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I really find this whole thing hilarious. First, it's Apple sticking it to the FBI by making a stand for privacy and receiving public accolades doing so as a c

I really find this whole thing hilarious. First, it's Apple sticking it to the FBI by making a stand for privacy and receiving public accolades doing so as a champion of privacy. The FBI is the bad guy trying to invade our privacy. Now, it's the FBI sending a giant "screw you" to Apple by not only letting them know they were able to hack into the phone without Apple's help but at the same time, making a mockery of Apple's entire security claims. And now, Apple is in panic mode, slowly realizing that they went from being the hero of privacy in the modern age to the company that wasn't able to secure its phone from the FBI. From the FBI. Of all things. No wonder they are freaking out and they want to know how the FBI did it. Except that if I were them, I certainly wouldn't ask that publicly, I would at least pretend I know how the FBI did it and claim that it's already fixed in the next version of the OS. Which still means that tens of millions of iPhones are at risk today and will be for months, but at least, you get to pretend that you're ahead of the FBI while right now, it's pretty obvious that Apple has been outsmarted by a government agency. The bottom line is that in this line of work, it pays to be discreet and humble.

bitJericho 11y ago
You think Apple should have lied to the public?
- daxfohl 11y ago
  I assume he means this would be the best strategy (if kept under wraps) for Apple's reputation; the public's interests notwithstanding. Regardless, grandstanding twice just looks foolish for everyone except the FBI.
  - mcphage 11y ago
    You think this case makes the FBI look good? It took a month long media circus, made Apple look like the good guys, pissing off most of the tech community—all to unlock a single phone that likely has no useful data on it. If they had wanted to advertise their ability to unlock iPhones, they would have just done it, and done a press conference about how they unlocked it and got lots of good information. Instead, they look like they were desperately scrambling, before some "Canadian girlfriend" showed up at the last minute and saved them from looked even more foolish. Sure, from Apple's side, it would have been better had it gone to court and been established that the government isn't allowed to do what it was trying to do, but... I don't see the FBI trying the same tactic again, and, here's the kicker—if they can't establish the authority to force Apple to unlock phones on non-secure enclave machines, then when they need a secure enclave equipped phone unlocked, it's going to be a lot harder to use the All Writs Act to force Apple's hand.
    - daxfohl 11y ago
      I'm specifically talking about Apple asking for the hacking info. The FBI doesn't look anything (yet) because it's just the recipient of the request and AFAIK hasn't yet responded.
    - incepted 11y ago
      > You think this case makes the FBI look good? Right now, I'd say they are looking pretty good: they hacked into the phone of a terrorist without breaking any laws.
      - mcphage 11y ago
        If only it was really about just that phone, and didn't create a month long media circus power grab only to end it with "uh.... nevermind."
        daxfohl 11y ago
        Of course it makes them look bad to anyone who thinks their looking good looks bad.
        mcphage 11y ago
        If they had just hacked into the phone, and said "hey we hacked into the terrorist's phone", I think they'd look pretty good. They'd be competent, and did what they needed to do. But that's not what they were going for; they over-reached, and then weakly backed off. That's what doesn't look good.
- akerro 11y ago
  Why would they do it? Right?
tajen 11y ago
...or the FBI didn't succeed to hack the phone, and just tries to justifies why it won't proceed to trial. By the way, since the FBI said this phone will allow arresting other terrorists... did we find anything relevant on the phone?
- dogma1138 11y ago
  More likely that they did manage to find a 3rd party that could unlock it and found nothing, this wasn't the suspects personal phone (those were also recovered) but it was his work phone, the 6 week old backups had no information on it, the attack was planned more than 6 weeks in advance and it is highly unlikely that he used his work phone to contact any one involved in this. They've probably spent six to seven figures on hiring a 3rd party for a bespoke service just to find what any analyst could've assumed - nothing. That said given the severity of the situation even a 1 in a 1000 chance to get some additional information would'be been worth the kings ransom they must have had to pay to get it unlocked. At the end think what you want of the FBI but that's exactly what their duty should entail, forcing Apple to unlock it is a murky business but investing resources in unlock the phone themselves is perfectly within their right and even obligation to do. I don't understand why people are going apeshit about this no one would bat an eye when the FBI picks a lock or breaks into a safe how is an iPhone different?
