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One of the FBI’s Major Claims in the iPhone Case Is Fraudulent
- pbkhrv 11y agoHow practical is it to remove-restore-replace the NAND chip every 10 tries if you have to search through millions of combinations?
- jessaustin 11y agoPresumably you'd only have to remove it once, then install it in an easily-controlled circuit that would selectively connect it back to the rest of the phone?
- drakenot 11y agoIf the user was using a 4 digit pin code it would only be 10,000 combinations.
- voxic11 11y agoWhere do you get the millions of combinations figure?
- CIPHERSTONE 11y agoMaybe it was a type and he meant to say: >You see, a six digit passcode has one million possible combinations instead of 10,000.
- pbkhrv 11y agoWasn't a typo, I did mean "millions", see my comment above.
- pbkhrv 11y agofor passcode, iPhone supports 4-Digit numeric code (10k combinations), 6-Digit numeric code (1 million combinations), "custom numeric code" (arbitrary length, millions of combinations), or "custom alphanumeric code" (arbitrary length, millions of combinations)
- RickHull 11y ago> If it turns out that the auto-erase feature is on, and the Effaceable Storage gets erased, they can remove the chip, copy the original information back in, and replace it. If they plan to do this many times, they can attach a “test socket” to the circuit board that makes it easy and fast to do this kind of chip swapping. > If the FBI doesn't have the equipment or expertise to do this, they can hire any one of dozens of data recovery firms that specialize in information extraction from digital devices.
- ikeboy 11y agoAre there any data recovery firms that advertise the ability to do exactly what the FBI wants here?
- CamperBob2 11y agoOne obvious workaround would be to emulate it with an FPGA.
- kabdib 11y agoHeck, the FBI could also disable writes to the chip, or simply interpose some logic that pretends to write, but actually doesn't (a non-write-through cache :-) ). That is, if the secrets in question are on that NAND chip.
- drakenot 11y agoFor this device, with no Secure Enclave, I believe they are on the NAND chip.
- kabdib 11y agoHeck, there are probably 20 companies with a Silicon Valley zipcode that could do that work, then. And a few in LA. I know people who could do this in their garage (and that's not hyperbole).
- jessaustin 11y agoThat would rather defeat the point of this whole fake political-judicial spin effort. Teh terrorists already destroyed their personal phones that had actual terror secrets. These work phones, which could have been confiscated by San Bernardino County at any time, are vanishingly unlikely to yield months-old information of any sort.
- baldajan 11y agoThey already retrieved a ton of info from a month or so old iCloud backup. The FBI has a good idea what might be on the phone, but they aren't saying what they already found.
- fabulist 11y agoIf someone with the necessary equipment were to document the process of attaching the write-blocker an iPhone of the same make and model, and successfully logging in on the 11th try, it could go a huge way towards illustrating to the general public what this case is really about. Might not be bad exposure for a security startup, either.
- loumf 11y agoI wouldn't be so sure the FBI knows this. Apple certainly does -- if they told the FBI, why didn't they also put that in their letter?
- ebbv 11y agoIf the FBI's technical teams can't figure this out they should all be fired and it's all the more reason we shouldn't trust them with back doors into anything.
- officialchicken 11y agoObligatory ACLU and EFF donate links, "Freedom isn't free": https://action.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-aclu https://action.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-a... https://supporters.eff.org/donate https://supporters.eff.org/donate
- joshstrange 11y agoObligatory you can donate to the EFF via Amazon Smile: EFF: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/search?ie=UTF8&q=Electronic%20Frontier%20Foundation%20Inc http://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/search?ie=UTF8&q=Electronic%... ACLU: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/search?ie=UTF8&q=ACLU http://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/search?ie=UTF8&q=ACLU And Chrome plugin that I use to force the browser to the smile site: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-always/jgpmhnmjbhgkhpbgelalfpplebgfjmbf https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-always/jgpmh... I've never used this firefox one but here's a link to a similar one for FF: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amazonsmileredirector/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amazonsmilere...
- sosuke 11y agoI only recently learned about Amazon Smile. Awesome stuff!
- rqebmm 11y ago> "Freedom isn't free": Is the suggested donation a buck oh five?
- officialchicken 11y agoCould be, depends on how you value it.
- sathackr 11y agoWith 14 million combinations just in a 4 character alphanumeric(upper/lower/numbers) password, I would think they would start to encounter flash reliability issues re-writing this "Effaceable Storage" long before the password could be broken. This would also slow down their attack considerably. I disagree that the claim is fraudulent.
