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FBI Tells Local Law Enforcement It Will Help Unlock Phones (buzzfeed.com)
Salvador Hernandez, reporting for BuzzFeed: Just days after breaking into a terrorist's iPhone using a mysterious third-party technique, FBI officials on Friday told local law enforcement agencies it will assist them with unlocking phones and other electronic devices. The advisory, obtained by BuzzFeed News, was sent in response to law enforcement inquiries about its new method of unlocking devices. Though the dispatch does not explicitly state if the FBI will use the mysterious third-party method to unlock phones for local authorities, officials said the agency "will of course consider any tool that might be helpful to our partners."
Will it help Slashdot support Unicode properly?
The purpose of a lock is only to keep honest people honest.
Serenity now, insanity later.
Salvador Hernandez, reporting(TM) for BuzzFeed
Of note, in this particular case, the terror was so real that the /. editors couldn't manage to remember how to check for simple punctuation friendly to this platform before blessing the post. Either support unicode (I'm neutral on that), or just take a second to scrub the text. Or, where can I send a few lines of genius code I've come up with, which pre-processes submissions, automagically swapping strings representing curly quotes and apostrophes for universally accepted ones?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Why publish this? The more attention they bring to this, the greater likelyhood someone discovers and fixes the flaw.
I think it's ridiculous Apple chose to make their little PR campaign with this case, but the FBI needs to hold their cards closer to their chest.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
There does not appear to be anyone disputing that the mechanism developed by the FBI and their technology partner is not one supported by Apple. Legislation such as the DMCA and the Computer Misue Act might have some interesting influence on what is being done here... Obviously we have to bear in mind that if the current laws would look to prohibit what is being done here, then the laws will, *will* be changed. But you have to wonder if there are parties in this game that want to have their cake and eat it...
I have no doubt that the FBI's public proclamation of successfully unlocking the San Bernardino and now this intentionally leaked memo are part of a concerted effort to embarrass Apple by discrediting their encryption and privacy technology. I mean when was the last time you heard of the government bragging about having the ability to hack phones? You would expect the opposite since they wouldn't want such capabilities known. In the end Apple will win because this entire episode will motivate them to double down on their stated encryption/privacy policies and work even harder to lock down the phone to prying eyes.
All the more reason to make our devices harder (or better yet impossible) to break into without the key, and make more than a few attempts without the key erase all data on the device! We also need our devices to be able to be set to not send any data anywhere no matter what!!
When government (or government agencies) can break into our devices, that means that hackers and corrupt corporations can do so as well. There is no such thing as a method to access a device that can only be used by government or government agencies.
Either we have the right to privacy of the information on our devices, or we have George Orwell's 1984! Its one or the other, there is no middle ground!!
Why would the FBI publicly harass Apple about 'helping' break encryption when they already know how. Was it to show Apple were liars about their tech? Was it to save some cash from a 3rd party cracker? Or was it simply to gain some ground in the fear department with the American public? The articles and questions have been flowing, but the truth now is so muddied, I think we won't really know or understand until some new separate events unfold.
Is this just Apple letting them in but saving face by pretending they didn't give in?
It is probably the best solution, given that they didn't just privately ask for access to the phone first and instead tried to make a big show of force about it and force Apple to hunker down.
"Just days after breaking into a terroristÃ(TM)s iPhone ..."
So does this mean that we believe they were successful? Are we going to take their word for it? You are free to agree with this government decree, but not me.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Everyone needs to pay their fair share of taxes.
Because we need even more of this government!
As if the phone in the San Bernadino case wasn't one that was used by an actual, real, murdering person who embarked on a terrorist attack?
Correct: it wasn't the one used in planning the terrorist attack.
To remind you of the facts, this was the work phone of (one of) the persons who embarked on the terrorist attack... which they planned using burner phones that they took some pains to destroy (along with the hard disk from their computer) and succeeded in doing so in a way that the FBI could not recover information.
https://www.inverse.com/articl...
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
So, the question is, would they make an effort to to destroy two phones, and not bother destroying the third phone, if the third phone actually had any information on it?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It will be interesting to watch if phone manufacturers use this to spur better encryption and security in next generation phones. Or will public opinion and government meddling make it go the other way..
It's not a false choice. When key evidence is behind locked doors you need a way to access it. This is precisely why we have search warrants.
Nope. That's a choice made by society, a trade-off between privacy and authority. Law enforcement may say that they "need" a way to access it, but the extent to which we allow law enforcement to access locked vaults is a decision that is made by society, and one of the possible decisions is "no, find a different way to gather evidence."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Looks like Timmy "I and Apple will protect your digital privacy" Cook is shown to be a lier and a pervert boozo.