  - acqq 11y ago
    > no one would bat an eye when the FBI picks a lock or breaks into a safe how is an iPhone different? Because it was not about that one iPhone but the planned precedent with immense effects: using the court-order to "write" the new laws, and FBI started the whole thing exactly with that goal: http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/26/fbi-apple-iphone-precedent-poll-candidates/ http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/26/fbi-apple-iphone-precedent-pol...
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      And? I've specifically stated that I don't think that the FBI demanding Apple to either unlock the phone or reduce the level of security is appropriate, the FBI breaking into it them selves is perfectly fine.
DINKDINK 11y ago
>letting them know they were able to hack into the phone without Apple's help but at the same time, making a mockery of Apple's entire security claims. What proof do you have that the FBI hacked the phone? The only piece of evidence we have is that the FBI withdrew the case. That could be either 1.) They were able to crack the phone (unsubstantiated TMK) 2.) They realize they lost the debate regarding encryption but didn't want to risk setting precedent
yAnonymous 11y ago
>Now, it's the FBI sending a giant "screw you" to Apple by not only letting them know they were able to hack into the phone without Apple's help Everyone knew they could do this and they only tried to use this whole thing to get easy access to all phones from Apple.
camillomiller 11y ago
>Except that if I were them, I certainly wouldn't ask that publicly, I would at least pretend I know how the FBI did it and claim that it's already fixed in the next version of the OS Wow, lying doesn't really look like the best course of action for a public traded company, I guess. >Which still means that tens of millions of iPhones are at risk today and will be for months, but at least, you get to pretend that you're ahead of the FBI while right now, it's pretty obvious that Apple has been outsmarted by a government agency. It's extremely probable that users are not in danger. If it's true that the FBI used Cellebrite's services, they might have used a slightly upgraded version of the company's solution that enabled the hacking of 32-bit devices (i.e. no secure enclave). The commercial solution touted publicly by Cellebrite is used by law enforcement all over the world to unlock iOS 8.x iPhones and iPads in a matter of 24h. There was a recent case in Milan, where the Court expert was able to unlock an iPhone 5 in 2 days and retrieve data thanks to the services of Cellebrite's offices in Munich. So: 32-bit devices with iOS 9, no secure enclave, implication of a company known for providing solutions to break into iPhones since forever. Icing on the cake: they might as well have used a system like the one suggested by ACLU and other experts: NVRAM cloning. That's a solution that's extremely phone specific and doesn't require to exploit any big scary bug to be carried out. Most probable outcome: Apple will keep on hardening iOS security and it's own cloud security even more. In the end the common user wins. The FBI is STILL the bad guy, acting like criminals who won't disclose a potential vulnerability (which might as well not exists) to the manufacturer.
- rtpg 11y ago
  What's the objective behind Apple wanting to know the method then? It sounds like any of these could be possible, so it's not like there's a big mystery (especially given the Cellebrite Purchase Order found on some government website).
  - arrrg 11y ago
    It could be something else. That’s the problem. Apple doesn’t know for sure and they would like to.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
viraptor 11y ago
Was there ever a proof that FBI actually hacked the phone? There could be lots of not-exactly-exploits that could be applied to this situation and give the solution. For all we know, the company they hired said: "you don't really lose anything by checking 1236 and 1478 first, so why not just do that?" and the first one worked. Anything about successful / unsuccessful / advanced / trivial solution is just speculation at this point as far as I know. The only thing that FBI said is that they got the data they wanted - and that could be done in thousands of ways. And it doesn't even have to be something that can be prevented or fixed by Apple (what if they found a CCTV recording of the owner tapping the code in?)
joelrunyon 11y ago