- Titanous 11y agoAt that point they can swap out the flash chip for a new one, new chips can be obtained easily. Also, the PIN is 4 numeric digits, no alpha characters.
- tyre 11y agoI believe the passcode is only 4 numbers, not alphanumeric.
- athenot 11y agoThe passcode can be alphanumeric. It's user-configurable. http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/05/how-to-set-up-a-complex-passcode-on-your-ios-device/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/05/how-to-set-up-a-complex-p...
- sathackr 11y agothank you. I just assumed it was configurable, like Android,, but, with the downvotes, I thought I was wrong. Of course it would take much less time for a 4-digit numeric code -- but AFAIK at this point the length of the password is unknown, so, the ACLU claiming fraud based on the assumption of the length of the password is not correct. Lets see how many more DVs I can get.
- URSpider94 11y agoWhen you tap the home button on an iPhone, it shows you empty circles indicating how many characters are in the passcode. It also varies the entry keypad depending upon whether it's alphanumeric or numeric. In other words, if you are holding the phone in your hand, you can figure out how many digits the passcode is, and whether it's alphanumeric or just numeric, without entering a single character.
- geographomics 11y agoInteresting technique, but it doesn't remove the long interval between permitted passcode attempts - an equally important problem for brute-forcing. So the FBI would most likely still require Apple's assistance in this.
- albinofrenchy 11y agoIsn't it just a 4 digit pin? Even if they input a pin per minute, that is slightly under a week, worst case scenario.
- kyrra 11y agoiOS9 started defaulting to asking for a 6-digit pin now (though you can still do 4-digit). So it may depend on when the phone was setup.
- 05 11y agoOnly for Touch ID enabled devices
- iLoch 11y agoNo, it uses an exponential back off.
- albinofrenchy 11y agoEven after the 'delete everything' ten attempts? In any case, you can just reboot the phone, and if it does write the number of missed attempts to NAND, you were going to revert that anyway.
- iLoch 11y agoYeah I have no doubts there are ways around it - but they would definitely all contribute to making the brute forcing process A LOT slower.
- emcq 11y agoMaybe their exists experts that can get this right every time but there are significant risks to damaging a chip desoldering and resoldering. It's not just removing a through hole capacitor.
- devy 11y agoDisclaimer I am no electrical engineer and have had limited experiences soldering components on circuit boards. But from all the tutorials I've been through, I agree. There are risks of damaging the NAND chip while desoldering and/or re-soldering chips on the board. Since there is the only piece of hardware with the information, perhaps the Feds aren't going to risk the chance of destroying the evidence all together after all they made the mistake of changing iCloud password already.
- pwyll 11y agoThis. The chip needs to be desoldered, cleaned (remove a layer of epoxy resin) and then finally reballed (secure a 0.3mm ball of solder on each of the > 64 connectors) just to get the on the chip reader. Once you've done that you need to reverse the process. I've done a few of these and they still scare me. Its not a trivial process.
- timv 11y agoYet the FBI's official plan is to get Apple to assign a few developers to put together a custom version of iOS that they trust will overcome all risk of erasing the device. Is there a reason we should have confidence in software engineers rather than electrical engineers?
- keithnz 11y agosw can test it on another phone till they get it right....EEs can only practice on another phone, if they screw up on the actual phone, it's gone burger
- iLoch 11y agoI wonder if the FBI has checked for any ways to circumvent the passcode screen using software bugs. Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted. I can currently circumvent my keyboard passcode with a number of steps, and I'm on iOS 9. Steps to try for yourself: Edit: Ok I've been tricked. The steps below are unnecessary as the first step actually unlocks your iPhone in the background. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The fact remains though that these bugs have existed in the past and may exist on the device the FBI wants to unlock. 1. Invoke Siri, "what time is it?" 2. Press the time/clock that is shown 3. Tap the + icon. 4. Type some arbitrarily long string into the search box. Highlight that text and copy it. 5. Tap on the search box. There should be a share option if your device is capable. Tap the share option. 6. Share to messages. 7. Press the home button. Congrats, you're more effective than the FBI.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y agoThis works. You just scared the shit out of me. Well done.
- Nadya 11y agoIf your device is completely up to date, shouldn't this not work? The SiRi-on-lockscreen vulnerability is nearly 6 months old by now.
