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FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled
- ramuel 9mo agoCan't they just use Pegasus or Cellebrite???
- aw1621107 9mo agoIt's unlikely that Pegasus would work since Apple patched the exploit it used. I think it's unclear whether Cellebrite can or cannot get around Lockdown Mode as it would depend very heavily on whether the technique(s)/exploit(s) Cellebrite uses are suitable for whatever bugs/vulnerabilities remain exposed in Lockdown Mode.
- mandeepj 9mo agoFor now! They’ll get something from open market like the last time when Apple refused to decrypt (or unlock?) a phone for them.
- PlatoIsADisease 9mo agoYeah this is low stakes stuff, Pegasus historically breaks Apple phones easy. Bezos's nudes and Khashoggi knows. (not really Khashoggi is dead)
- dist-epoch 9mo ago[flagged]
- bob001 9mo agoDo you disagree with the facts of the article? Or is it propaganda simply because the facts doesn't support your narrative and ideological inclinations?
- summa_tech 9mo agoSelective amplification of true events as well as selective reporting are bread and butter of modern propaganda. It works a lot better than saying outright falsehoods, which - in the long-term - cause people to lose faith in everything you have to say. And there's always someone jumping to your defense - after all you did not outright lie...
- bob001 9mo agoThat is again a claim with no backing that can be applied to anything without actual data to back it up. For example. I can just as equally state with the same data to back me up (ie: none as it stands right now) that you are a US government plant posting propaganda to encourage people to not use safer technologies and as a result make their data easier to spy on.
- cromka 9mo ago> Selective amplification You can't possibly know this is what happened here, it's an observational bias.
- UltraSane 9mo agoMan people are whiny about this on Hacker News when they should know better. There is no real computer security without hardware roots of trust and keystores
- hnrayst 9mo ago[flagged]
- pc86 9mo agoSerious question: What are the "valid concerns" about people securing their computing devices against third parties?
- ambicapter 9mo agoThink of the children
- horacemorace 9mo agoThe leaders of US government certainly do. Much too fondly.
- shaky-carrousel 9mo agoCorrupt government officials gunning down inconvenient people.
- pc86 9mo agoI'd love to hear what you think that has to do with this?
- nutjob2 9mo agoIf we've learned anything from this administration it is that the government can ignore the law longer than you can stay alive. Arming yourself against lawless government in every legal way is advisable.
- pc86 9mo agoI'm not even saying you're wrong, I'm saying what does that have to do with a valid search warrant being executed?
- hnrayst 9mo ago[flagged]
- bob001 9mo agoTakeaway is to not enable biometric unlock if you are concerned about your data being accessed by authorities.
- bawolff 9mo agoSo in america, they can force you to use a biometric but they can't compel you to reveal your password? I mean, i agree with you, but its a really weird line in the sand to draw
- afavour 9mo agoThat is genuinely the current state of law, yes. There's no real logic at work, just attempts at clawing back control whenever a new gray area appears.
- intrasight 9mo agoIt is very logical, as revealing a password is considered testimonial and is protected by the fifth amendment.
- afavour 9mo agoRight, and pressing your finger on a fingerprint sensor is also revealing a password, just via different means.
- intrasight 9mo agoBut is not legal testimonial
- 9mo ago
- macintux 9mo ago> Natanson said she does not use biometrics for her devices, but after investigators told her to try, “when she applied her index finger to the fingerprint reader, the laptop unlocked.” Curious.
- QuantumNomad_ 9mo agoProbably enabled it at some point and forgot. Perhaps even during setup when the computer was new.
- NewsaHackO 9mo agoI want to say that is generous of her, but one thing that is weird is if I didn’t want someone to go into my laptop and they tried to force me to use my fingerprint to unlock it, I definitely wouldn’t use the finger I use to unlock it on the first try. Hopefully, Apple locks it out and forces a password if you use the wrong finger “accidentally” a couple of times.
- altairprime 9mo agoCorrect. That’s why my Touch ID isn’t configured to use the obvious finger.
- throwawayq3423 9mo agoHonestly, that's clever.
