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

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.

Comments

apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[Joe_Dragon]

apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them. Now will they be that much of a dick?

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[Lumpy]

I for one hope so. The DMCA is a piece of shit legislation, and if apple uses it it will be the only time it is used properly. to poke a stick in the eye of government goons.

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[silas_moeckel]

Have fun with that. THEM Hey FBI can ya get me a court order to do this? FBI Sure here ya go. The judge said I could is a rather good defence for a civil issue.

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[shawn2772]

apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them.

You think? The DMCA does try to ban circumvention of security measures that are used to protect copyright, but I don't think that's the case here. The DMCA doesn't ban general breaking of security.

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[Sneftel]

Cute, but no. Sayeth the DMCA:

Law Enforcement, Intelligence, and Other Government
Activities.--This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized
investigative, protective, information security, or intelligence
activity of an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a
State, or a political subdivision of a State, or a person acting
pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political
subdivision of a State..

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[Sneftel]

Cute, but no. Sayeth the DMCA:

Law Enforcement, Intelligence, and Other Government
Activities.--This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized
investigative, protective, information security, or intelligence
activity of an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a
State, or a political subdivision of a State, or a person acting
pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political
subdivision of a State..

Re: apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[lgw]

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

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[mark-t]

It wouldn't matter, 17 U.S. Code S 1201 SS e covers that:

This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, information security, or intelligence activity of an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or a person acting pursuant to a contract with the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State.

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[MobyDisk]

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

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[Etcetera]

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.

Re: apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[easyTree]

No. That's only true if the uploader isn't a multinational corporation.

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[silas_moeckel]

DCMA would be civil a judges order for a criminal case provides pretty good cover. As far as criminal the state can grant you immunity.

Re:apple can pull some DCMA BS and sue them

[niftymitch]

DCMA...
Not as interesting solution as patching the vulnerability shortly
after this phone gets hacked.

It appears to me that as an Israeli company they are far enough from US law
that they could be a vent for a secret NSA/CIA method and secret. They are
also far enough to make it hard for a US court to compel them to act.

The $15,000 price tag seems low for anything involving software.
Might be OK for a hardware hack that begins with a slurp of the
data from the RAM. As a qualified forensic service, data retention seems to
be a necessary first step.

For the US DOJ an Israeli company is close to a friendly safe harbor as
there might be out there. It may also be a safe outlet for Apple and
the business of other legally compelled services. They could deny further
requests on older hardware because a service company has surfaced.
i.e. We charge $150,000.00 per device and did you know that another $15,000.00
service exists.

Win Win.... for now.

Thereby ...

[Krishnoid]

Stimulating the global economy. Win-win!

Re:Thereby ...

[FatdogHaiku]

I can never find that thing...

Wait, Stimulating What?

Israel

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it that tiny little war torn Israel always seems to have the latest in technology that we can't seem to get here in America?

Re:Israel

[Anonymous Coward]

Because to live there you can't be a fucking pussy.

Re:Israel

[Grishnakh]

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).

Re:Israel

[sixsixtysix]

because we give them billions every year?

Re:Israel

[Quzak]

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

Re:Israel

[serbanp]

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

That's factually not true. TowerJazz (a top-ten pure-play manufacturer) has two modern fabs in Israel and the almighty #1 (intel) has two more in that country.

FBI may be required to share hack with Apple

[JoeyRox]

The irony is sweet with this one:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Re:FBI may be required to share hack with Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Apple, as required by law, we inform you that we have discovered a security leak in your product. Full disclosure follows.

In order to reproduce the problem:
1. call Cellebrite
2. pay $15,000.-
3. Handover phone to Cellebrite
4. receive USB stick with all data.

regards, the FBI

Re:FBI may be required to share hack with Apple

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

The legend is that they're copying off the NAND area. Basically, you can then brute force the phone as often as you want.

You have 9 bad attempts. Then before you try the tenth, you copy the NAND back from before, in effect you reset the counter to 0. And you keep banging away.

This won't work with newer phones with a Secure Element.

So, there's no hack to share. Apple has already designed around this particular exploit.

Re:FBI may be required to share hack with Apple

[Sax Russell 5449D29A]

That reminded me of a similar hack I read about a couple of years ago (and holy shit was it hard to find this again). It's about going around the 5 attempt limit per power cycle that exists in Opal compliant ATA password implementations.

Only $15,278.02?

[bsDaemon]

There must not be too much secret sauce involved if they're going to do it that cheaply.

While that listing shows that they have bought SOMETHING from Cellbrite, I think I'd like to see a little more evidence before I'm convinced that this shows they hired Cellbrite to hack the San Bernardino iPhone. https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/... shows that the Secret Service bought $781k worth of something from them on the 10th of March.

A single FPDS entry doesn't really mean anything.

Re:Only $15,278.02?

[DaHat]

Devices like this have been around for a bit and is one possibility: http://blog.mdsec.co.uk/2015/0...

Re:Only $15,278.02?

[shawn2772]

Devices like this have been around for a bit and is one possibility: http://blog.mdsec.co.uk/2015/0...

I believe the weakness that made that device possible was fixed in iOS 9, so it wouldn't be useful.

$15,000

[wisnoskij]

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

Re:$15,000

[TechyImmigrant]

A reusable capability would cost more. Cracking one phone without revealing the methods for $15k would be marketing.

Re:$15,000

[Thelasko]

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.

Only $15,000????

[gurps_npc]

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.

Re:Only $15,000????

[PCM2]

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.

Re:Only $15,000????

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

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.

Re:Only $15,000????

[bloodstar]

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.

Outsourced espionage of citizens, treason?

[Pitawg]

Sounds illegal in both national and international levels, but I am still waiting for the encryption ban after this.

Imagine every LEO calling a mumble "Encryption" or "Code". Everything not understood must be encrypted. Remember the gang signs lockup for waving? Any files on your phone must be plain, and in all languages or it must be hidden messages. New tools for racists or classist members of LE or Government.

Re:Chain of custody?

[Lumpy]

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

Re:Chain of custody?

[Registered Coward v2]

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.

Re:Chain of custody?

[shawn2772]

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?

That's not a problem, for at least two reasons.

First, chain of custody doesn't matter unless you want to use the information recovered as evidence in a trial. If you just use it to generate leads which you then use to find other suspects and evidence, then it's irrelevant if chain of custody was maintained.

Second, chain of custody is easy to maintain. Location and nationality don't affect chain of custody. What matters is that you have a documented chain and can prove that custody was maintained and access was controlled at each step. Worst case is that employees of the Israeli company may have to fly to the US and testify in court to substantiate the chain of custody, and to explain how they extracted the information. I'm sure the company would be happy to do that if the FBI paid them to (which would be an additional fee).

Re:Illegal!

[J053]

Not when the relevant law (DMCA in this case) explicitly says it does not apply to law enforcement or intelligence agencies. The law doesn't mean just what you want it to mean, it means what it actually says.

Torrent in 1003, 1002, 1001...

[CanEHdian]

Cellebrite.iPhorensics.Suite.Government.and.Law.Enforcement.Edition.x64.v1.02.incl.Keygen.-.CoRE

Now every kiddie can haXX0r da iPhonez