- rail2rail 11y agoWhoa.
- knd775 11y agoData is still encrypted in that state. The passcode screen is not what is preventing access. That is how it works in Android (where a lockscreen is just an app that is locked into the foreground), but not iOS. Bypassing the iOS passcode entry screen gets you to a weird limbo-like state where a lot of thing don't work. I don't recall what that state is called.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
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- albinofrenchy 11y agoAnyone else a little surprised that apples security feature here is so easy to sidestep? I'd have thought, in the least, that any such keys were stored in the main processor without external read/write capabilities.
- brk 11y agoNo, I'm not that surprised. I think this feature is intended to protect your personal data from the casual iPhone thief or to minimize risk if you lose/forget your iPhone somewhere. I don't think it was intended to be a secure-from-governments kind of features.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hollander 11y agoGuess again - it is! It's a work in progress, and on the 6S it has improved a lot with the secure enclave in its own chip. It seems it will get even better, with encryption in the icloud as well. The SE uses a different key for each app, so even if you can decrypt one key, you only get data from one app.
- Titanous 11y agoThe feature exists to protect against less sophisticated attacks. It's not necessary, as setting a long alpha-numeric passphrase will mitigate brute force attacks.
- nickysielicki 11y agoIt's a cheap phone from a couple years ago. This world is moving fast.
- eridius 11y agoFWIW, it's not easy to bypass on devices with TouchID. The Secure Enclave manages the process there, and it's designed to be resistant to tampering so you can't use this trick with it.
- codeonfire 11y agoThe device is evidence, so all of you saying they can just start desoldering things and such need to think about that. What is the first thing a defense attorney would say if the data were to be used in a criminal trial? That's right, "the FBI replaced the memory chip on the phone with one they wrote their own copy of the data to." That is only after they potentially permanently damage the device and data.
- Osiris 11y agoCan't the same be said for when law enforcement takes images of hard drives? That happens all the time. There are procedures for maintaining chain of custody that are required to verify these things.
- codeonfire 11y agoHard drives have a universal interface for reading out their contents without modification. Most jurors would understand that. Many jurors would equate drastically modifying a device as tampering. Chain of custody doesn't matter. What a juror thinks is what matters.
- ptaipale 11y agoI wouldn't expect there's much of a difference in how laymen (jurors) understand reading out and using an image of a hard drive and reading out and using an image of a flash device. First of all, for most of them, it's black magic. For the few who know a bit more, will be convinced by arguments of analogy (after all, nowadays many hard drives are in fact flash devices, and the details of interface protocol are beyond what jurors will care about).
- TrevorJ 11y agoThat's why chain of custody is a thing. That argument could be made for anything, even physical objects can be tampered with.
- TheDong 11y agoAnd yet, there's no issue with "We'll let apple take the device, flash a custom OS onto it, and allow us to make attempts remotely while not having physical access to the device". That's what they're asking for. Part of the FBI's argument is that they need the information for safety of our country, not specifically for the trial.
- tylercubell 11y agoIt seems like there are several articles and security experts out there explaining how to recover data from a locked iPhone as if it were a cakewalk but where is one example of a complete soup-to-nuts case study on unlocking the same model phone as the San Bernardino shooter? If you want the American public to believe the FBI is making fraudulent claims, show demonstrable proof that it can actually be done instead of all the talk and theories.
- ismyrnow 11y ago^this
- JaRail 11y agoThis article seems wrong to me. I don't know a ton about the iPhone's specific implementation. That said, I was under the impression that these systems all worked similarly to the PC's TPM. Essentially, the encryption key is stored in a chip that acts as a black box. That chip is manufactured in such a way that makes it extremely difficult to extract data from. You can't simply copy it. You'd have to take it apart, inspect it with a microscope, and hope you don't destroy the data in the process. The OS should set the security level initially. The TPM would enforce it. You can't modify the OS to make an attempt without it counting against the initially configured limit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module
- zwerdlds 11y agoNot for the 5S. The iPhone TPM (or "Secure Enclave") is available on the A7 processor and above. The 5S includes an A6.
- DoritosMan 11y agoI think you mean the 5C.
- makomk 11y agoSome of the critical encryption keys are stored in the main A6 processor and incredibly difficult to extract, which is why you can't launch offline brute-force attacks - however those keys are read-only and initialized at device manufacturing time. All the volatile data is in the external flash chip. I'm not even sure if the Secure Enclave has its own flash on newer devices that have one.