- intrasight 9mo agoMy recollection is the computers do by default ask the user to set up biometrics
- b112 9mo agoVery much so, because the question is... did she set it up in the past? How did it know the print even?
- 9mo ago
- throwmeaway820 9mo agoIt seems unfortunate that enhanced protection against physically attached devices requires enabling a mode that is much broader, and sounds like it has a noticeable impact on device functionality. I never attach my iPhone to anything that's not a power source. I would totally enable an "enhanced protection for external accessories" mode. But I'm not going to enable a general "Lockdown mode" that Apple tells me means my "device won’t function like it typically does"
- pkteison 9mo agoIt isn’t. Settings > Privacy & Security > Wired Accessories Set to ask for new accessories or always ask.
- sodality2 9mo agoI have to warn you, it does get annoying when you plug in your power-only cable and it still nags you with the question. But it does work as intended!
- neilalexander 9mo agoYou might want to check that charger. I have the same option set to ask every time and it never appears for chargers.
- UltraSane 9mo agoComputer security is generally inversely proportional to convenience. Best opsec is generally to have multiple devices.
- ur-whale 9mo ago> I never attach my iPhone to anything that's not a power source. It's "attached" to the wifi and to the cell network. Pretty much the same thing.
- H8crilA 9mo agoGrapheneOS does this by default - only power delivery when locked. Also it's a hardware block, not software. Seems to be completely immune to these USB exploit tools.
- UltraSane 9mo agoSamsung phones have the Secure Folder which can have a different, more secure password and be encrypted when the phone is on.
- delichon 9mo agoI use the Cryptomator app for this, it works as advertised. I keep ~60 GiB of personal files in there that would be an easy button to steal my identity and savings. I'm just hoping it doesn't include an NSA back door.
- vorticalbox 9mo agoyou can check the github https://github.com/cryptomator/ios https://github.com/cryptomator/ios
- delichon 9mo agoEven if I had the skills to confirm the code is secure, how could I know that this is the code running on my phone, without also having the skills to build and deploy it from source?
- warkdarrior 9mo agoAlso, you need to make sure that the installation process does not insert a backdoor into the code you built from source.
- fragmede 9mo agoOr the compilation process! https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
- piperswe 9mo agoThe NSA definitely has easier ways to steal your identity and savings if they wanted to anyways
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- dec0dedab0de 9mo agoEvery time something like this happens I assume it is a covert marketing campaign. If the government wants to get in they’re going to get in. They can also hold you in contempt until you do. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing that law enforcement cant easily access this on their own. Just feels like the government is working with Apple here to help move some phones.
- pc86 9mo ago"Government propaganda to help one of the richest companies in the history of the world sell 0.000000001% more phones this quarter" is quite frankly just idiotic. You only said half the sentence anyway. The full sentence is: "If the government wants to get in they're going to get in, unless they want to utilize the courts in any way, in which case they have to do things the right way." If this reporter was a terrorist in Yemen they would have just hacked her phone and/or blown up her apartment. Or even if they simply wanted to knock off her source they probably could have hacked it or gotten the information in some other illicit fashion. But that's not what is happening here.
- Cthulhu_ 9mo agoBetter to be held in contempt than to give up constitutional rights under pressure - most functioning democracies have and defend the right to free press, protecting said press sources, and can't make you incriminate yourself. Anyway, it's a good thing to be skeptical about claims that iphones can't be hacked by government agencies, as long as it doesn't mean you're driven to dodgier parties (as those are guaranteed honeypots).
- mrexcess 9mo agoI trust 404 media more than most sources, but I can’t help but reflexively read every story prominently showcasing the FBI’s supposed surveillance gaps as attempted watering hole attacks. The NSA almost certainly has hardware backdoors in Apple silicon, as disclosed a couple of years ago by the excellent researchers at Kaspersky. That being the case, Lockdown Mode is not even in play.
- chuckadams 9mo agoThe NSA is not going to tip its hand about any backdoors it had built into the hardware for something as small as this.
