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FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
- fwdpropaganda 8y agoTrump is in trouble now. EDIT: It is suspected that Michael Cohen, being a long time Trump friend and personal lawyer, is familiar with Trump's money laundering. If Michael Cohen believes he's at risk of being sent to jail for many years, he might collaborate with the FBI.
- sctb 8y agoCould you please increase the amount of information in your comments? Edit: thanks.
- aphextron 8y agoProsecutors today are receiving millions of documents and electronic records dating back over a decade that involve secret dealings between Cohen and Trump. Expect to see an indictment/arrest for Cohen in the next week, with Trump shortly behind. We're finally reaching the "Temperature of 104 degrees, writhing in delusional pain" portion of this collective nightmarish fever dream.
- civilitty 8y agoA lot of trouble. A Ukrainian national said in an interview that he testified in front of a grand jury convened by the Mueller investigation last Friday. He said that the prosecutor's questions focused on Cohen so he is about to be squeezed from both sides and his family is now selling several multimillion dollar apartments (including his in-laws), supposedly to cover legal bills. His current legal team will cease all work for Cohen after today with sources saying that it is due to a failed attempt at negotiating down some already owed bills. Federal grand juries convene on Fridays so we will know by Monday whether more indictments will be handed down.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- fwdpropaganda 8y agoTrump Campaign to Discredit Michael Cohen is Underway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-NToq6NW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-NToq6NW8
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- patrickg_zill 8y agoI was under the impression that grand jury questioning was not to be disclosed? Am I wrong about this?
- forapurpose 8y agoIt often is leaked, despite the rules.
- civilitty 8y agoThe jurors are not allowed to talk about the proceedings but unless the judge institutes a gag order or the contents of the testimony are otherwise protected (i.e., the case involves a child whose identity must be kept sealed, person testifying has security clearance and the topic is classified, etc.), witnesses can do whatever they please.
- wmf 8y agoBribing foreign government officials is not to be disclosed either, but here we are.
- lamarpye 8y agoThat is why I read Hacker News. The media will try cover up and protect Trump no matter what. Good thing commenters here can scoop the media and expose his lies.
- pandasun 8y ago> Trump is in trouble now. Yeah,.. this is the content I come to HN for. Grow up.
- xamarinthrw 8y agoThis is finally the end of Drumpfff 1 upvote = 1 impeachment Upvote!!!! ----- OK so this comment will obviously be flagged but before that I want to ask people seriously- is nobody at all concerned that in yesterday's ig report, the disclosed texts have not a single text about the so called Russia collusion? Surely that was the thing the fbi would be most worried about if it were real? Instead people glorify full comments like "Trump is in trouble" . Good job
- lamarpye 8y agoThe IG report wasn't on Russian collusion, it was on the Clinton email investigation. The IG will also be looking at abuse of the FISA process: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/department-of-justice-inspector-general-investigating-alleged-fisa-abuses/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/department-of-justice-inspector... Hopefully the government had a good reason for spying on Carter Page
- sctb 8y agoPlease post civilly and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 49bc 8y agoThe article doesn't specify whether or not the encryption was "broken", or whether Cohen is simply cooperating. My hunch tells me it's the latter.
- craftyguy 8y agoYea this is key. It's possible to have Signal on your device but not implement any device locking passcode or passcode for unlocking Signal... That would make it trivial to recover data if you have the device.
- StudentStuff 8y agoAn alternative method of protecting oneself is to set an expiry timer, which makes messages in a conversation ephemeral. 1 week seems to be a fine balance between being able to look back at old messages, while also not having those you communicate with be allowed to store data on your device for too long.
- craftyguy 8y agoThat's a good idea. Even if you enable FDE and a strong passphrase, the court can still compel you to unlock it. They cannot compel you to automagically undelete expired messages (hopefully those are expired and removed in a secure mannner...)
- this_user 8y agoSignal also has an option to truncate your message history automatically, i.e. it only keeps the n newest messages and deletes older ones.
- inferiorhuman 8y agoSignal won't prune the messages until you open the app (or maybe the conversation) again. There've been a few releases where the changelog notes that the app didn't expire ephemeral messages properly.