- differentView 11y ago> Why the FBI can easily work around “auto-erase” If it's so easy, then the ACLU should have no problem demonstrating it with an actual iPhone 5c.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoSeems like a pretty articulate explanation of what is going on here. Of course I realize that my confirmation bias will cause me to see articles more in line with my way of thinking as 'right' but I've also worked with NAND flash devices and believe that the chip[1] they use in the phone does not have any sort of protections on the NAND flash itself, you should be able to just drop it into a test fixture and read it out. [1] http://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/info/docget.jsp?did=15002&prodName=TH58NVG4S0FTA20 http://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/info/docget.jsp?did=15002...
- croddin 11y agoApple said that could sync the data if the AppleID password wasn't changed. Can Apple just revert the AppleID account on their servers to a backup with the old password hash (or however it is stored)? Why wouldn't this work? Has something on the phone changed because of the password change or is Apple unwilling or unable to revert the AppleID account?
- chime 11y agoThe local device could have cleared the stored password if the remote server rejected it even once.
- an_account 11y agoI doubt it based on my past experience. After I changed my iCloud email/password my phone tried to use the old one for months, and I had to escalate the issue high up Apple Support to get it fixed (you can't erase your iPhone without proper iCloud credentials if findmyiphone is enabled). That also involved my email, so it was slightly different.
- nkurz 11y agoCould have, and perhaps should have, but I haven't seen anyone claim that it actually does delete the stored password after a failure. And it would be awkward if the automatic backup stopped functioning and required manual intervention after each intermittent network failure. It should be fairly easy for someone with an iPhone to test and find out.
- jjnoakes 11y ago> And it would be awkward if the automatic backup stopped functioning and required manual intervention after each intermittent network failure. But not awkward after a valid reply from the server saying "password incorrect".
- nkurz 11y agoPossible, but still awkward. If the network failure is between the server and the password database, it would still need to distinguish between "password permanently incorrect" and "password temporarily incorrect". But my stronger point was that there is no need to speculate, since someone with an iPhone can verify what actually happens. Set up backups, change the password, verify that it fails, change the password back, and report what happens.
- revelation 11y agoThe ACLU is not wrong, they are right in the technical sense. But I very much doubt you would practically manage to remove that NAND chip and replace it very often on that umpteen layer ultra thin board. Instead, remove it once and stick it in a test fixture, then try brute forcing it.
- edraferi 11y ago"Technical correct... the very best kind of correct!" The bigger question here is: do you really want law enforcement to hack into things as standard procedure? They certainly don't. It's difficult, expensive, slow, and worst, unbound by law. It's a world where your privacy is exposed based on the federal hacking budget rather than a judge's opinion about your potential criminality. It's much better for law enforcement to be constrained by law than technical ability.
- payne92 11y agoThis attack was already widely discussed here, last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11199093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11199093
- toyg 11y agoI have to say, whoever at the FBI decided this was the right case to push their new doctrine, could have done his/her homework a bit better. Technically speaking, this is the last iPhone you can actually crack without assistance from Apple. They are making it harder for themselves. They only have to wait for another major incident, retrieve (or plant, why not) an iPhone 6 from the scene, and do it again, this time for real. Unless they are trying to pre-empt something else (like the recently-touted shift to "devices even we can't access" from Tim Cook, which may or may not be simple advertising), they just picked the wrong time to stir this particular pot.
- mentalpiracy 11y agoThis case isn't just about Apple though. If the FBI wins this case, it becomes a precedent that can then be turned around and used on ANY hardware or software company in the future.
- CamperBob2 11y agoWhich is why it should have been important enough to them to wait for the next 9/11 or similar incident. Waving around the proverbial pipe wrench for a case this ambiguous is just stupid. They're just as likely to have it taken away from them altogether.
- Gratsby 11y ago> this is the last iPhone you can actually crack without assistance from Apple. That's being pretty liberal with words. It's more difficult to crack more recent versions, but saying it's impossible is putting too much faith in the creators of the device and too little in determined people who would want in.
- steveax 11y agoI suspect the main driver in picking this case had nothing to do with the technical details and everything to do with the emotional aspects. The general public won't follow the technical bits and the emotional appeal of the case (terrorists! scary!) has clearly been a boon.