- ddtaylor 9mo agoIt depends on if parallel reconstruction can be used to provide deniability.
- chuckadams 9mo agoEven a parallel construction has limited uses, since you can't use the same excuse every time. The NSA probably doesn't trust the FBI to come up with something plausible.
- ddtaylor 9mo agoThat depends on how apathetic people are. Most of the time they will accept a completely garbage story and you can create infinitely many of those.
- chuckadams 9mo agoSure, and that’s why juries buy the same line from cops every time, but major actors actually affected by potential backdoors are likely to be a bit more skeptical and start digging around for the real reasons.
- bwoah 9mo agohttps://archive.is/1ILVS https://archive.is/1ILVS
- theragra 9mo ago[flagged]
- digiown 9mo ago> full-drive encryption Note that these are not crackable only if you have a strong password (random one will work). Unlike on phones, there is nothing slowing down brute force attempts, only the comparatively much weaker PBKDFs if you use a password. You want at least about 64 bits of entropy, and you should never use that password anywhere else, since they would basically run "strings" on your stuff to attempt the brute force.
- ddtaylor 9mo agoWorse than that most phones are using smart enclave like chips protected by a 4 digit PIN that can be voltage drained to try every combo without a wipe.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- quenix 9mo ago> ---- All above is pure fantasy and never happened, as you probably have already guessed. Ah, while I was a bit suspicious, I thought it might be real (weirdly worded). What exactly is the point of fabricating this?- Is there a joke I'm blind to?
- theragra 9mo agoNo joke, it is just I don't like to leave any trail about law issues, even if it is hardly a menace. This last sentence is for law enforcement in the really hard to imagine case it might be relevant sometime.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- boring-human 9mo agoCan a hacked phone (such as one that was not in Lockdown Mode at one point in time) persist in a hacked state? Obviously, the theoretical answer is yes, given an advanced-enough exploit. But let's say Apple is unaware of a specific rootkit. If each OS update is a wave, is the installed exploit more like a rowboat or a frigate? Will it likely be defeated accidentally by minor OS changes, or is it likely to endure? This answer is actionable. If exploits are rowboats, installing developer OS betas might be security-enhancing: the exploit might break before the exploiters have a chance to update it.
- digiown 9mo agoSecure boot and verified system partition is supposed to help with that. It's for the same reason jailbreaks don't persist across reboots these days.
- quenix 9mo agoForget OS updates. The biggest obstacle to exploit persistence: a good old hard system reboot. Modern iOS has an incredibly tight secure chain-of-trust bootloader. If you shut your device to a known-off state (using the hardware key sequence), on power on, you can be 99.999% certain only Apple-signed code will run all the way from secureROM to iOS userland. The exception is if the secureROM is somehow compromised and exploited remotely (this requires hardware access at boot-time so I don't buy it). So, on a fresh boot, you are almost definitely running authentic Apple code. The easiest path to a form of persistence is reusing whatever vector initially pwned you (malicious attachment, website, etc) and being clever in placing it somewhere iOS will attempt to read it again on boot (and so automatically get pwned again). But honestly, exploiting modern iOS is already difficult enough (exploits go for tens millions $USD), persistence is an order of magnitude more difficult.
- doublerabbit 9mo agoIt's why I keep my old iPhone XR on 15.x for jail breaking reasons. I purchased an a new phone specially for the later versions and online banking. Apple bought out all the jail breakers as Denuvo did for the game crackers.
- aquir 9mo agoWe need a Lockdown mode for MacBooks as well!
- steve-atx-7600 9mo agoLooks like it’s a feature: https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120 https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120
- LordGrey 9mo agoTo save a click: * Lockdown Mode needs to be turned on separately for your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. * When you turn on Lockdown Mode for your iPhone, it's automatically turned on for your paired Apple Watch. * When you turn on Lockdown Mode for one of your devices, you get prompts to turn it on for your other supported Apple devices.