- polar 8y ago
- justboxing 8y ago> The letter to Judge Kimba Wood stated that "the Government was advised that the FBI’s original electronic extraction of data from telephones did not capture content related to encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Signal... The FBI has now obtained this material." I don't get this. How could you possibly decrypt encrypted messages without WhatsApp or Signal's assistance? Isn't the whole point of encryption that no-one can decrypt it unless they have the necessary keys?
- ipsum2 8y agoI haven't used Whatsapp or Signal, but you don't login every time you use the chat app, right? The phone could have just been unlocked by the owner or the PIN or pattern guessed, assuming the keys are stored on the device.
- StudentStuff 8y agoThey are very different platforms, Signal offers on-device encryption if you choose to enable it, prompting for a password when starting Signal after rebooting the phone. It will also keep a quick lock option in the menu on Android phones so you can easily prevent unauthorized access. I believe Whatsapp has made a few compromises in this regard, but obviously Michael Cohen didn't bother to use disappearing messages in Signal or encrypt his Signal DB, despite how easy it is to do.
- Krasnol 8y agoYou can also set Signal to ask for a password after a certain time.
- catamorphismic 8y agoThis is a common misconception apparently, one that I've fallen prey to myself in the past. Signal removed the option to use the password lock and now uses Android's built-in lock screen functionality to provide auth. That screen was never meant to serve an encryption role and Moxie recommends using Android's full disk encryption feature to ensure data confidentiality at rest.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- MilnerRoute 8y agoManfort [not Cohen, as I originally wrote, but Manafort] had his message stored on iCloud. That turned out to be part of how the FBI was able to recover them so easily. https://gizmodo.com/paul-manafort-learns-that-encrypting-messages-doesnt-ma-1826561511 https://gizmodo.com/paul-manafort-learns-that-encrypting-mes...
- wpdev_63 8y agoWell I am not sure about blackberry but android and ios are fully compromised[0]. 0:https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/ https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/?
- AFNobody 8y agoBlackberry is just a skin of Android these days.
- tptacek 8y agoThis link doesn't say anything remotely like that.
- wpdev_63 8y agoIf you actually read down to the cellphone section, it says the cia/nsa/fbi have tools to gain access to cellphones remotely. Everything on your phone is up for grabs.
- bilbo0s 8y ago"...Cohen's messages were stored on iCloud..." ??? Your comment had me struggling to determine how one could store WhatsApp messages on iCloud. (From a Blackberry no less.) But then I followed your link. I don't think that article was about Cohen. You may want to change your post. On an equally important note, why is it that people out there assume that ANY form of electronic communication is impervious from government surveillance? The reality is that if a three letter agency is after you, it's probably unwise to be using WhatsApp and Signal in an incriminating fashion. (Or anything else for that matter.) It's like locking your physical spaces. Yeah, you should go ahead and lock your house or office and turn on the alarm system while you're gone... but you should also go ahead and assume that those three letter agencies planted surveillance devices in that house or office even in the face of your security measures.
- naner 8y agoYou can get WhatsApp and Signal on a BlackBerry?
- Willson50 8y agoMight be one of BlackBerry's newer Android phones.
- UnoriginalGuy 8y agoIt is Android. So yes.
- oxide 8y agoWhy wouldn't you be able to?
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y agoBB used to run a custom QNX-based OS, not Android.
- praneshp 8y agoWhatsapp used to work on all sorts of crap. I'd not be surprised if they ran on pre-android BBs
- sangnoir 8y agoWhatApp ran on Nokia's S60 platform, which is for feature-phones. Making a QNX version was probably much less of challenge.
- distances 8y agoYou mean S40. S60 was Symbian, the smartphone platform.
- muddi900 8y agoWhatsapp was available on Symbian untill 2016, and they will support Gingerbread until 2020
- jlgaddis 8y agoIf there's one (family of) devices(s) that the FBI certainly knows how to 100% completely pwn the shit out of... it's the Blackberry.
- lstyls 8y agoWhy?
- krn 8y agoBlackBerry CEO: We'll Try To Break Our Own Encryption If Feds Demand It (2017) https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/10/25/blackberry-ceo-well-try-to-break-our-own-encryption-if-feds-demand-it/#61bfbd769772 https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/10/25/black... BlackBerry CEO blasts Apple for focusing on user privacy, data protection (2015) https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-blasts-apple-for-focusing-on-user-privacy-data-protection https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/219661-blackberry-ceo-bla...