- lisper 11y agoThis is really annoying. I wrote a blog post last week making this exact same point, posted it here, and it promptly got flagged to death, most likely by the same people who were commenting that I was "absolutely, totally wrong". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11199093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11199093 Nice to be vindicated though.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- c3t0 11y agoThanks for bringing it up. Last week I read your article and I found it very interesting. You did receive harsh RTFM comments (stark contrast with the tone of the comments on this thread). Glad that you can see your work corroborated.
- bduerst 11y agoIf it's any consolation, you're faster at describing this than the ACLU. Hasn't it always been known, since the beginning of this issue, that this was a penetrable 5c phone and thus a red herring for the FBI's request?
- lisper 11y agoIt has been known in the abstract, but AFAIK I was the first to publish a specific attack. (Not that I really claim that as much of an accomplishment. Sometimes it's hard to navigate the line between educating people and insulting their intelligence, particularly when it comes to security.)
- look_lookatme 11y agoOther people have brought this up but in a kind of hand-wavy way. https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-destroy-pandoras-iphone https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-destroy-pandoras-iphone
- vatotemking 11y ago> The author is absolutely, totally wrong. > I flagged the article, as the entire argument is predicated on a factually false premise. Wow those comments are harsh
- Dowwie 11y agoTL;DR: "they're asking the public to grant them significant new powers that could put all of our communications infrastructure at risk, and to trust them to not misuse these powers. But they're deliberately misleading the public (and the judiciary) to try to gain these powers. This is not how a trustworthy agency operates. We should not be fooled."
- unfamiliar 11y agoThe TL;DR should be "iPhone 5C NAND flash can be wiped and restored to default, making brute forcing the PIN a possibility," not this speculative snippet.
- vermilingua 11y agoExcept that all the evidence points to this speculative snippet being correct, and is the point of the article. So, your tl;dr is missing the crucial point of the article, that the FBI is making a power gambit through deception.
- virgilp 11y agoBy the same measure, Apple is deceiving everyone too. Apparently, they can't enable the phone's "icloud backup" because someone changed the icloud password. Doesn't Apple have old passwords -i.e can't they restore the old password from backup? And presuming they can't (why?).... can't they simply modify the server-side to not check for password for a given account, and accept just accept any password for backing up?
- SocksCanClose 11y agothe most frustrating part of this whole thing is the multi-headed response by various agency chieftains. fbi says one thing. nsa says another. former generals say another. am i crazy to want the president step up and say: "our position as a government is: x"? there's no/no way this has escaped his notice. isn't that part of the job description of "leader of the free world?"
- edraferi 11y agoThe executive branch is a big organization. Each agency has a different mission, culture and authorities (legal powers). The cryptowars are a complex issue, so it makes sense that the agencies have different takes on it. I agree that thr government should have a unified view on all this. However, it should come from CONGRESS, not the President. This is clearly an area where our democracy needs to make a decision about how we govern ourselves, then enshrine that decision in law, then follow that law.
- bertil 11y agoWhat strikes me as odd in all those analysis is that they all assume that the FBI is not expecting that weakened security will mean that there will be far more difficult to address crime -- i.e. far more on their plate.
- timr 11y ago"The FBI can simply remove this chip from the circuit board (“desolder” it), connect it to a device capable of reading and writing NAND flash, and copy all of its data. It can then replace the chip, and start testing passcodes. If it turns out that the auto-erase feature is on, and the Effaceable Storage gets erased, they can remove the chip, copy the original information back in, and replace it. If they plan to do this many times, they can attach a “test socket” to the circuit board that makes it easy and fast to do this kind of chip swapping." Right. They could do this, and risk destroying the device, or they could ask Apple to do the easy, reliable thing, and just install a build on this phone that allows brute-force attacks. Given that Apple has a long history of complying with these kinds of requests for valid search warrants, and that this situation is about as clear as it gets when it comes to justifiable uses of government investigatory powers, it's obvious why they're taking the latter approach, and not the former. There's a legitimate privacy debate in this case, but this isn't it. Edit: I'm just stating facts here, folks. Downvoting me won't change those facts, or make the government change its tactic.
- facetube 11y agoWhen has Apple complied with a warrant that sought to compel a digital signature?