I think you're reading this completely wrong. The FBI asked for access, Apple said no (because they knew the case was about precedent rather than capabilities). Apple knows the older phones had vulnerabilities (see this faux-apple computer - https://youtu.be/zsjZ2r9Ygzw?t=15m50s https://youtu.be/zsjZ2r9Ygzw?t=15m50s commercial). This is the follow-up from Apple saying "oh, you needed our help to crack it huh? How did you suddenly find a way to do it on your own without us as soon as you realized public perception wasn't proceeding as you hoped? EFF seems to think that the FBI is legally required to disclose the method (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/fbi-breaks-iphone-and-we-have-some-questions https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/fbi-breaks-iphone-and-...) due to their VEP process.
- altern8tif 11y ago
  The VEP seems to be policy rather than legislation. Meaning that there is no legal obligation for the US Government to abide by it. If anything, the question is whether the US Government is morally obliged to reveal the vulnerability, given that the risk of not doing so is much higher than the value the government gets from exploiting it as a tool against terrorism. That, I believe, is the EFF's strategy – getting public support and appealing to the government's moral obligation to protect its people.
  - kra34 11y ago
    So the same company that didn't want to help investigate somebody who killed 14 people because of privacy concerns believes the government has a moral obligation to help them debug their software / hardware platforms. Yup, that makes sense.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      You seem to think holding both positions is incoherent, but I have no idea why.
- freyr 11y ago
  > I think you're reading this completely wrong. It may be the wrong opinion, but it's the popular opinion among many people I've spoken to. Namely, they think Apple has egg on its face and isn't as good at security as they claimed to be. Right and wrong don't always matter in the court of public opinion.
zeofig 11y ago
>Now, it's the FBI sending a giant "screw you" to Apple by not only letting them know they were able to hack into the phone without Apple's help but at the same time, making a mockery of Apple's entire security claims. >it's pretty obvious that Apple has been outsmarted by a government agency. I disagree with this assessment. It's not very surprising that the FBI was able to hack into a particular iPhone by focusing all available resources on the task. Given their previous duplicity, I would not even believe the claim without real evidence. Furthermore, I would not be surprised if they'd already hacked into it weeks ago. After all, their objective here was never to hack into the phone, but to establish a legal precedent that would force companies like Apple to comply with their future wishes. Apple has well and truly won, and the FBI is at this point trying (and succeeding, sadly) to save face. I would speculate that Apple are asking them about it publicly because they know that the FBI will not comply with such a demand, thus making the FBI look bad, since it is now (purportedly) putting the security of millions of consumer devices at stake. They may also suspect that the FBI has not legitimately hacked into the phone, which remains a possibility. Or, as is more likely, that the FBI's method required large resources and could not be applied to many iphones at once, for instance.
- coldcode 11y ago
  An interesting twist would be for Apple to encourage someone to sue Apple for having a hackable phone and then having Apple supply a legal request to require the FBI to disclose the hack in order to "defend" the lawsuit. Not sure this would work but you need a legal reason to force disclosure.
  - Mtinie 11y ago
    Let's find out. As an iPhone user, I presume I have standing and could argue some form of damages. Now, is there a lawyer out there interested in discussing whether there is really any merit to bringing a suit forward? Would / could this be a class action, or in this case, is it better to seek an individual out come? Hypothetically speaking, of course, until there are proven grounds to stand on.
    - 11y ago
MaysonL 11y ago
Doesn't the federal government have a policy strongly encouraging reporting vulnerabilities discovered in computer systema?
akerro 11y ago
>And now, Apple is in panic mode, slowly realizing that they went from being the hero of privacy in the modern age to the company that wasn't able to secure its phone from the FBI. From the FBI. Of all things. Some applications that I cracked, yghm illegally, had TOS or EULA with something like 'you're not allowed to RE our app" or "if you find a vulnerability you must let us know about it in the first order". Doesn't Apple have something like that for their software? That would make it easier for them to legally force FBI to reveal the method. If, FBI, does not lie, which can be the case, they got data from different source and iOS is still safe.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Such TOS/EULA are horseshit, and even if FBI do nothing else right, they're right to ignore such.
scotty79 11y ago
> and claim that it's already fixed in the next version of the OS And look like a lying fool when details eventually come out and reveal that it's a hardware security flaw, not something that can be patched by OS.
