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FBI Hires Cellebrite To Crack San Bernadino iPhone (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the who-needs-Apple-anyway dept.

tlhIngan writes: Earlier this week, the FBI asked the court for a continuance so it could do some research into a proposed method of cracking the [iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California shooters]. It turns out the FBI has contracted Cellebrite for $15,000 to break into the phone. Cellebrite is an Israeli software provider specializing in mobile phone forensics software. If they succeed, it would mean Apple would no longer need to be involved.

15 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. $15,000 by wisnoskij · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wow, they should of asked for more. They would of had to pay 10 times, at least, that in any sort of legal battle.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    1. Re:$15,000 by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wow, they should of asked for more. They would of had to pay 10 times, at least, that in any sort of legal battle.

      Cellebrite will likely reap 100 times that much in new business from the publicity this generates. It's not always about making a quick buck, but about making millions of bucks over the longer term.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  2. Only $15,000???? by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All that bullshit because the FBI wanted to save $15 thousand dollars?

    Someone should be fired for such a dramatically bad decision as fighting it out in the court of public opinion, let alone federal court.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Only $15,000???? by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All that bullshit because the FBI wanted to save $15 thousand dollars?

      On the other hand, $15,000 is pretty damn cheap for a global marketing campaign. When Cellebrite can't crack the iPhone, the bullshit will get cranked up to fever pitch.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    2. Re:Only $15,000???? by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No.

      the FBI wanted to save 15,000 x A_LOT_OF_PHONES. Also, if the exploit is the NAND copy exploit as thought, newer phones can't be hacked this way, 15,000 or no.

      They wanted to set a precedent. There's ton of iPhones out there waiting to be cracked. Remember these are the guys that run Stingrays without telling you.

      As far as the Public Opinion goes, they just guessed wrong. Here's a phone, probably with nothing useful on it. But TERRORISM!!! MUSLIMS!!!! We still have some aspects of the P.AT.R.I.O.T. A.C.T (i write it that way because the back-ronym was silly) around because we were scared then. They thought that Apple would fold, and the public would all support the hack. They guessed wrong.

    3. Re:Only $15,000???? by bloodstar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, the $15K is to justify dropping the case by rending the whole situation moot and save the FBI from having a court decision against them. A court decision against them would resonate for years, so you drop the case, avoid that precedent. Then pick a different case against a company who doesn't have great lawyers. Win that case, and there you go, precedent that favors you.

      --
      "The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
  3. Re:Israel by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, actually they don't. You don't see commercial airliners (or military planes for that matter), ships, cars (including EVs), appliances ("durable goods"), semiconductors, mobile phones, or really almost any kind of manufacturing in Israel, except a couple of firearms makers maybe. They do do a lot with IP however; several semiconductor companies have design centers there.

    It's true, Israel does have some impressive and unique technologies developed there, compared to its size and its state of security. A lot of their technology is military-oriented, for obvious reasons. They've done an impressive job of building a 1st-world nation (economically speaking) in a small place which used to be nothing special less than a century ago. But "the latest in technology"? No, sorry. They are not self-sufficient in any sense. They can't even make many of the weapons systems that defend them; they buy them from the US (e.g. fighter jets).

  4. Re:Chain of custody? by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Chain of custody does not matter in regards to TERRORISM.... and if you are against that then you hate america.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  5. Re:Chain of custody? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you maintain chain of custody of the evidence if you hand it over to a company that's not governed by our laws?

    If the Israeli company recovers data that gives them leads to other suspected terrorists, does the FBI have legal authority to pursue those leads when the information was "extracted" by a foreign company and it may or may not be fabricated? The only proof that they have that the information was really on the phone is because this company said so.

    There is no need for maintaining a chain of custody unless it will be used as evidence. Since anything from this phone would most likely be used to identify potential suspects or persons of interest what they get is no different than any other tip.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  6. Re:Israel by sixsixtysix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    because we give them billions every year?

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    ...
  7. Re: apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Neither side requires burden of proof at the beginning.

    The "conversation" goes like this:

    Content owner: "this looks like ours, service please take it down" /takes it down
    Uploader: "no, this is mine. YouTube , please put it back up" /restores content.

    Sadly, the conversation actually goes like this:
    Content owner's bot: "this looks like ours, YouTube please take it down"
    YouTube bot: takes it down
    YouTube bot: all revenue from your channel now goes to Content owner
    YouTube bot: copyright strike against you, you can't upload a video over 15 minutes
    Uploader: "no, this is mine. YouTube, please put it back up"
    Uploader, a week later: "Heloooo! YouTube?! Is there anyone there?! I filled out all your forms, but nothing happened"
    Uploader, a month later: "Do any actual humans work at Google? "
    Uploader eventually dies of old age

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  8. Re:Israel by Quzak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because of all the money the US gives to them...you know...instead of upkeep on our infrastructure.

    --
    Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
  9. Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The judge can't compel you to do something illegal. Neither can a police officer.

  10. FBI have known this all along by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    At this stage I'd have to conclude that the FBI have known about this all along. Cellebrite is not a new company and they have supplied equipment and services to the FBI and other agencies on multiple occasions.

    If they have had this option all along, why bother with Apple? The only reason was to set a precedent for the modern day use of All of Writs Act against a high profile tech company. Also, if they were successful with Apple, then it would give the FBI and other agencies leverage against Microsoft and Google.

    According to the FBI they have other phones they wanted to unlock as well, so why wait until now? Because this phone is related to terrorism, and 'terrorism' is a trigger word for the hearts and minds of the American public. I suspect that they thought a company with a high reliance on their PR profile would crumble in the face of claims of abetting terrorism. Maybe they thought that Apple wouldn't put up much of a fight, or that they would roll over because they have helped the government in the past. The reality certainly hasn't played out that way for the FBI.

    Why give up now? The FBI have acknowledged that the personal phones the couple used were destroyed (which is where the key information would have been) and that the iPhone was not likely to have had much if any useful information. It is possible they have already unlocked the iPhone and have found this out. It is also possible that the FBI's legal team thought they would lose against Apple's latest filing.

    Where to from here? Hard to say. Both Apple and the FBI will try to spin this in their favour. The process has already been classified by the DoD, but this is probably more to prevent Apple from trying to claim breach of their trade secrets by the Cellebrite.

  11. Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them by Etcetera · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The judge can't compel you to do something illegal. Neither can a police officer.

    That's begging the question slightly. "Following the directions of a peace officer" in an emergency is on the rulebooks in most states. This is why a cop can flip traffic around and tell you to go the wrong way down a one-way street because there's an accident in an intersection, despite the presence of a marked "One way" sign, which is usually what wrong-way laws are keyed off.

    Don't confuse "illegal" with "unsafe" or "unreasonable"... The latter standards apply more broadly.

    --
    Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,