Ha ha
All of this was irony and stupidity. The government agency that the gunman worked or had access to the phone as it belonged to the government agency and FBI stupidity lost them that access. Then they told Apple that they had to provide them the key to the phone. Apple correctly told them that no such thing exists as only the user (and in this case the employer, until they lost it) have the key. So then the FBI tried to make the case that they could force Apple to rewrite their software and then force update the phone to allow the phone to be unlocked without the key. A case that the FBI lost in parallel in a court case in New York shortly after on the same issue citing the same law they were trying to use in California. Seeing the wind blowing against them, the DOJ backed out with as much "dignity" they could muster. The court, not using the legalise, did not like the idea that the government could compel a company, who was under no criminal charges themselves on this, to provide product development and assistance to the government against their will to undermine their own products and services. The FBI deserved to have their asses handed to them in shame on this.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Nice appeal to authority. I see you win the argument.
The appeal to authority as a logical fallacy exists when you appeal to the authority of someone unqualified. This is identifying a consensus among qualified people who are unbiased.
While this can certainly be defeated logically, dismissing it out-of-hand as an appeal to authority is childish and fails to recognize that the world is complex and fields have experts. They can certainly be wrong--but simply saying "The FBI had a warrant" is not even close to a logical argument defeating the concerns of almost every expert in the free world. At most it is an answer to one constitutional concern that does not really apply in this particular case but will in the next one.
The FBI's statement was that they extracted the data from the phone. That does not mean the FBI has decrypted the data. Nor do I ever expect to see anything that indicates they decrypted it. They were far more careful in the wording of that statement than they were in anything in their legal wrangling with Apple.
The FBI had to claim they didn't need Apple's assistance any more. Apple's lawyers were severely embarrassing the FBI and their lawyers in the lead-up to the judge's decision. The FBI could not allow the judge to create the obvious precedent that was about to come. They had to vacate their case. No other conclusion makes any sense.
This thing will probably escalate to Police confiscating phones now during pullovers, to see if you're even slightly crooked so they can take your money.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
It is a response to a flood of the same questions from multiple sources. It basically reads as "we will help if we can, as we always have, so stop bothering us."
It is definitely not a declaration that they can and will break into any and all phones.
Go on and read it, verbatim in tfa. Especially who signed it at the bottom.
This announcement by the FBI reminds me of how Kim Jong Un will declare that, for example, they just successfully detonated a nuclear weapon. There's no proof given, it's just assumed that we the public are supposed to believe whatever they say, because they are so trustworthy. If the FBI was able to hack the phone, then why don't they tell us, what information did they find on the phone that made it so important to threaten Apple with legal action? Everybody ridicules North Korea and the way they behave but I don't see a huge difference between the behavior of North Korea and the FBI in this instance.
Wait... I forgot...... Does Obama dump the screaming new born kids in the fire @ Bohemian Grove during the Cremation of Care Ritual , OR Just the High Priest? Drone The Grove 2016! Yes Grandma, for the last time there will be countless wave after wave of Drones flying above the Bohemian Grove streaming the Cremation of Care Ritual to YouTube and CNN, get over it and take your pills silly...
why is the FBI advertising to bad guys everywhere that it can unlock their phones?
either
a) the FBI is stupid, or
b) the FBI is covering for the fact that they got the information on the phone via another source.
They are in violation of DMCA anti-circumevntion and other computer crime law. Turn the instruments they use against the people back upon them. They are also violating Rico.
Wow, you don't like privacy. What a creep! Ew, that is gross. You should be institutionalized along with all of the other sickos who abuse people's personal space. Even a child understands this. WTF is wrong with you!?
Correct: it wasn't the one used in planning the terrorist attack.
We don't know that. No one knows what this iPhone was used for. That is why someone wanted to open it up and take a look, to determine *if* anything is there. As others have pointed out the murderers left plenty of evidence lying around at home, not all evidence was destroyed. Was this phone at home? Did they want to keep one working phone with them, so they used the less incriminating phone?
The only fact we know is that it was the County's phone and the County gave permission to open it and look. The owner consented to the search, so search and seizure rules would not apply as they normally do with an uncooperative owner.
That is complete BS. A public relations and legal maneuver that Apple used to frame the argument, the debate. If Apple had made the modification to firmware/iOS then they could have added code to lock fbiOS to one unique device. This locking to a device could not be tampered with, fbiOS being protected by Apple's digital signature. A new court order would have been needed for each new device, so at least there would be judicial oversight in the "near nightmare" scenario.