kefka 11y ago
Oh, you mean the password their agents set, AFTER the city unlocked the iPhone using the standard administration interface? The phone was a City Phone, was managed by the City, and had all the standard controls of a Managed iPhone. Well, ask the agent what they set and/or read their logs. This isn't rocket surgery.
- amdavidson 11y ago
  The password that was reset was the iCloud password, preventing the phone from automatically backing up until the new iCloud password was updated. The unlock pin was not changed.
mikeash 11y ago
This certainly isn't how it looks to me. The FBI comes off looking like complete fools to me. They said that they needed Apple's help to get into this phone, that there was no other way, and that Apple's refusal to help endangered national security, humanity, and the universe. Then they got called in front of Congress and schooled by a Congressman, one of the last places you'd expect to find anyone remotely technically competent, about NAND mirroring. A few weeks later, they call the whole thing off, saying they didn't need Apple's help after all. They come off looking like complete fools at best, since their huge public spectacle was based on "only Apple can do this," and now that it turns out they could have done it themselves, it just looks like they're incompetent. Meanwhile Apple comes off as fully committed to their customers' privacy even when it means standing up to the US government. The fact that the FBI was able to get into this phone doesn't really change much; the mere fact that Apple could have gotten into it already means that security was lacking on it, but it seems to me that everybody understood that this was an older model and newer ones are better. Which is funny, because I'm pretty sure both the FBI's proposed attack from Apple and whatever the FBI did themselves would work on the latest hardware too, but just about everyone is convinced that the Secure Enclave would prevent it. And then in September Apple will announce the iPhone 7 with Even Better Security, further demonstrating their commitment in this area.
- visarga 11y ago
  > Meanwhile Apple comes off as fully committed to their customers' privacy even when it means standing up to the US government. My conspiracy theory instincts tell me that this is a play to fool us into thinking that Apple is fighting for our privacy, in order to make us trust Apple unconditionally and in the meantime not develop new ways of hiding our communications. In reality I think the government always gets what it wants.
  - sdgsfsfgfg 11y ago
    Totally agree - this is all pantomime.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  >They come off looking like complete fools at best, since their huge public spectacle was based on "only Apple can do this," and now that it turns out they could have done it themselves, it just looks like they're incompetent. No one ever doubted that there was some vulnerability that exists that could be used without Apple's help. There is almost always a vulnerability. The hard part is discovering it. As soon as a third-party told them about it, they paused the case against Apple. The new information changed the facts of the case and made compelling Apple unnecessary. For the FBI to do anything else would have been perjury of the highest order.
mc32 11y ago
It's not working as intended for either party. They both come out looking bad. Apple looks bad because they claimed that if they produced this software for the FBI it would eventually get in the hands of international criminals and put their users at risk (this before the FBI tried compelling them so it would not have set court precedent). So the FBI did an about run and got someone to come up with a method to achieve the same aim, and so the end result to Apple users is the same, except Apple are in the dark as to what the vuln is. That's a position they'd like to not be in. On the other hand, the FBI coming in and trying to compel Apple, after an initial rebuff, looks like it was unnecessary and makes them look less competent. Now, given it took a third party to do this, the FBI can't very well disclose the third party's trade secret. Lose-lose for both. This should be titled "The iPhone was never as secure as we wanted to think it was"
squeaky-clean 11y ago
> And now, Apple is in panic mode, slowly realizing that they went from being the hero of privacy in the modern age to the company that wasn't able to secure its phone from the FBI. From the FBI. Of all things. > No wonder they are freaking out and they want to know how the FBI did it. Not really sure how you reached that conclusion, as there wasn't even a single quote from an Apple employee or legal representative in the article. The only quote even related to the FBI giving the exploit method to Apple is from the product counsel at AVG Technologies. So how exactly is Apple "freaking out"?
avip 11y ago
So apple mocked, FBI screwed. This round's winner: Cellebrite.

