It's only a matter of CPU. While the number of possible passwords to decrypt the keys increases exponentially with each character in length, the fact a laptop can crack 6 characters in a few second, 8 characters in about 10 minutes, throw 65536 CPUs or a few FPGAs at the problem and it would do 10 characters in about 10 minutes.
I never have been figuring out why so many idiots think that BES is secure... to decrypt messages, the phone has to be storing the information required to decrypt them. At some level there must be a way to read the messages and the security isn't as strong as the door and the lock securing it. It's as strong as the box next to the door holding a spare key that is guarded by a simple code.
I suppose it's asking too much of the Feds to have properly implemented Apple's mobile device management protocols, so that when the next Ed Snowden takes his government-issued iPhone to Moscow with him, the Feds can read his itinerary from it?
The founding fathers were just as big a bunch of dicks as the current lot. Often worse.
The "justice for all" bullshit was because they were pissed at what British Parliament did to the colonies by taxing them. King George III wasn't able to do much more than watch from the side lines. He was pissed at them too.
The truth is, more than half possibly 3/4 of the founding fathers probably would have hung Tim Cook and beat him until he cried like a girl and screamed "open it, open it".
I always wondered if those guys were so great and wise and pure and all that shit... why would they write a constitution which more or less would so easily let the country devolve into some religion where we have now existed for decades without a single amendment to improve the document by modernizing it for the times? Where's the review requirement? We treat the document as an absolute as if it is perfect in every way and to question that is borderline treason. Where is the part of the document which would protect civil liberties regarding electronic data protection? It's not there because the founding fathers didn't absolutely require that the constitution is reviewed and updated.
It was written by a bunch of pissy little bitches and a poet or two. They were all pissy at England and wrote a document to provide freedom from their oppressors for a million people or so and didn't give a shit whether it lasted 200 years in the future and certainly had no clue it would eventually be used to govern 400 million people from every country, race and religion as equals.
If you want to be true to yourself, with a few exceptions, these guys were mostly soulmates with Donald Trump. They weren't wise, they weren't great, they didn't shoot lightning bolts from their eyes and they didn't shit daffodils when they sat upon the bowl. They were men who :
a) Wanted to secure power for themselves and their families
b) Represented a group of truly fucked up people who believed righteousness was the Salem Witch Trials.
c) Believed black people were less valuable than dogs since you could love a dog.
d) Believed that religious freedom meant you should be free to believe in any form of Christianity you want.
e) The one odd ball or two who felt it was a chance to do something wholesome and good.
Don't place politicians pedestals. They might make impressive art, but they sure as hell are nothing more than people and very rarely are they more than sales people.
As soon as they make it public that they can open any iPhone they can get a court order for, people with something to hide from them will move to using more secure applications which are written by companies or people the FBI can't so easily influence with the American legal system.
Better yet, they'll move to using programs that are written by people who added security and wouldn't know how to hack them themselves.
So, basically, all they're doing is educating the criminals to use technologies that are more secure written by companies outside of their jurisdiction.
If they open this phone, it basically will guarantee they will never be able to get to "terrorist data" ever again.
How come no one ever bitches about this? I bet you that 99% of all terrorists have moved to using something more secure by now.
They didn't refuse to cooperate, they refused to engage in the process to develop a tool to defeat their own security system.
It's kind of the difference between giving a mugger your wallet when he demands it, and bringing him to the bank to cosign for his Small Crime Business Loan then babysit his kids for a few hours while he goes and mugs some other people.
You, and the FBI, are assuming that apple is even capable of writing such software.
I'm not so convinced. Bruce Schneier has frequently said: "Anybody can create a security system he himself cannot break", his point is in favour of open security and encryption standards of course - the point of a security system is that somebody else shouldn't be able to break it, being unable yourself is no evidence of that. But it also has some legitimacy as a more direct claim.
Apple was responding to the market pressures that came post-Snowden in particular, and the best response was to make that thing as secure as their best engineers could figure out how to do - which, by definition, is a system MORE secure than their best engineers can figure out how to BREAK.
The odds are, in fact, quite strongly against apple actually having the skills to do what they are being asked - though I doubt they would readily say that in public, computer security engineers would understand it but the public may well fail to understand it. The last thing you want to do is make a public statement that sounds to customers like you're declaring yourself incompetent. ,to experts, however mean the opposite - it would mean they had been sincere when trying to build the most secure system they could. The most secure system anybody can build is a system more secure than they themselves can break.
It would
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I've always been hugely in favour of jailing CEOs. If the company commits a crime for which *I* would go to jail, then their fucking CEO should be sharing a cell with me.
How ironic that the first time it may actually happen - it's because of refusing to do something which shouldn't be a crime and is actually GOOD for the public... where was this zealous law enforcement against the fraudulent banksters in 2008 ? Where was this for all the companies that dumped toxic shit in people's drinking water ? Where's this "jail the CEO" desire for the executives at VW ?
Hell apple has done a lot of shit I think Cook OUGHT to be in jail for - their use of child-labor in unsafe sweatshops is near the top of that list. But the first glimpse that Cook may actually serve time it's a possible contempt charge for a rare occasion of a corporation actually doing the RIGHT thing (for utterly selfish reasons of course).
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Well, they *did* intend for it to be reviewed and updated continously. James Madison suggested it be reviewed by a major national congress based on referendums every 10 years.
Their big mistake was not mandating that in the words - so now it's used like holy writ and it's authors like prophets, exactly what they knew better than to want !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *