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FBI Paid More Than $1 Million For San Bernardino 'Hack' (cbsnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: FBI Director James Comey has indicated the bureau paid more than $1 million for the method used to hack into the iPhone 5c belonging to one of the San Bernadino shooters. How did he allude to it? He said the FBI paid more money than he would make in the time left as FBI director. He makes just under $200,000 a year based on public files and has over seven years left on his term. "How much did you pay for this software?" Comey was asked. "A lot," he said. "More -- let's see. More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months, for sure," Comey said. "And so it's a -- but it was in my view, worth it, because it's a tool that helps us with a 5c running iOS 9, which is a bit of a corner case, increasingly as the devices develop and move on to the 6 and 6s and whatnot and iOS's change, but I think it's very, very important that we get into that device." Comey said.
...what they found on the phone.
My guess....porn.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Assuming these guys are really, really good, and worth a billable rate of $250/hr - if they pulled off the job in under 90 days, were there 10+ of them on the job, or did the FBI just pay a super premium for a high profile case to make a political statement?
Just a cool million, for what exactly?
Cat videos.
Glad to know that my ex-girlfriend can't pay someone to do it on her salary.
But it sounds a lot cheaper than the legal case would have been if they had tried to go through the courts.
Morons should have started with that option, not used it only after Apple complained.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Basic income is too much money for nothing.
So they pick up the yellow pages and call "Hackers R Us" and hire a million dollar zero day exploit for an Apple 5c so they can find any information not already captured in the telco's network traffic. What a load of crap. Nothing about this story, the preposterous claim of the value of `anything on an iphone that is not already a matter of record in telecommunication logs sounds like complete baloney. I don't believe a word of what these liars are saying. Not a word of it. If they really believe there is anything of value on a cell phone that does not involve actual network transmission then I would like to know what that is. Lets be clear here - if its on an encrypted iPhone, and it never involved a network connection or transmission, then why does it even matter? If they really think there is anything more of real value then perhaps they should pursue all of the known connections. Or how about, don't shoot ten thousand bullets into the suspects after you have them completely surrounded by armies of law enforcement. Perhaps if these gun slinging assholes stopped to think about the value of a living terrorist over a dead one we wouldn't be wasting tax payer dollars on their bad learning curve on common sense.
This could be a clever way to pay launder money from FBI.
Here is how it works:
- FBI hacker finds a flaw, but does not tell the boss.
- You tell your boss that you have a cousin who can o stuff
- Your boss pays your cousin $1M. What you and your cousin do is between you two.
Quite frankly, FBI hack was useless. FBI said that they found something valuable, but they only said to justify the expense. They found that he did not communicate with anybody else. THAT, they already knew anyway.
I guess I thought that FBI directors served at the pleasure of the President, but thinking back on recent history it seems like there has always been a continuity of FBI directors regardless of Presidential elections. I'm kind of mentally excluding Hoover, who mostly kept his job because the Presidents in his era were afraid of his blackmail files and he generally made himself into a useful bully on their behalf.
But 10 years? That sounds a little too secure, too much like a master of an empire and not a public servant. I don't buy any functional reason to keep a single director that long, either. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the CIA director don't serve that long.
Surely in a democratic-oriented country changing one's police leaders regularly is just good hygiene.
Nearly everything the FBI says so far is a lie. Why should I believe this statement?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
There, fixed that for you.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's OUR money they paid, not THEIR money. The FBI gets it's money from tax payers, and exists because of tax payers.
This is the same issue with all of Government really. The Government is always better off when they are not accountable for spending. I just wonder if they will use this as ammo to convince tax payers that we need a bigger GAO to investigate this incident and others just like it.
Before you say it, Anarchy is not the only or even best alternative. There is a whole lot of space between anarchy and our current overly bloated Government.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
In the area of government waste of taxpayer money, 1 million is not even a small blip...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Considering we spend hundreds of billions bombing and fighting in countries over terrorism and potential terrorism, this is a bargain.
Table-ized A.I.
Especially from the government
ESPECIALLY from the FBI
SUPEREXTRASPECIALLY if they make a months-long media spectacle of it
cuz its true :))))
Yes, it's a waste of taxpayer's money. But the solution isn't joining the Tea Party. That's like saying the only way to fix a leak in your roof is to move your entire house inside another building that has a non-leaky roof.
WE PAID FOR IT.
taxes.
did we get any say in this? of course not.
will there be any reasonable return on this 'investment' ? of course not! everyone who cares will be dumping this model of phone as soon as they possibly can.
nice that our fbi ASSHOLES waste money on ego bullshit. really nice.
(god dammit so much!)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Standard process: Appointed by president, confirmed by senate. The term is ten years, but in practice almost every single director has left before their term is up. I'm surprised the appointment is not more politically contested, given that the director is in a position to influence what crimes the FBI focuses on and thus to advance either party agenda easily.
The Director's term is long in order to make the position less political. The Director has a lot of power; so it would be very bad if the Director was strongly partisan. Making the Director's term longer than the maximum term of a president (2*4 years) provides a strong incentive to the president (who appoints the Director) to appoint someone who will be negligibly partisan.
Yep, because that's what the Tea Party is about. Until you ask them what they want to cut, and they say foreign aid and... well... hmm.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Not really buying this logic -- what exactly have lifetime appointments done for partisanship on the Supreme Court? And why wouldn't we worry about partisanship in the CIA or military leadership, with the former being at least nominally more risky due to its clandestine nature.
I would think that you could avoid partisanship in selection by making his term expire two years after a new President takes the oath, thus guaranteeing his post will outlast that of the President who elected him.