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

[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

[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: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...

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????

[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: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: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.