... Looking forward to iPhone 8 or 9 where all the security currently residing in firmware/iOS is moved into Apple's custom CPUs where it is unpatchable.
By forcing the FBI to go the internal or 3rd party route we now may have the "nightmare" scenario where a universal tool is available to all law enforcement, possibly with its use not done under proper judicial supervision. Apple is partly responsible for this. Yes, Apple was in a pretty f'd up situation, but that happens. Sometimes you have to deal with no good outcome, negative/negative decisions.
Well, at least for now
Since the method is also classified, the FBI isn't presumably launching a tender process for getting all those 'suspicious' phones unlocked by the lowest bidder. In short, the FBI is buying a service from one company, since no-one else knows the method used. (Yes, other companies may use other methods, so a tender process is still valid.) Time to buy shares in that company and demand they double their prices.
Apple asked the FBI to file their request to the judge secretly (as generally is done in these situations), the FBI filed it publicly and then started their own PR campaign to try to put public pressure on Apple.
The FBI then realized that Apple is also pretty good an marshaling public support, and that Apple can afford better lawyers; the FBI then took a tactical retreat.
So why is the FBI still talking so publicly about cracking phones? No idea, I don't see any tactical advantage in it. I think they've just got hurt feelings and it's a form of chest-thumping.
It's that simple. I don't think either company is good or bad or altruistic, but fundamentally Apple has every incentive to protect user privacy because it's a differentiator for them and thus helps them to sell more hardware--which is where they make all their money. Apple sets up all of their user-facing services such that Apple themselves often don't have access to user-data. For example, Apple isn't in the loop for Apple Pay--they have no knowledge of what things you've bought with Apple Pay. Why? because they don't care, they just want you to but another iPhone someday.
Google has a more complicated relationship with user privacy because they make their money selling targeted ads, and fundamentally they want to know everything they can about their users to better target ads.
Clearly Apple & Google compete--and probably there's a bit of the undercutting that you talk about, but there's a simpler explanation if you just look at where the companies make their money.
Real the legal blogs--the FBI was getting slapped around by Apple's lawyers.
The free speech argument seems silly--until you realize that prior precedent has ruled that "code" is "speech" and that the first amendment also protects you against "coerced speech"--and thus "coerced code". It seems a little silly to engineers, but that's the law.
There were a half-dozen other arguments that were all pretty strong.
They never claimed it couldn't be broken--in fact they disputed the FBI's claim that they needed "Apple's help" to break into the iPhone.
I was under the impression that the DMCA rendered circumventing a digital lock to be illegal.... so why is the US government, who created that law, boasting about how they are circumventing the digital locks Apple has created for its devices? Surely evidence is inadmissible if it has been illegally obtained.
Don't be stupid.
Please take your own advice. You don't think they wanted to have one device to monitor news, for calls, message, emails, etc. You think they wanted to be completely out of touch and blind?
... but they left information on the phone they didn't think was worth taking the trouble to erase is rather wishful thinking. Sure, it can't hurt to look ...
That's the point. But more importantly, criminals get caught or implicate others all the time because they make *** mistakes *** and *** forget *** things and occasionally get *** sloppy ***. Its not wishful thinking to examine a secondary phone, its prudent investigatory procedure. Prisons are full of people doing things you apparently would not expect them too.
In related news, they neglected to announce that the propaganda song-and-dance show worked perfectly and most of the public now believe that Apple courageously stood up to the FBI's demands and hadn't given them access years ago.
I saw an FBI agent in an office store collecting sample printouts from various printers so he could build a model typeface database like they have for the old physical typewriters.
It took a while for me to explain it to the point where he finally got, but he eventually understood that the fonts used were determined by the computer, not the printer. They don't have any physical typefaces, and can print with any font you want. (Sure, there are some differences between the print heads, but it's pretty bloody minor in most cases and tends to have little to no distinguishing characteristics, especially since many components are sourced from other companies, and those can change several times in a single manufacturing run.)
Of course it's prudent. They are not likely to find anything, but it's worth looking.
But it's not "OMG if we don't crack this phone disaster! People will die! The terrorists win! It's either crack this phone or America is destroyed!"
It's a cover the bases thing. But like all things, it's a trade off, Do you understand that there are some good arguments that forcing Apple to write new software to drill a hole in their own security system may not be entirely a good thing? A trade off is a cost-benefit analysis. In this case, the benefit is not very large.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The mysterious third-party should sue the FBI for losted sales.