bitJericho 11y ago

You think Apple should have lied to the public?

daxfohl 11y ago
I assume he means this would be the best strategy (if kept under wraps) for Apple's reputation; the public's interests notwithstanding. Regardless, grandstanding twice just looks foolish for everyone except the FBI.
- mcphage 11y ago
  You think this case makes the FBI look good? It took a month long media circus, made Apple look like the good guys, pissing off most of the tech community—all to unlock a single phone that likely has no useful data on it. If they had wanted to advertise their ability to unlock iPhones, they would have just done it, and done a press conference about how they unlocked it and got lots of good information. Instead, they look like they were desperately scrambling, before some "Canadian girlfriend" showed up at the last minute and saved them from looked even more foolish. Sure, from Apple's side, it would have been better had it gone to court and been established that the government isn't allowed to do what it was trying to do, but... I don't see the FBI trying the same tactic again, and, here's the kicker—if they can't establish the authority to force Apple to unlock phones on non-secure enclave machines, then when they need a secure enclave equipped phone unlocked, it's going to be a lot harder to use the All Writs Act to force Apple's hand.
  - daxfohl 11y ago
    I'm specifically talking about Apple asking for the hacking info. The FBI doesn't look anything (yet) because it's just the recipient of the request and AFAIK hasn't yet responded.
  - incepted 11y ago
    > You think this case makes the FBI look good? Right now, I'd say they are looking pretty good: they hacked into the phone of a terrorist without breaking any laws.
    - mcphage 11y ago
      If only it was really about just that phone, and didn't create a month long media circus power grab only to end it with "uh.... nevermind."
      - daxfohl 11y ago
        Of course it makes them look bad to anyone who thinks their looking good looks bad.
        mcphage 11y ago
        If they had just hacked into the phone, and said "hey we hacked into the terrorist's phone", I think they'd look pretty good. They'd be competent, and did what they needed to do. But that's not what they were going for; they over-reached, and then weakly backed off. That's what doesn't look good.
akerro 11y ago
Why would they do it? Right?

tajen 11y ago

...or the FBI didn't succeed to hack the phone, and just tries to justifies why it won't proceed to trial. By the way, since the FBI said this phone will allow arresting other terrorists... did we find anything relevant on the phone?

dogma1138 11y ago
More likely that they did manage to find a 3rd party that could unlock it and found nothing, this wasn't the suspects personal phone (those were also recovered) but it was his work phone, the 6 week old backups had no information on it, the attack was planned more than 6 weeks in advance and it is highly unlikely that he used his work phone to contact any one involved in this. They've probably spent six to seven figures on hiring a 3rd party for a bespoke service just to find what any analyst could've assumed - nothing. That said given the severity of the situation even a 1 in a 1000 chance to get some additional information would'be been worth the kings ransom they must have had to pay to get it unlocked. At the end think what you want of the FBI but that's exactly what their duty should entail, forcing Apple to unlock it is a murky business but investing resources in unlock the phone themselves is perfectly within their right and even obligation to do. I don't understand why people are going apeshit about this no one would bat an eye when the FBI picks a lock or breaks into a safe how is an iPhone different?
- acqq 11y ago
  > no one would bat an eye when the FBI picks a lock or breaks into a safe how is an iPhone different? Because it was not about that one iPhone but the planned precedent with immense effects: using the court-order to "write" the new laws, and FBI started the whole thing exactly with that goal: http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/26/fbi-apple-iphone-precedent-poll-candidates/ http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/26/fbi-apple-iphone-precedent-pol...
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    And? I've specifically stated that I don't think that the FBI demanding Apple to either unlock the phone or reduce the level of security is appropriate, the FBI breaking into it them selves is perfectly fine.

