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FBI, stumped by pimp's Android pattern lock, serves warrant on Google
- drivebyacct2 15y agoSome of the things they're asking for are beyond absurd. How does someone work at the FBI and not realize that asking Google for a user's SS# or detailed browsing logs not realistic?
- rdtsc 15y agoOften enough if someone is smart enough to even realize such things they wouldn't be working for the government. And if you deal with the government you start seeing this kind of stupidity quite often. I am sure you'll see in any large bureaucratic structure (private too) it is just the govt is the largest one of all.
- potshot 15y agoIANAL, but I'm assuming Google doesn't have to hand over anything that's not explicitly listed in the warrant. If you're the FBI, you might as well ask for the world and see what you get back.
- rprasad 15y agoIt's not about being realistic, it's about finding out what sort of information Google retains about its users. Low-profile cases are the best times to test these sorts of fishing expeditions because attention and resistance to teh subpoena will be low. (In contrast, in a high-profile case, the defendant is likely to vigorously oppose any such attempt.) In other words: The FBI doesn't care if they actually get the information in this case; they want to know if they'll be able to get such information in future, more important cases.
- FaceKicker 15y agoIt's a pattern lock, so it must not be using disk encryption (only available on Ice Cream Sandwich with either PIN or password). Is there some reason they can't just open it up and see what's on it?
- tadfisher 15y agoText messages are on internal storage, which becomes unmountable when the device is locked. Depending on the phone, they should be able to get into recovery mode and connect via adb. However, if it has a locked bootloader, they're SOL, and my schaudenfreude is without limit :)
- FaceKicker 15y agoSorry, I'm not sure I understand - can you explain more? How does the OS making it unmountable when it's locked stop the FBI from physically removing the internal storage and looking at its contents via another device? I can see how it might require specialized forensics equipment depending on how obscure/proprietary the internal storage hardware is, but that seems like something the FBI would have access to or be able to obtain...
- DanBC 15y agoIt's weird that they're accessing the device without using forensic "data preservation" techniques. Surely anything they gather from the phone now will be useless in court?
- tadfisher 15y agoI would imagine that busting a pimp isn't exactly high up there on the FBI's list of priorities, at least not high enough to desolder a NAND chip (possibly destroying evidence) and reverse-engineer its raw access protocol. Far simpler to just make Google give them the password.
- ajross 15y agoThe article states it's a Samsung phone, almost certainly a Galaxy S variant by market share. All Samsung phones I know honor a pre-bootloader protocol (accessible by a leaked tool named "Odin" or its reverse-engineered open source equivalent "Heimdall"). This can read out the contents of all partitions without ever running a Linux kernel. The mountable filesystems are all readable just fine on the host. The FBI's forensics people are idiots, basically. They have what they want already, they never needed the PIN code.
- koenigdavidmj 15y agoCan't all of this be gotten just by looking at the storage on the phone? Or talking to the wireless carrier?
- trzaska 15y agoSeriously? Pattern locks are almost as easy as Face Unlock to get through.
- dm8 15y agoAre you referring to smudge attacks on pattern locks? Face unlock was even weaker since anyone who had access to your photo could unlock it.
- trzaska 15y agoYeah I was referring to that, but I just realized that there's probably some legal bs preventing them from doing it. So nevermind!
- laserDinosaur 15y ago"Face unlock was even weaker since anyone who had access to your photo could unlock it" I thought that rumour was debunked by Google engineers within the first hour that it launched? edit - The quote is "Responding to a Twitter message from someone who say Face Unlock could be hacked [with a picture of the person], Bray said, "Nope. Give us some credit.""
- dm8 15y agoI was following that when it was launched. But it was still easily defeated. Here's TheNextWeb article where they show a video on how easy it is to break that: http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/11/11/android-4-0-face-unlock-feature-defeated-using-a-photo-video/ http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/11/11/android-4-0-face-unl...
- meow 15y agohow would they make it photo proof ? I mean any guesses on the algorithm they use.. my dart in the dark would be that a photo would be absolutely still while a real person's face might twitch, shake, bat eyelids etc..
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- DanBC 15y agoDirect link to security researchers blog. (http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2012/03/fbi-seeks-warrant-to-force-google-to.html http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2012/03/fbi-seeks-warrant-to-for...) PDF of the application. (http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.casd.378626/gov.uscourts.casd.378626.1.0.pdf http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.casd.378626/gov...)