- ChrisArchitect 9mo agoPreviously, direct link to the court doc: FBI unable to extract data from iPhone 13 in Lockdown Mode in high profile case [pdf] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.588772/gov.uscourts.vaed.588772.35.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.58... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843967)
- nxobject 9mo agoSadly, they still got to her Signal on her Desktop – her sources might still be compromised. It's sadly inherent to desktop applications, but I'm sad that a lot more people don't know that Signal for Desktop is much, much less secure against adversaries with your laptop.
- pbhjpbhj 9mo agoDid she have Bitlocker or FileVault or other disk encryption that was breeched? (Or they took the system booted as TLAs seek to do?)
- MoonWalk 9mo agobreached
- pbhjpbhj 9mo agoHa, no, shoved down someone's trousers! ;oP
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- bmicraft 9mo agoThere was a story here the other day, bitlocker keys stored in your Microsoft account will be handed over.
- direwolf20 9mo agoWhich windows does by default and makes it hard to turn off
- deltastone 9mo agoThis has been known for a while, though I don't know if your typical layperson was aware until recently. People need to remember that any access a company has to a device, so does LE with a warrant. Even moreso once you get into federal resources and FISA courts.
- KKKKkkkk1 9mo agoWhat is she investigated for?
- buckle8017 9mo agoThey're not actually investigating her, they're investigating a source that leaked her classified materials.
- jimt1234 9mo agoDid the individual store the classified material in the bathroom at his beach-side resort?
- zozbot234 9mo agoIf they're not investigating her she doesn't have any 5th-amendment protection and can be compelled to testify on anything relevant, including how to unlock her devices.
- deltastone 9mo agoThis here is true. 5th amendment protections only protect you from SELF-incrimination, and in some ways, your spouse. It does not apply to protecting others. Though some have tried arguing that they are protecting themselves, which then requires some form of admittance of them having been committing ANOTHER crime, which doesn't look good to a jury.
- PlatoIsADisease 9mo agoLittle too late for 1000 people hacked by pegasus.
- PunchyHamster 9mo agoThey just need to ask apple to unlock it. And they can't really refuse under US law
- quesera 9mo agoThey can refuse, and they have refused. See San Bernardino and the concept of "compelled work".
- direwolf20 9mo agoThat was the old US law, not the one where Tim Cook delivered gold bars to Trump
- quesera 9mo agoIt remains the US law, and you are wrong about everything in your short sentence.
- kittikitti 9mo agoIt sounds like almost all of our devices have security by annoyance as default. Where are the promises of E2E encryption and all the privacy measures? When I turned on lockdown mode on my iPhone, there were a few notifications where the random spam calls I get were attempting a FaceTime exploit. How come we have to wait until someone can prove ICE can't get into our devices?
- nova22033 9mo agoRemember...they can make you use touch id...they can't make you give them your password. https://x.com/runasand/status/2017659019251343763?s=20 https://x.com/runasand/status/2017659019251343763?s=20 The FBI was able to access Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's Signal messages because she used Signal on her work laptop. The laptop accepted Touch ID for authentication, meaning the agents were allowed to require her to unlock it.
- wackget 9mo agoLink which doesn't directly support website owned by unscrupulous trillionaire: https://xcancel.com/runasand/status/2017659019251343763?s=20 https://xcancel.com/runasand/status/2017659019251343763?s=20
- asadm 9mo ago[flagged]
- andwhatisthis 9mo agoHow so?
- asadm 9mo agonasa is fucked up. spacex is US’s only shot.
- pyrophane 9mo agoMaybe. I don't think we yet have a good understanding of how many deaths he will have caused as a result of DOGE so abruptly cutting off assistance to so many vulnerable people around the world, but I've heard estimates hover around 600,000. Assuming that number turns out to be close to reality, how do you weigh so many unnecessary deaths against VTL rockets and the electric cars? Perhaps a practitioner of Effective Altruism could better answer that question.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- TheDong 9mo agoI find it so frustrating that Lockdown Mode is so all-or-nothing. I want some of the lockdown stuff (No facetime and message attachments from strangers, no link previews, no device connections), but like half of the other ones I don't want. Why can't I just toggle an iMessage setting for "no link preview, no attachments", or a general setting for "no automatic device connection to untrusted computers while locked"? Why can't I turn off "random dickpicks from strangers on iMessage" without also turning off my browser's javascript JIT and a bunch of other random crap? Sure, leave the "Lockdown mode" toggle so people who just want "give me all the security" can get it, but split out individual options too. Just to go through the features I don't want: * Lockdown Mode disables javascript JIT in the browser - I want fast javascript, I use some websites and apps that cannot function without it, and non-JIT js drains battery more * Shared photo albums - I'm okay viewing shared photo albums from friends, but lockdown mode prevents you from even viewing them * Configuration profiles - I need this to install custom fonts Apple's refusal to split out more granular options here hurts my security.