DINKDINK 11y ago

>letting them know they were able to hack into the phone without Apple's help but at the same time, making a mockery of Apple's entire security claims. What proof do you have that the FBI hacked the phone? The only piece of evidence we have is that the FBI withdrew the case. That could be either 1.) They were able to crack the phone (unsubstantiated TMK) 2.) They realize they lost the debate regarding encryption but didn't want to risk setting precedent

yAnonymous 11y ago

>Now, it's the FBI sending a giant "screw you" to Apple by not only letting them know they were able to hack into the phone without Apple's help Everyone knew they could do this and they only tried to use this whole thing to get easy access to all phones from Apple.

camillomiller 11y ago

>Except that if I were them, I certainly wouldn't ask that publicly, I would at least pretend I know how the FBI did it and claim that it's already fixed in the next version of the OS Wow, lying doesn't really look like the best course of action for a public traded company, I guess. >Which still means that tens of millions of iPhones are at risk today and will be for months, but at least, you get to pretend that you're ahead of the FBI while right now, it's pretty obvious that Apple has been outsmarted by a government agency. It's extremely probable that users are not in danger. If it's true that the FBI used Cellebrite's services, they might have used a slightly upgraded version of the company's solution that enabled the hacking of 32-bit devices (i.e. no secure enclave). The commercial solution touted publicly by Cellebrite is used by law enforcement all over the world to unlock iOS 8.x iPhones and iPads in a matter of 24h. There was a recent case in Milan, where the Court expert was able to unlock an iPhone 5 in 2 days and retrieve data thanks to the services of Cellebrite's offices in Munich. So: 32-bit devices with iOS 9, no secure enclave, implication of a company known for providing solutions to break into iPhones since forever. Icing on the cake: they might as well have used a system like the one suggested by ACLU and other experts: NVRAM cloning. That's a solution that's extremely phone specific and doesn't require to exploit any big scary bug to be carried out. Most probable outcome: Apple will keep on hardening iOS security and it's own cloud security even more. In the end the common user wins. The FBI is STILL the bad guy, acting like criminals who won't disclose a potential vulnerability (which might as well not exists) to the manufacturer.

rtpg 11y ago
What's the objective behind Apple wanting to know the method then? It sounds like any of these could be possible, so it's not like there's a big mystery (especially given the Cellebrite Purchase Order found on some government website).
- arrrg 11y ago
  It could be something else. That’s the problem. Apple doesn’t know for sure and they would like to.
marcoperaza 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

viraptor 11y ago

Was there ever a proof that FBI actually hacked the phone? There could be lots of not-exactly-exploits that could be applied to this situation and give the solution. For all we know, the company they hired said: "you don't really lose anything by checking 1236 and 1478 first, so why not just do that?" and the first one worked. Anything about successful / unsuccessful / advanced / trivial solution is just speculation at this point as far as I know. The only thing that FBI said is that they got the data they wanted - and that could be done in thousands of ways. And it doesn't even have to be something that can be prevented or fixed by Apple (what if they found a CCTV recording of the owner tapping the code in?)

joelrunyon 11y ago

I think you're reading this completely wrong. The FBI asked for access, Apple said no (because they knew the case was about precedent rather than capabilities). Apple knows the older phones had vulnerabilities (see this faux-apple computer - https://youtu.be/zsjZ2r9Ygzw?t=15m50s https://youtu.be/zsjZ2r9Ygzw?t=15m50s commercial). This is the follow-up from Apple saying "oh, you needed our help to crack it huh? How did you suddenly find a way to do it on your own without us as soon as you realized public perception wasn't proceeding as you hoped? EFF seems to think that the FBI is legally required to disclose the method (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/fbi-breaks-iphone-and-we-have-some-questions https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/fbi-breaks-iphone-and-...) due to their VEP process.