- ppseafield 8y agoRelated: BlackBerry gives Indian government ability to intercept messages (2013) https://www.wired.co.uk/article/blackberry-india https://www.wired.co.uk/article/blackberry-india Edit: Also RIM to share some BlackBerry codes with Saudis: source (2010) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackberry-saudi/rim-to-share-some-blackberry-codes-with-saudis-source-idUSTRE6751Q220100810#tgPYKWxcfm9HeB3P.97 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackberry-saudi/rim-to-s... BlackBerry approved in Russia (2007) [required access during criminal investigation] https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/business/worldbusiness/27iht-berry.4.8499664.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/business/worldbusiness/27...
- mirimir 8y agoDamn, you'd think that someone at that level would pay for better OPSEC support. But then, I guess that I'm not surprised. Blackberry does have a reputation, not at all deserved at this point. I'm pretty sure that the President's phone is just as poorly secured. Probably less, from what I've read.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago... especially after the BB leadership bragged about helping law enforcement backdoor into things...
- kasey_junk 8y agoJust a question. Who would they pay? I know a few people I might pay for that but only incidentally & I’ve worked in tech. for 20 years. Where would an average though maybe high priced attorney go to get advice other than “use signal & WhatsApp” if they knew they needed protection from a federal investigation?
- mirimir 8y agoProbably at least 20% of HN users, no? Edit: So are y'all dumping on me because my 20% estimate is too high, or too low?
- torstenvl 8y agoOkay so your answer is...
- mirimir 8y agoThere are many security researchers who could do that. Even I know the basic issues to address, even if I don't know all of the implementation specifics.
- kasey_junk 8y agoName one company you could call up and ask “hey I’m doing some dirt that might get me inestigated by the feds, can you secure my comms?” And they’d say yes. Now name one that an average attorney could find. I’m not picking on you, I’m serious. I have a couple of people I might ask, but if expect most of them to say “no thanks”
- gpm 8y agoSignal encryption relies on a password (last I used it, which was a long time ago). Typing long random passwords in a phone is nothing if not impractical. It wouldn't shock me to find out they just brute forced the password.
- michaelchisari 8y agoOr found a sticky with the password on it when they raided his office.
- joemaller1 8y agoMost likely scenario.
- hurrrrrrrrrr 8y agoIt says that they have "731 pages of encrypted data" but nowhere does it say that they managed to decrypt the data, and read the plain text. It states that they did not disclose what was in the "encrypted data" so... there's no indication or assurance that they've managed to access the plain text.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoWhy on earth would those fools print it all out?
- hurrrrrrrrrr 8y agoHard copy for future reference, in case some sort of vulnerability becomes exploitable at a later date. Also, to provide a vague, yet seemingly impressive metric, true to form for federal government employees, because it seems official to the non-technical layman. If you were to declare a metric such as 900KB of encyphered base64, well, gee, that's like, almost nothing. But print it out, and non-expert jurors start thinking "Well, gee! 700 pages is longer than that Stephen King book that I just read!" And anyway, they wouldn't have to print it out, to obtain a quotable metric. All they'd have to do is paste it into an evidence template, and prep it in a printable format, like a DOCX file or a PDF. Then, they can subpoena for the metadata, and at least maybe infer a relationship between entities, even if they are denied awareness of the nature of the conversations etween them. Seriously, this is how government officials and lawyers tend to think.
- davesque 8y agoMy reading of that was that they had 731 pages of texts, which were supposed to have been encrypted by WhatsApp or Signal, that were stored in plain text. That's what this article appears to suggest: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-15/prosecutors-reconstruct-shredded-cohen-documents-get-16-pages https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-15/prosecuto... From paragraph 2 in the article: > Investigators have restored 16 pages of documents found in Cohen’s shredder and recovered 731 pages of messages sent on encrypted platforms, including WhatsApp and Signal.
- econ_th0 8y agoi cannt read i am dumb, but? did they have his phone password or is this saying they hacked the chat softwares?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mrcactu5 8y agodo people still use BlackBerry in Washington? Seems a little out of date to me...