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Snowden: FBI's Claim It Can't Unlock The San Bernardino iPhone Is 'Bullshit' (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Edward Snowden, the whistleblower whose NSA revelations sparked a debate on mass surveillance, has waded into the arguments over the FBI's attempt to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino shooters. The FBI says that only Apple can deactivate certain passcode protections on the iPhone, which will allow law enforcement to guess the passcode by using brute-force. Talking via video link from Moscow to the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, Snowden said: "The FBI says Apple has the 'exclusive technical means' to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that's bullshit." Snowden then went on to tweet his support for an American Civil Liberties Union report saying that the FBI's claims in the case are fraudulent. Apple's clash with the FBI comes to a head in California this month when the two will meet in federal court to debate whether the smartphone manufacturer should be required to weaken security settings on the iPhone of the shooter.
The FBI wants a tool that is ready for a long list of other domestic cases. A tool that is portable, federal support for state law enforcement ready. The domestic, court ready, master key for a generation of phones.
"“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,” "(March 2, 2016)
http://nypost.com/2016/03/02/f...
Its not a "one-off" or just for this case tool.
The NSA owns that tool set, missions, contracts, bids, contractors and the wins that result. The funding and fame follow the wins . The no bid contracts and experts gravitate to the NSA ensuring every generation of telco product is wide open to the US gov and mil. Only the NSA can then secure, support or plan any such missions.
When federal and state law enforcement get in on the bids for the same tool sets? Any state contractor, federal contractor can then sell their tools at a low cost and the national publicity goes to the FBI.
Political leaders see new hi tech contractor jobs in FBI support in their states and the contractors that get the new work can the support the local political leaders re election that got them the new FBI contracts.
Everyone is now winning, new federal cash is flowing out, political leaders helped their local hi tech sector with new gov work, the FBI has a flood of new cases in open court and wins.
What was the NSA's missions, fame, role, new experts, no bid contracts, code and skills now in the hands of state officials, local law enforcement, federal gov workers, anyone working with US federal law enforcement around the world. All the ex staff and former staff who got invited in on the methods.
Anyone interesting stops using US branded trapdoor and backdoor ready turnkey network, telco and computer devices.
A few decades of easy tracking, voice prints, effortless decryption is lost in months in open court.
The cults, faith groups, criminals, dealers, embassy "agents" who once had to be seen with a phone just to keep the cover as been a normal person that was always reachable all go dark.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Well, Snowden's statement is bullshit. The firmware code is signed and without the private key to sign the firmware, it won't run on the iPhone even if you can perfectly write another one. Unless he means the FBI is having Apple's signing private key. If he believes so, he should prove it.
Achille Talon
Hop!
The key is stored in a part of the security chip that can not be copied, otherwise you could just read the key and decrypt the phone. There is no way to image/copy/read the key, other than perhaps an electron microscope.
The ACLU's site explains it quite well. It has nothing to do with the firmware, it's the idea of copying the Toshiba NAND chip first. Install a test socket onto the board, then start running the password attempts. Get locked out, or the chip erased, pop another NAND chip in with the same image written on it. Repeat until you get in. This would probably take a long time, copying and swapping a chip for every ten attempts. But a process that is annoying is still a long ways from a process that is technically "impossible" as the FBI is claiming.
Most people in the US use encryption, they just don't realize it. Anyone who's ever checked their bank account online has used encryption.
The 5C model does not have a secure enclave chip.
No, you're wrong. The NSA is a DoD office and *in theory* bound by posse comitatus and cannot be used for domestic purposes. The head of the NSA is always a commissioned general officer.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Posse comitatus was a Congressional act, and you can see in the text below "except in cases..." Congress also passed some other acts...FISA and Patriot come to mind...that have changed the rules. So, the "theory" has been OBE for a while.
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
Just another day in Paradise