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FBI Telling Congress How It Hacked iPhone (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the next-in-line dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: According to a new report in National Journal, the FBI has already briefed Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) on the methods used to break into the iPhone at the center of Apple's recent legal fight. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) is also scheduled to be briefed on the topic in the days to come. [Feinstein and Burr are both working on a new bill to limit the use of encryption in consumer technology, expected to be made public in the weeks to come.] The disclosures come amid widespread calls for the attack to be made public, particularly from privacy and technology groups. However the FBI's new method works, the ability to unlock an iPhone without knowing its passcode represents a significant break in Apple's security measures, one Apple would surely like to protect against if it hasn't already. Just days after the FBI broke into the terrorist's iPhone, the FBI told law enforcement agencies it would assist them with unlocking phones and other electronic devices. We still do not know how the iPhone was hacked, nor do we know how many iPhones may be able to be unlocked from the hack. The FBI did tell USA Today the hack has not been used in any other case beyond San Bernardino.

3 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. am I misrememberinfg by Swampash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    or wasn't there some law about circumventing security measures on a computer device?

  2. More importantly ... by mattyj · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What info did the FBI get off the phone? I think it's generally considered that time was a crucial element in getting any meaningful info from the phone, and perhaps days or hours after the event, anything in there would be useless.

    I'm not sure anyone has yet to convince me that more encryption = more terrorism.

  3. bash, Outlook, Photoshop, grep, awk, make by raymorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I could have said that more concisely as:
    --
    My last two employers needed me to use Outlook and Photoshop.
    My personal workflow uses bash, perl, grep, awk, and make.

    All of those required tools work great on my Mac, even after I've dropped it on the concrete.
    ---
    Mac is full-fledged certified UNIX, and it's corporate helpdesk approved. Where else are you going find that combination ?

    My MacBook Pro does run Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD virtual machines all the time too, though. I click whichever OS is suited to the moment. Last week, in 18 hours, we found thousands of vulnerabilities in 14 machines running those operating systems plus Cisco, so I know none are bulletproof, but I also know some are much more secure than others. (Out full vulnerability report for 14 targets was over 1600 pages long - for the exposures we found in 18 hours).