altern8tif 11y ago
The VEP seems to be policy rather than legislation. Meaning that there is no legal obligation for the US Government to abide by it. If anything, the question is whether the US Government is morally obliged to reveal the vulnerability, given that the risk of not doing so is much higher than the value the government gets from exploiting it as a tool against terrorism. That, I believe, is the EFF's strategy – getting public support and appealing to the government's moral obligation to protect its people.
- kra34 11y ago
  So the same company that didn't want to help investigate somebody who killed 14 people because of privacy concerns believes the government has a moral obligation to help them debug their software / hardware platforms. Yup, that makes sense.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    You seem to think holding both positions is incoherent, but I have no idea why.
freyr 11y ago
> I think you're reading this completely wrong. It may be the wrong opinion, but it's the popular opinion among many people I've spoken to. Namely, they think Apple has egg on its face and isn't as good at security as they claimed to be. Right and wrong don't always matter in the court of public opinion.

zeofig 11y ago

>Now, it's the FBI sending a giant "screw you" to Apple by not only letting them know they were able to hack into the phone without Apple's help but at the same time, making a mockery of Apple's entire security claims. >it's pretty obvious that Apple has been outsmarted by a government agency. I disagree with this assessment. It's not very surprising that the FBI was able to hack into a particular iPhone by focusing all available resources on the task. Given their previous duplicity, I would not even believe the claim without real evidence. Furthermore, I would not be surprised if they'd already hacked into it weeks ago. After all, their objective here was never to hack into the phone, but to establish a legal precedent that would force companies like Apple to comply with their future wishes. Apple has well and truly won, and the FBI is at this point trying (and succeeding, sadly) to save face. I would speculate that Apple are asking them about it publicly because they know that the FBI will not comply with such a demand, thus making the FBI look bad, since it is now (purportedly) putting the security of millions of consumer devices at stake. They may also suspect that the FBI has not legitimately hacked into the phone, which remains a possibility. Or, as is more likely, that the FBI's method required large resources and could not be applied to many iphones at once, for instance.

coldcode 11y ago
An interesting twist would be for Apple to encourage someone to sue Apple for having a hackable phone and then having Apple supply a legal request to require the FBI to disclose the hack in order to "defend" the lawsuit. Not sure this would work but you need a legal reason to force disclosure.
- Mtinie 11y ago
  Let's find out. As an iPhone user, I presume I have standing and could argue some form of damages. Now, is there a lawyer out there interested in discussing whether there is really any merit to bringing a suit forward? Would / could this be a class action, or in this case, is it better to seek an individual out come? Hypothetically speaking, of course, until there are proven grounds to stand on.
  - 11y ago

MaysonL 11y ago

Doesn't the federal government have a policy strongly encouraging reporting vulnerabilities discovered in computer systema?

akerro 11y ago

>And now, Apple is in panic mode, slowly realizing that they went from being the hero of privacy in the modern age to the company that wasn't able to secure its phone from the FBI. From the FBI. Of all things. Some applications that I cracked, yghm illegally, had TOS or EULA with something like 'you're not allowed to RE our app" or "if you find a vulnerability you must let us know about it in the first order". Doesn't Apple have something like that for their software? That would make it easier for them to legally force FBI to reveal the method. If, FBI, does not lie, which can be the case, they got data from different source and iOS is still safe.

jessaustin 11y ago
Such TOS/EULA are horseshit, and even if FBI do nothing else right, they're right to ignore such.

scotty79 11y ago

> and claim that it's already fixed in the next version of the OS And look like a lying fool when details eventually come out and reveal that it's a hardware security flaw, not something that can be patched by OS.