- freehunter 15y agoI'm okay with the method the FBI is pursuing. They clearly have a case (or enough of a case to take to court), they know exactly what data they need, and they have obtained a warrant for the information. I don't think wiretap laws should come into play on this unless they plan on intercepting communication beyond what is already stored on the phone. The case so far is exactly what the law intended and holds just as relevant today as it did in the 1700s. Like drivebyacct2 mentioned, though, asking Google for the SSN of a user is kind of odd, and I really hope Google doesn't know that. It's possible the carrier might know, but Google shouldn't unless the suspect was receiving payment from AdWords or Google Checkout/Wallet (do they need SSN for tax reasons at that point?)
- redthrowaway 15y agoHere's my issue: Google could, in theory, provide them access to the device. But that's not what they're asking for. They're asking for usernames, passwords, SSN, etc. By all means, the FBI can submit a warrant to a lock manufacturer to open a lock. They can not, however, tell the lock manufacturer to give them the contents of whatever the lock is protecting. That's a separate warrant.
- freehunter 15y agoThis is true, and you've just pointed out a big difference from old to new that I had forgotten about. But what if the safe in the metaphor is owned by someone else and residing on their property, and contains multiple smaller safes inside? That's kind of like cloud-based apps that Android uses heavily. The Feds have enough reason to believe there is relevant information in email, text, and web searches to convince a court of this (difficulty level of convincing a court is debatable). There also is generally a lot of shit the man pushes out with the knowledge they likely won't be given a response to, and they will accept that. It's a fishing expedition. It's not right, but it's common.
- signalsignal 15y agoI just assumed that they had search warrants allow this form of discovery for years now. It is funny to thing that an investigator tried one time too many pattern attempts and accidentally erased the phone contents. I'm going to go on record as haha'ing the slip up.
- pilif 15y agoTo quote the article: > In it, the FBI asks for a warrant to be served on Google. It wants to know: > The subscriber's name, address, Social Security number, account login and password I would hope the FBI is bright enough to know that in all likelyhood Google stores their users passwords in hashed form. How would Google actually be able to comply with this request for the password? What would happen if they can't comply (they can't)? Would this eventually lead to legislation that forces services to store passwords in plain text or reversible encryption (which is pretty much the same thing)?
- andersh 15y agoGoogle can give you a new password if you forget yours. There is no technical barrier to giving the FBI access and clearly no requirement for plaintext passwords anywhere (setting aside how the request was expressed in the article as a request for a password).
- jackalope 15y agoThat's assuming the device is associated with a Google account. It's not a requirement and losing the unlocking password/gesture may leave the phone completely unusable (except for 911 calls). Sadly, I speak from personal experience. I do not believe Google has a way of remotely associating a locked phone with a Google account to regain access.
- jakeonthemove 15y agoYou sure? I can't use my Android phone (Gingerbread) without a damn Google account - I have to use a throwaway one just to be able to use my smartphone...
- jrockway 15y agoThey can even generate an application-specific password for the FBI, to be revoked after the time limit specified in the warrant is reached. (No idea if this is done or not, but in theory, there is no need to know the password in order to disclose one to the FBI. All they want to do is unlock the phone, but are too dumb to connect a USB cable and run adb.)
- SNK 15y agoHow could the FBI not know his SSN?!
- lost-theory 15y agoThey want to know the subscriber's SSN, the person who owns the phone. He said the phone belonged to his sister.
- chimeracoder 15y agoHow should Google know that?
- dsr_ 15y agoPattern locks are notoriously vulnerable to visual analysis of fingertip grease marks on the screen. Don't count on this to protect your data.
- rdtsc 15y agoAh I just figured something out. So some people here are calling FBI's stupidity for mucking with the phone, as in trying patterns that eventually locked the device. In other words if phones are known to lock they shouldn't just randomly try patterns on it. But I believe the attempts were not random. They probably did what you suggested, inspects trace of the fingertip grease and discovered a much more constrained set of possible possible patterns. So they basically got an un-directed graph and now they thought they could figure out the most likely directed path in the graph that would unlock the phone. Somebody probably made an educated (but eventually bad) guess about what the unlock path would be.
- mahmud 15y agoOur office security system has had the same 4-digit password for years, so much so that the keys for those digits are now worn out. 4! tries.
