Post: #51

Don't rely too much on your analogy. How is the FBI supposed to just waltz into a bank vault, owned by a private party, with physical and electronic security in place, without anyone noticing?

Suppose the FBI has this iPhone cracking tool from Apple. Then, if the FBI even detains someone for questioning, they can take the cell phone, image the file system while said person is being questioned (having confiscated the phone "for security reasons"), give the phone back, and use whatever tool they have to crack the file system without even having possession of the original phone anymore.

If the FBI has a search warrant for that phone, fine, they can search it, in the same way if your bank refused access the FBI could enter with force and pay a locksmith to bypass the relevant security to get to the contents. They cannot compel the vault/lock makers to give them master keys to the vaults and safe deposit boxes of all banks in perpetuity just in case some bank someday refuses to cooperate.

The FBI crime lab has been complicit in fabricating evidence or outright lying about the results of their analyses in ways that led to the convictions and, in some cases, executions of innocent people over the last several decades. Why on earth would any sane person trust such an organization to follow the law?

Post: #52

Thing is a safe deposit box doesn't hold any where near as much information as an iPhone.

I don't know what they're going to do here, I think they will comply in some fashion - however I think it will be under the strict supervision of Apple. Meaning FBI will have to Apple headquarters.

Post: #53

(02-17-2016 06:19 PM)RIslander Wrote:  I honestly don't give two shits about the FBI tracking data. They're not listening to your calls and reading your texts about the married MILF you banged last week. It's just macro analysis of massive amounts of contacts between users, so they can identify trends and identify subversion or terrorism.

Im a law abiding American, it doesn't affect me.

Not true in the slightest. More than 99% of the use of surveillance has been in prosecuting domestic offenses such as victimless crimes. When is the last time a full-blown terrorist attack was foiled by NSA dragnet surveillance? The very last group that will ever be caught out by this stuff is a terrorist group. Their whole modus operandi is avoiding states uncovering their plots before they execute them.

The purpose of government surveillance is to protect and project it's own power upon the citizenry at large. It doesn't affect you until one day you want to do something perfectly ethical which the state is against (such as hiding a fleeing Jew in your basement), at which point your trust of the government becomes your noose.

Post: #54

Government agencies already have direct access to Apple user data under the PRISM surveillance program, to think otherwise is naive at this point in the game.

Post: #55

(02-18-2016 01:23 AM)HectorLavoe Wrote:  Government agencies already have direct access to Apple user data under the PRISM surveillance program, to think otherwise is naive at this point in the game.

This isn't about transmitted data- of course Apple (and the telcom and thus Gov) has information about the data sent/received, and that has already been turned over/accessed.

The FBI wouldn't be asking for Apple to hack the phone (which they can't) if they could do it themselves. As of a couple years ago, the data on the iphone is encrypted when in a locked state. Photos, notes, etc- stuff "in" the phone is inaccessible if the device is encrypted. No one can break that standard of hardware encryption yet.

This is why the FBI is asking or trying to force Apple to create the next iOS with a backdoor- there isn't a way to get in right now.

It has been reported that NSA, CIA, GCHQ are all struggling with the wider use of encryption in the last couple years- this is exactly why governments want to pass laws/mandate back doors be put in. Because encryption works.

Post: #56

It's not necessarily that they can't break the encryption, but that it's a resource intensive process. They want to have backdoors so they don't have to spend a big chunk of their computing capability breaking into some guy's phone just so they can see pictures of his kids, what music he listens to, and last week's grocery list.

Post: #57

(02-18-2016 01:47 AM)weambulance Wrote:  It's not necessarily that they can't break the encryption, but that it's a resource intensive process. They want to have backdoors so they don't have to spend a big chunk of their computing capability breaking into some guy's phone just so they can see pictures of his kids, what music he listens to, and last week's grocery list.

..and his notches

Post: #58

Perhaps the FBI/US govt could focus its resources and do a better job of keeping terrorists out so these kind of questions and scenarios don't have to be entertained.

Post: #59

In the old days things were much simpler.

Post: #60

I was just reading that the iPhone, while being used by Farook, it is owned by "The phone is owned by Farook's former employer, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-cuban...39495.html

In this situation, it is up to the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health as to if there is a privacy issue or not. They have the right to ask that the phone be accessed, thereby getting rid of all of the privacy arguments in any upcoming case. As you can imagine, I can not see a government agency would tell the FBI that they did not want a device that was theirs to be search after it was used in the planning of a crime.

Post: #61

John McAfee just threw down the gauntlet...

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcaf...ree-2016-2

Says he can hack the phone with social engineering within three weeks and the government won't have to force Apple to make this stupid back door. He can do it.

Post: #62

The fact that the owner is the municipal whatsit instead of the dead guy doesn't change anything. It's not a case of whether or not the warrant is valid, but of whether or not Apple can be compelled to provide software tools that currently do not exist that will compromise all iphones everywhere.

