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FBI Delays Case Against Apple; May Have Way To Break Phone (threatpost.com)
msm1267 writes: The FBI has delayed its case against Apple less than a day before a scheduled court hearing and showdown over its demands that Apple help unlock a terrorist's iPhone. The government late Monday afternoon filed a motion to vacate its case, putting a halt to a saga that began in mid-February when a federal magistrate ordered Apple to help the FBI access a phone belonging to one of the shooters involved in last December's attack that killed 14 in San Bernardino, Calif.
The motion also indicates that the FBI may have found a way onto the phone without Apple's help. "On Sunday, March 20, 2016, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking [shooter Syed] Farook's iPhone," the motion says. "Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook's iPhone. If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple Inc. ("Apple") set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case." Update 3/22/16 at 01:05:00 GMT: The story was updated to reflect the correct information that the case was delayed, not dropped. A federal judge agreed to postpone the oral arguments between Apple and the U.S. government.
The motion also indicates that the FBI may have found a way onto the phone without Apple's help. "On Sunday, March 20, 2016, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking [shooter Syed] Farook's iPhone," the motion says. "Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook's iPhone. If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple Inc. ("Apple") set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case." Update 3/22/16 at 01:05:00 GMT: The story was updated to reflect the correct information that the case was delayed, not dropped. A federal judge agreed to postpone the oral arguments between Apple and the U.S. government.
I certainly don't think that any information about this phone (or some new approach to getting info off it) is what prompted the change here. Giving up at this stage means one of two things:
1. They flinched. They thought they'd lose, either in court or in public opinion - so they kicked the can down the road.
2. They've already won; they know that legislation is about to become more favorable for them, and they'll have the tools they want without needing a precedent here.
3. They've already lost; they know that there will soon be enough robust/secure devices in the wild that having leverage over companies like Apple won't actually help them (because the Apple's of the world may not be able to break their own devices)
We'll find out which it is over the next few years.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
During Tim Cook's presentation today, I couldn't help thinking that they were pushing CareKit to make people start to consider how much information about their health would be on these devices, and who else could potentially have access to it. I could simply be overthinking it, but it very well could have been that he was trying to win over more people to Apple's side of the argument.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
So the government is dropping the case because some third party might have a way to break into the phone? Might have a way? So they haven't even verified that it works before dropping the case? Why not let the case proceed and if they come to find out later that the 3rd party method works then drop the case?
Surely it can't be to save taxpayer money. That has never been a criteria for any branch of government when it comes to prosecution (errr...persecution). Maybe the FBI had a way to break into the phone all along and this was just a shakedown of Apple.
Are we really to believe that some mysterious "3rd party" just suddenly appears a day before the case is to go to court? I call BS on this whole thing.
There was always a way for them to gain access to that particular phone because it was an older model that didn't have the security features of their more recent devices to prevent those kinds of attacks. Basically some hacker found that they could hook a device up the phones innards and just try brute forcing the 4-digit PIN and that if they cut all power to the device on a failed attempt quickly enough that the system wouldn't register the failed attempt and wipe the device.
The FBI could always get into this phone, but they wanted Apple to give them the keys to get into any iPhone anytime that they wanted to. The only thing the FBI has probably done is drive Apple and other device makers to build security systems that they have no way of exploiting themselves, even if they have the ability to write a custom OS.
The government needs to stop trying to illegally invade the privacy of its citizens. All it's really doing is to hurt US businesses because foreign countries don't want anything to do with a country that's going to spy on all of their information or communications.
My money's on the NSA.
But whoever it is, I believe they knew they had this option all along.
They had the best experts in the world telling them that it could be broken, but they pursued the matter in the courts instead.
I can see the fnords!
Sure, anything is hackable, give the time. The point is that they are trying to make a secure box and they are standing up for our privacy. I don't think it is just marketing in this case. Apple's CEO is gay, and I think he, more than anyone realizes the implication of leaked private data. This is how governments own you, both foreign and domestic. These really nice guys swoop up all your breadcrumbs and look for anything that could be misconstrued or taken out of context, then threaten you with it.
Let's take a look at EmoWindt's phone and see what we can find.
That doesn't feel good does it?
Knowing that your location data, texts, calls, browser history, apps, music collection, notes, could be made public.
That is what Crapple is fighting against, and I hope they win. I don't want to live in Orwell's 1984.
Don't think the lawyers are necessarily better or worse. Apple has the larger budget to spend on this one issue. The higher pay also does not mean that the government is stuck with the leftovers who couldn't find a better job; I have a friend who quit being a lawyer to join the FBI as an agent with much lower pay. Some people value public service.
Actually, it was Apple who qualified the changes. They claim it would take a handful of engineers spending four to six weeks, or something thereabouts. So, I guess for Apple that's relatively "minor". For a one-programmer shop like mine, that's fairly significant. Depends on your perspective, I guess.
My feeling is that the FBI saw that their chances in court were not looking great, so decided to accept the outside offers (NSA?) for cracking the phone that had in fact been available to them all this time. The excuse that they no longer need to crack the phone also allows them to back down without losing face.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Again, trying to be fair to Apple, their new hardware usually is better. The secure enclave, which is a buzzword I've tried to avoid using, does sound extremely secure. Per-device IDs, key doesn't leave the chip, on-chip AES-256-CTR encryption that operates on the DMA channel, PIN and/or passcode never stored anywhere. I mean, it's pretty damn secure. It's hard to imagine how to reliably attack it even with physical access. Especially if the data is important, and screwing up means you don't get a second chance, ever.
NO, next step is to find a whole load of "evidence" on the phone that could have prevented something or other.
"See, this is what Apple's delay has cost us!"
No sig today...