- tedunangst 15y agoSoghoian wonders about the legality of accessing a still-operational cell phone. ... But a US Magistrate Judge disagreed. As a side note, I really dislike this style of reporting. I doubt the judge disagreed with Soghoian if Soghoian published his blog post after the judge published his opinion. The article makes it sound like a stupid judge made the wrong decision by not reading some expert opinion that was available to him. If the judge disagreed with anybody, it was defense counsel. But the article doesn't mention any objection by the defense. Perhaps, because as a lawyer, he is in a better position to know what's legal and what's not?
- inchcombec 15y agoI noticed that too and agree entirely. There is absolutely nothing in the article that suggests this argument was actually made and rejected. At the end of the day, judges are people too and can't possibly have the entirety of all case law in their minds at all times. It is up to defense attorneys to research the case and bring up relevant arguments. I just can't see anything in the article that even suggests that the idea of a wiretap warrant being more appropriate was even discussed.
- brown9-2 15y agoThis is probably a tangent, but why would the FBI be involved in a prostitution case? Shouldn't that be state/local?
- kenj0418 15y agoMinor victim and state-lines being crossed -- that would be my guess.
- shareme 15y agois MANN act state or Federal?
- kitanata 15y agoMaybe it was a interstate prostitution ring? Hell going between New York and New Jersey would qualify.
- nomaningme 15y agoIf he was still running his network of pimps I suppose that would count as racketeering. Either that, or the FBI was after someone else and got the goods on him as a bonus.
- gcb 15y agothe implications at the end are really lame. "the phone may have received sms after the judge issued the order" like that would be held in court for anything? let's thing analogically: would a mob king be freed if a judge authorized a safe with evidence to be opened on the 4th but it was only opened on the 7th, and new evidence was put into the safe by other agents on the 6th?
- cleverjake 15y agoI wonder if the FBI is aware of android issue 3006 - http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3006 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3006
- pwf 15y agoDoes this still exist? What an absolutely horrifying bug. Do you know where in the source this is?
- cleverjake 15y agoits still open, and works on my droid, but considering that there are so many handsets that are not updated, im sure this one would still work on most phones. I haven't looked through the code to pinpoint it.
- user2459 15y agoThe FBI Forensics Lab mis-entered the pattern lock too many times? The FBI uses the same tactic as my little brother to get into peoples phones? At a forensics lab? And the stuff they want from google kind of blows my mind. "The times and duration of every webpage visited"... As far is I can see that's completely undeliverable by anyone but possibly the carrier. Who do they have working down there? This is also super interesting: "His parole conditions prevented him from doing anything to hide or lock digital files." So if convicted of a crime they can require you to not use basic personal and identity safety measures.
- joering2 15y agoCompletely agree with you. How amateurish! Lock pattern is saved on the device, not in the cloud. I am not a hacker myself but FBI not having one that downloads entire OS out of it and either cracks the pattern or disable "wait X seconds to retry" and run a cracking app on it makes me wonder. Especially this is not some rocket science we talking about -- his lock pattern most likely is max 5 pins.
- vibrunazo 15y agoI cannot speak for the FBI as I know little about them. But I have worked closely its equivalent in my country (Brazil). And one notorious fact that I learned is that the technical expertise of these guys is way behind what the public expects of them. People expect federal police and government investigation to be up to date with the newest technologies and hacker practices. They picture hollywoodian CIA command centrals with magical hackers that can do anything they want by typing a few matrix-like code on a command shell. But in reality, technical government agents have very little incentive to do their job well done. They just wanna get over it and go back home. As a result you have highly untrained personnel, who doesn't keep up with latest technology and will do the bare minimum to just not get fired. Their methods are always amateurish and easy to avoid if you're actually trying. I'd imagine the US is a bit better than my country in this regard. But I'd doubt that by much. I'm still sure that their technical skills are light years behind what the public perception is.
- eta_carinae 15y agoI'm confused, can't they just write a GUI in Visual Basic to track the perp's IP?
- Qweef 15y agoThey could have just come and asked here. You must have already have root but since they mentioned it's a Samsung phone then all you do is find a CWM/Rooted kernel tar and flash via Odin then do the steps below. adb -d shell sqlite3 data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db sqlite> update system set value=0 where name='lock_pattern_autolock'; sqlite> .exit exit Reboot from there and the lockscreen is bypassed. Remember kids, use this for good and not evil muahahhahaahhaah
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- driverdan 15y ago(IANAL) Modifying anything on the phone would make the data inadmissible.