kefka 11y ago

Oh, you mean the password their agents set, AFTER the city unlocked the iPhone using the standard administration interface? The phone was a City Phone, was managed by the City, and had all the standard controls of a Managed iPhone. Well, ask the agent what they set and/or read their logs. This isn't rocket surgery.

amdavidson 11y ago
The password that was reset was the iCloud password, preventing the phone from automatically backing up until the new iCloud password was updated. The unlock pin was not changed.

mikeash 11y ago

This certainly isn't how it looks to me. The FBI comes off looking like complete fools to me. They said that they needed Apple's help to get into this phone, that there was no other way, and that Apple's refusal to help endangered national security, humanity, and the universe. Then they got called in front of Congress and schooled by a Congressman, one of the last places you'd expect to find anyone remotely technically competent, about NAND mirroring. A few weeks later, they call the whole thing off, saying they didn't need Apple's help after all. They come off looking like complete fools at best, since their huge public spectacle was based on "only Apple can do this," and now that it turns out they could have done it themselves, it just looks like they're incompetent. Meanwhile Apple comes off as fully committed to their customers' privacy even when it means standing up to the US government. The fact that the FBI was able to get into this phone doesn't really change much; the mere fact that Apple could have gotten into it already means that security was lacking on it, but it seems to me that everybody understood that this was an older model and newer ones are better. Which is funny, because I'm pretty sure both the FBI's proposed attack from Apple and whatever the FBI did themselves would work on the latest hardware too, but just about everyone is convinced that the Secure Enclave would prevent it. And then in September Apple will announce the iPhone 7 with Even Better Security, further demonstrating their commitment in this area.

visarga 11y ago
> Meanwhile Apple comes off as fully committed to their customers' privacy even when it means standing up to the US government. My conspiracy theory instincts tell me that this is a play to fool us into thinking that Apple is fighting for our privacy, in order to make us trust Apple unconditionally and in the meantime not develop new ways of hiding our communications. In reality I think the government always gets what it wants.
- sdgsfsfgfg 11y ago
  Totally agree - this is all pantomime.
marcoperaza 11y ago
>They come off looking like complete fools at best, since their huge public spectacle was based on "only Apple can do this," and now that it turns out they could have done it themselves, it just looks like they're incompetent. No one ever doubted that there was some vulnerability that exists that could be used without Apple's help. There is almost always a vulnerability. The hard part is discovering it. As soon as a third-party told them about it, they paused the case against Apple. The new information changed the facts of the case and made compelling Apple unnecessary. For the FBI to do anything else would have been perjury of the highest order.

mc32 11y ago

It's not working as intended for either party. They both come out looking bad. Apple looks bad because they claimed that if they produced this software for the FBI it would eventually get in the hands of international criminals and put their users at risk (this before the FBI tried compelling them so it would not have set court precedent). So the FBI did an about run and got someone to come up with a method to achieve the same aim, and so the end result to Apple users is the same, except Apple are in the dark as to what the vuln is. That's a position they'd like to not be in. On the other hand, the FBI coming in and trying to compel Apple, after an initial rebuff, looks like it was unnecessary and makes them look less competent. Now, given it took a third party to do this, the FBI can't very well disclose the third party's trade secret. Lose-lose for both. This should be titled "The iPhone was never as secure as we wanted to think it was"

squeaky-clean 11y ago

> And now, Apple is in panic mode, slowly realizing that they went from being the hero of privacy in the modern age to the company that wasn't able to secure its phone from the FBI. From the FBI. Of all things. > No wonder they are freaking out and they want to know how the FBI did it. Not really sure how you reached that conclusion, as there wasn't even a single quote from an Apple employee or legal representative in the article. The only quote even related to the FBI giving the exploit method to Apple is from the product counsel at AVG Technologies. So how exactly is Apple "freaking out"?

avip 11y ago

So apple mocked, FBI screwed. This round's winner: Cellebrite.