- ectospheno 9mo agoFamily albums work with lockdown mode. You can also disable web restrictions per app and website.
- Terretta 9mo agoThe profiles language may be confusing -- what you can't do is change them while in Lockdown mode.
- everdrive 9mo ago>* Lockdown Mode disables javascript JIT in the browser - I want fast javascript, I use some websites and apps that cannot function without it, and non-JIT js drains battery more This feature has the benefit of teaching users (correctly) that browsing the internet on a phone has always been a terrible idea.
- jgwil2 9mo agoI think that ship has sailed.
- mmooss 9mo agoDon't be idiots. The FBI may say that whether or not they can get in: 1. If they can get in, now people - including high-value targets like journalists - will use bad security. 2. If the FBI (or another agency) has an unknown capability, the FBI must say they can't get in or reveal their capabilities to all adversaries, including to even higher-profile targets such as counter-intelligence targets. Saying nothing also risks revealing the capability. 3. Similarly if Apple helped them, Apple might insist that is not revealed. The same applies to any third party with the capability. (Also, less significantly, saying they can't get in puts more pressure on Apple and on creating backdoors, even if HN readers will see it the other way.) Also, the target might think they are safe, which could be a tactical advantage. It also may exclude recovered data from rules of handling evidence, even if it's unusable in court. And at best they haven't got in yet - there may be an exploit to this OS version someday, and the FBI can try again then.
- coppsilgold 9mo agoI would not recommend that one trust a secure enclave with full disk encryption (FDE). This is what you are doing when your password/PIN/fingerprint can't contain sufficient entropy to derive a secure encryption key. The problem with low entropy security measures arises due to the fact that this low entropy is used to instruct the secure enclave (TEE) to release/use the actual high entropy key. So the key must be stored physically (eg. as voltage levels) somewhere in the device. It's a similar story when the device is locked, on most computers the RAM isn't even encrypted so a locked computer is no major obstacle to an adversary. On devices where RAM is encrypted the encryption key is also stored somewhere - if only while the device is powered on.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- pregnenolone 9mo agoRAM encryption doesn’t prevent DMA attacks and perofming a DMA attack is quite trivial as long as the machine is running. Secure enclaves do prevent those and they're a good solution. If implemented correctly, they have no downsides. I'm not referring to TPMs due to their inherent flaws; I’m talking about SoC crypto engines like those found in Apple’s M series or Intel's latest Panther Lake lineup. They prevent DMA attacks and side-channel vulnerabilities. True, I wouldn’t trust any secure enclave never to be breached – that’s an impossible promise to make even though it would require a nation-state level attack – but even this concern can be easily addressed by making the final encryption key depend on both software key derivation and the secret stored within the enclave.
- davidfekke 9mo agoI guess they got a 404
- 827a 9mo agoIs there an implication here that they could get into an iPhone with lower security settings enabled? There's Advanced Data Protection, which E2EEs more of your data in iCloud. There's the FaceID unlock state, which US law enforcement can compel you to unlock; but penta-click the power button and you go into PIN unlock state, which they cannot compel you to unlock. My understanding of Lockdown Mode was that it babyifies the device to reduce the attack surface against unknown zero-days. Does the government saying that Lockdown Mode barred them from entering imply that they've got an unknown zero-day that would work in the PIN-unlock state, but not Lockdown Mode?