- timr 11y agoThey're not being asked to provide "a digital signature". They're being asked to enable a brute-force attack on a single phone. Here's the full text of the request: http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/SB-Shooter-Order-Compelling-Apple-Asst-iPhone.pdf http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/SB-Shooter-Order-Compelling-Apple-As... Order #2 is the relevant order. But to answer your question, they've complied with similar warrants on at least 70 cases in the past: http://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467602161/the-seeds-of-apples-standoff-with-doj-may-have-been-sown-in-brooklyn http://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467602161/the-seeds-of-apples-... The only difference in this case is whether or not the FBI can compel Apple to make and install a custom build of iOS to crack the phone.
- mikeash 11y ago
- Spooky23 11y agoI think this makes the FBI look dumb, but I don't think this really helps them either. If the NSA did this for espionage it's one thing, but I'm curious as to whether substantially modifying the iPhone in this way would stand up in court.... How would the police assert that they preserved evidence after doing this? I was involved in a drawn out case challenged the validity of data recovered from backup at great. That was easy to assert with normal IT people, and yet it took weeks to litigate. Couldn't imagine how this would go.
- boosting6889 11y agoThey're not looking to prosecute anyone (defendant is dead), presumably they're trying to recover info the could lead to more terrorists/plots
- Spooky23 11y agoThe whole point is to build a precedent, remember?
- mistercow 11y agoYou're talking a layer out. This is about what their rationale is.
- lswainemoore 11y agoYes, but presumably they might want to bring what they find as evidence in such future cases.
- kabdib 11y agoHeck, they can just use "parallel construction" and lie their teeth off, as usual.
- andromeduck 11y agoAs if they didn't have enough to convict even he the man wasn't already dead.
- sabujp 11y agoso john mcaffee was right?
- kevin_thibedeau 11y ago> If it turns out that the auto-erase feature is on, and the Effaceable Storage gets erased, they can remove the chip, copy the original information back in, and replace it. Sounds like a better hack would be to interpose the flash memory interface with a RAM cache that simulates writes without modifying the original flash data. Then they can hammer away at brute forcing it without the delay of reburning the flash.
- drivingmenuts 11y agoFrom the sound of various blogs, articles, etc., it sounding like the FBI doesn't have anyone who has technical expertise in this area (or if they do, those persons are being kept buried). While the court case is important to the FBI (and very wrong to the public), the technical details of breaking into an iPhone should not have been an issue for them. I'm starting to think no one is driving the clown car in their technical division.
- mynameisvlad 11y agoWell, according to the congressional hearing (posted in another comment thread on this post), the FBI has "engaged all parts of the US government" to try and find a solution and came up with none. Which is funny, because the congressman who was questioning Comey proposed essentially the same thing as this article.
- baldajan 11y agoThis reminds me of the republican congressman from Cali, Issa, telling the FBI in very technical terms (inserting in between that he could be completely wrong) the exact same thing mentioned in this article. I'm unsure if the author was inspired by congressman Issa or if he came to it by his own accord. More over, what's more fascinating is, some people may say it's privacy v security and the fight for terror. But what has emerged from the last few weeks is multiple reason why the FBI should not win in court, regardless of your perspective of terror. It's been very clear from day 1 that the intentions of the FBI are vicious and non-genuine, and with every passing day, more people are finding out.
- darksim905 11y agoI don't know why this case is getting so much attention when it's readily apparently the FBI could just get everything off the phone with a cellebrite & call it a day.
- ldom66 11y agoNever attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity. Some engineer probably told upper management they couldn't decrypt the phone because the software would erase all data. Maybe because they didn't know, or didn't want to, but still this has blown out of proportion. To be clear I don't think apple should compromise the phone, just that this is not a long con by the FBI to compromise all phones.
- oldmanjay 11y agoThere needs to be a corollary considered here, possibly something like "never invoke the stupidity out lane for those who have previously demonstrated their malice"
- Aoyagi 11y agoSorry about the slight OT, but what truth is there in this statement I was presented with? >Even if an iPhone is locked, all of that encrypted data can technically be read easily so long as the phone had at least been unlocked once since the time it was booted up. Obviously I think it's a nonsense, but I have no way of disproving it (even though the burden of proof is on the claimer, naturally). Edit: OK I found this http://www.darthnull.org/2014/10/06/ios-encryption http://www.darthnull.org/2014/10/06/ios-encryption so never mind, I guess...
- zaroth 11y agoRelevant grant from the Department of Homeland Security from 2011: https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/361729 https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/361729 I'm surprised someone at Uni hasn't made demonstrating this exact attack a class project.