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San Bernadino D.A. Says Shooter's Phone Could Harbor "Cyber Pathogen" (theguardian.com)

Posted by timothy on from the and-they-say-law-school-stifles-the-imagination dept.

Mr.Intel writes with the Guardian's report that : San Bernadino D.A. has a novel argument for why Apple should be forced to provide the FBI with tools to decrypt the iPhone once used by mass-shooter Syed Rizwan Farook: a "dormant cyber pathogen," he says, could have been unleashed by the county's electronic infrastructure, and only by examining the phone's content can any really be sure. From the article: The questionable claim comes from Ramos's amicus brief in the case, filed with the US District Court on Thursday afternoon. In it, Ramos supports the FBI's argument that Apple should be compelled to build a one-use version of its operating system to load on to the seized phone – used by the mass-murderer, but still technically property of his employer, San Bernardino county – in order to weaken the security and allow the Government to brute-force the shooter's passcode. ... Ramos said: 'The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino County's infrastructure and poses a continuing threat to the citizens of San Bernardino County'.

11 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yesterday's retracted news by Travis+Mansbridge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You don't have to read the news to know there's no way this is a serious possibility.

  2. Unicorns by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps the phone contains unicorns farting rainbows. I am sure that looking for unicorns would be good reason to crack the phone.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  3. Re:Yesterday's retracted news by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No need to even speculate, it's just absurdity on the surface. A totally non-technical person made up a new "security" term to scare people. If you want to find a link countering it, it's trivial - including quotes from the DA that he made it up...

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

  4. Re:Yesterday's retracted news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Its in the article that Apple's iphone security guy said that the "cyber pathogen" was a unicorn. I'm not surprised at the D.A. lying to make his case. Cops do it all the time. Politicians are born to lie.

  5. What IQ test you have to fail to become a DA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Next filing Ramos will argue there might be a cyber demon hiding there just like the one on Buffy, ready to eat the souls of all Americans except the atheists.

  6. Anyone's Phone... by seven+of+five · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you assert the existence of a "cyber-pathogen," there's no reason to stop at one phone... why not decrypt and search every phone? Only way to be sure...

    1. Re:Anyone's Phone... by aralin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You remind me of the people who were so afraid of vaccines harming their kid, they didn't let the doctor vaccinate him and then the kid drowned in their backyard pool, because drowning is still actually the #1 cause of children under 5 dying.

      You are so afraid of the terrorists trying to kill us by poisoning our water, that we spend trillions on trying to prevent it, which forces us to try to save a million dollars by switching a water source and poisoning water for tens of thousands of people.

      You, uninformed citizen, are the number one leading cause of death, suffering and loss of freedom.

      --
      If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
    2. Re:Anyone's Phone... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly this. People worry about terrorism like it's a daily occurrence here. Even if we include the 9-11 attack (which was clearly an outlier), there have been something like 4,000 people killed in terrorist attacks on American soil in the past 15 years. That's an average of 267 a year. Given that there are about 308 million Americans, that means we have a 0.00009% chance of being killed by a terrorist every year.

      According to the CDC, 10 people die of drowning every day. That would be 3,650 people a year or over 13 times the risk of being killed in a terrorist attack. But you don't see a "War on Drowning", will calls to ban swimming pools and erect giant fences around lakes. You don't see plumbers being called in for questioning on suspicion of installing a bathtub that could lead to someone drowning.

      There are always going to be wackos who threaten lives. We can be smart about finding them and stopping them, but the risk they pose isn't nearly high enough to justify the amount of liberties we are giving up. Whether we should give up liberties at any risk level is another story, of course, but the insanely low risk of terrorist attack makes it all the more ridiculous.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  7. Then unlocked iPhone = biggest threat by burni2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the iPhone holds a "Cyber Pathogen" then it must be destroyed, because the second that iPhone is unlocked by an Apple intervention the cyber pathogen could spread through the whole United States and infect everything from your pocket calculator to your android smartphone.

    It is a threat that must be destroyed, incinerate that phone right now

    (Because I'm just fed up with the whole order to encrypt and denying battle of Apple, that we should all know is a big charrade by Apple, because if it had been requested silently they'd done it.)

    Just get it over with!

  8. Re:Lolwut by Barny · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At this point if Apple do not assist, we can only assume they are harboring TERRORISTS. How long with these monsters be allowed to go unhindered on US soil? Drone strikes are of course, the only answer.

    --
    ...
    /me sighs
  9. Re:Yesterday's retracted news by meerling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except a Trojan and a Virus are two entirely different types of malware.
    Back to the topic though, the D.A. is talking out his ass regurgitating hollywood movie bullshit in an attempt to stir up fear in the ignorant masses to get what he wants. I bet he still believes computers run on pixie dust.