- zymhan 9mo agoYes
- kingnothing 9mo agoIt's relatively well know that the NSO Group / Pegasus is what governments use to access locked phones.
- 827a 9mo agoThis was known, in the past, but if its relying on zero-days Apple & Google are, adversarially, attempting to keep up with and patch, my assumption would not be that pegasus is, at any time, always able to breach a fully-updated iPhone. Rather, its a situation where maybe there are periods of a few months at a time where they have a working exploit, until Apple discovers it and patches it, repeat indefinitely.
- direwolf20 9mo agoHow does Apple discover their exploits? I'm sure they keep some around for extremely high value targets.
- kingnothing 9mo agoIt's always a game of cat and mouse, but NSO had a quarter billion USD in annual revenue in 2020. They are clearly providing highly effective spyware to governments around the world. It wouldn't surprise me if they have that many zero day, zero click exploits that they can always get in to a phone. We're talking nation state espionage here... they probably have insiders at Apple and Google who introduce subtle unnoticeable bugs in core OS stacks.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 9mo ago"Lockdown Mode is a sometimes overlooked feature of Apple devices that broadly make[sic] them harder to hack." Funny to see disabling "features" itself described as "feature" Why not call it a "setting" Most iPhone users do not change default settings. That's why Google pays Apple billions of dollars for a default setting that sends data about users to Google "Lockdown Mode" is not a default setting The phrase "sometimes overlooked" is an understatement. It's not a default setting and almost no one uses it If it is true Lockdown Mode makes iPhones "harder to hack", as the journalist contends, then it is also true that Apple's default settings make iPhones "easier to hack"
- rick_dalton 9mo agoThe intention behind lockdown mode is protection for a select few groups of people such as journalists, that are at risk of having software like Pegasus used against them. It’s to reduce the attack surface. The average user wouldn’t want most of it as a default setting, for example: almost no message attachments allowed, no FaceTime calls from people you haven’t called and safari is kneecapped. Making this a default setting for most people is unrealistic and also probably won’t help their cybersecurity as they wouldn’t be targeted anyway.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 9mo agoA "reduced attack surface" can also be a reduced surface for telemetry, data collection, surveillance and advertising services, thereby directly or indirectly causing a reduction in Apple revenues Perhaps this could be a factor in why it's not a default setting
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 9mo agoWas +2
- cdrnsf 9mo agoGiven Cook's willing displays of fealty to Trump this time around I wouldn't be shocked if they were to remove lockdown mode in a future release.
- niemandhier 9mo agoDepending on your jurisdiction faceid is safer than fingerprint, because faceid won’t unlock while your eyes are closed. In many European countries forcing your finger on a scanner would be permissible under certain circumstances, forcing your eyes open so far has been deemed unacceptable.
- Melatonic 9mo agoGood to know. You sure about this though ? I swear I've seen people use Face ID on someone who's sleeping
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- niemandhier 9mo agoThe flag is called: “Require Attention for Face ID” 100% sure about the legal situation in Germany.
- eth0up 9mo agoEvery time I see these articles about iphones posing trouble for authorities, I always think of it as free (and fraudulent) advertisement. I could be naive, but just don't think they'd really have any difficulty getting what they needed. Not that I give a fuck, but I guess I've seen one too many free ads.
- eudamoniac 9mo agoMy Google pixel 5a randomly requires the pin/password every couple of days and will not accept biometrics. I have always assumed this was to heavily discourage using long passwords for this very reason.
- brewdad 9mo agoCan anyone speak to the relative safety or lack thereof using FaceID on individual apps while requiring a PIN to login to the device? I have my phone setup this way because FaceID can be so convenient. I know it opens up more attack vectors than not using it but is it possible for a powerful actor to utilize the fact that it is enabled at all to gain access to a locked phone?
- hyruo 9mo agoIn China, there is only one way to deal with this situation: when the police summon you for the first time, do not bring your phone. Before the second summons, get a new phone or completely format your old one. However, this does not apply in cases of ongoing crimes or when someone is already wanted by the authorities, as they will not be given a second chance.