Hacker Dumps iOS Cracking Tools Allegedly Stolen From Cellebrite (vice.com)

Last year, when Apple refused to unlock the security on an iPhone 5c belonging to the San Bernardino shooter, the FBI turned to an Israeli mobile forensics firm called Cellebrite to find another way into the encrypted iPhone. Now Motherboard reports that a hacker has released files allegedly from Cellebrite that demonstrate how cracking tools couldn't be kept private. From a report: Now the hacker responsible has publicly released a cache of files allegedly stolen from Cellebrite relating to Android and BlackBerry devices, and older iPhones, some of which may have been copied from publicly available phone cracking tools." The ripped, decrypted and fully functioning Python script set to utilize the exploits is also included within," the hacker wrote in a README file accompanying the data dump. The hacker posted links to the data on Pastebin. It's not clear when any of this code was used in the UFED. Many of the directory names start with "ufed" followed by a different type of phone, such as BlackBerry or Samsung. In their README, the hacker notes much of the iOS-related code is very similar to that used in the jailbreaking scene -- a community of iPhone hackers that typically breaks into iOS devices and release its code publicly for free.

Comments

piracy is not theft

[Anonymous Coward]

Repeat the meme!

piracy is not theft
piracy is not theft
piracy is not theft

Software cannot be stolen!

Re:piracy is not theft

[Anonymous Coward]

Arson isn't theft either, but it's possible to set a car on fire. Are you telling me that this means cars cannot be stolen?

Re:piracy is not theft

[Anonymous Coward]

Arson isn't theft either, but it's possible to set a car on fire. Are you telling me that this means cars cannot be stolen?

that is false logic, the car was not stolen in that case it was vandalized a totally different crime.
 

Re:piracy is not theft

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean by "in that case"? I'm talking about finding a car that is not yours and taking it away without permission from the owner. That is not vandalism, that's theft.

But it's theoretically possible to douse the car with petrol and set it alight instead. That would be arson, not theft - in your very own words "a totally different crime". And yet theft of cars still exists. The fact that arson is not theft doesn't mean cars can't be stolen. That's the point I was making.

Now GP is claiming that "piracy is not theft" implies "software cannot be stolen" - apparently attempting debunk the former statement using using recuctio ad absurdum, but failing because that is actually non-sequitur. As I have demonstrated, the statement "arson is not theft" is true in the context of cars but that does not imply the statement "cars can not be stolen". Similarly, in the context of software the statement "piracy is not theft" can be true without implying the statement "software cannot be stolen" at all. The consequent simply doesn't follow from the antecedent.

As an aside, the word "stolen" is actually semantically somewhat broader than the word "theft". For example, certain acts of of espionage (arguably, the case of TFA is an example) can quite legitimately be referred to as "stealing" without technically being theft (or even copyright infringement, depending on applicable laws), making nitpicking about what is and isn't theft rather pointless.

Re:Your tax dollars at work.

[93 Escort Wagon]

One significant difference between the tools jailbreakers use versus Cellebrite's: The recent jailbreaks for iOS require that you run them on an unlocked phone. Additionally, every jailbreak I've used has required me to install an app onto the phone, and then run it from there.

I would be curious to see exactly how the Cellebrite tools get around this, even on an older iPhone.

Told you so

[kbg]

This is exactly what I and everyone else was saying at the time about the FBI case. If an exploit was developed for one phone it would be used for all phones and it would eventually leak out into the Internet. I expect each and everyone who said I was wrong about this issue to make a formal apology.