If the iPhone is properly encrypted and there is no backdoor, Apple can't just wave a magic wand and unlock it. That's kind of the point. Just knowing the encryption algorithm doesn't mean you can reverse it without the key. I believe iOS devices use hardware AES encryption--(apparently the phone in question uses software encryption)--and AES is not exactly top secret.

Somewhat speculative but detailed article about what the FBI wants done in technical terms.

Note the bit about how it will only be run on that phone. Sure. Until the next case...

I'd rather the firmware update not be made at all. Can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Regarding Mr. McAfee, how does he propose to use social engineering to obtain the passcode of a guy who's fricking dead?

Post: #63

(02-18-2016 11:05 AM)weambulance Wrote:  Regarding Mr. McAfee, how does he propose to use social engineering to obtain the passcode of a guy who's fricking dead?

I'm sure he would answer that question better than I can, but it is not as unrealistic as you are letting on. His team of hackers would go through social media posts by the murderers and possibly interview people that knew them. There are a number of tricks available to McAfee, many of which I'm sure he would be unwilling to reveal as they would be trade secrets. I'm telling you he can do it.

Post: #64

(02-18-2016 10:27 AM)Ghost Tiger Wrote:  John McAfee just threw down the gauntlet...

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcaf...ree-2016-2

Says he can hack the phone with social engineering within three weeks and the government won't have to force Apple to make this stupid back door. He can do it.

How much cocaine does he require?

Post: #65

(02-18-2016 12:01 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(02-18-2016 10:27 AM)Ghost Tiger Wrote:  John McAfee just threw down the gauntlet...

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcaf...ree-2016-2

Says he can hack the phone with social engineering within three weeks and the government won't have to force Apple to make this stupid back door. He can do it.

How much cocaine does he require?

A kilo of cocaine and 20 hookers oughta do the trick, I have faith in him

Post: #66

Well, here's the problem as I understand it:

0) The target is dead, so you can't persuade him, or beat it out of him.
1) The number of possible passwords is on the order of 10^11. I'm being nice here and saying it's fairly short. I'm assuming it's not a simple pin, because I really don't see how social engineering is going to figure out whatever number the guy pulled out of his ass when he set up the phone.
2) Your only clues are the hints he left in his writing and whatever you can glean from his personal relationships, interests, etc.
3) The target does not appear to have been technically incompetent.
4) For the icing on the cake, you have just 10 guesses at a password before the data is destroyed. The FBI has probably already used some of the guesses, possibly even 9 of them.

Seems like a pretty big problem. The last two points are the real sticky ones. If we assume the terrorist had a nonzero understanding of password security, and was tolerant of inconvenience for the sake of security, all the hints in the world from his contacts and posts online aren't going to help, and that number of possible passwords could have a whole barrel of zeroes added to it. For reference, the weakest passphrase I use has on the order of 10^27 possible combinations. The strongest are on the order of 10^54 or so.

Let's say point 3 is wrong, and he is a noob. Fine. How do you get past the 10 guesses? Even if you're only talking about a four digit pin, and you know it's a four digit pin up front, you're still looking at a 99% chance of blowing it (I'm giving the psychology of password choice some credit here). Seems to me that using social engineering to figure out the magic pin number is just a way of still being wrong, but with confidence. Or are they hoping he had some kind of weird obsessive disorder they'll uncover, like he left notebooks full of 1717 in crazy scrawled writing?

Seems to me like the FBI knows exactly what they're up against, and they know they're fucked if they can't bypass--not break, but circumvent--at least a few of the security features.

I'm not a cybersecurity expert, far from it. I'm just using what I do know about encryption and logic to assemble the problem. Unfortunately logic is another really good way to be wrong with confidence, so if someone wants to tell me specifically why I'm wrong about this, I'm interested to hear it.

Post: #67

(02-18-2016 12:01 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  How much cocaine does he require?

This much...

Post: #68

McAfee be like, "I need a break, then back to this code breaking!"

Post: #69

(02-18-2016 12:13 PM)weambulance Wrote:  I'm not a cybersecurity expert, far from it. I'm just using what I do know about encryption and logic to assemble the problem. Unfortunately logic is another really good way to be wrong with confidence, so if someone wants to tell me specifically why I'm wrong about this, I'm interested to hear it.

They are using government power to attempt to force a private company to weaken the security of a product, whose major selling point is the security of it.

Apple saw the writing on the wall and knew if they could do it, they would be compelled by the law to do so. So they took the temptation away by removing that power from themselves. Now they're being told to deliberately break their own system.

I don't believe that it will be used "just once". There will always be another bad guy to target - if the next one is a paedophile, "won't somebody think of the children?"


What is on that phone that they need to take these steps?

Either they're guessing, which means they're pushing the law further than ever on a hunch;
Or they have credible intelligence about what got onto the phone, which means somebody else already knows the contents, and there are other routes to gather that information.


The guy is already guilty, there's no hidden bombs like in 24, this is just the same as a small town police department having a main battle tank "just in case".

"I'd hate myself if I had that kind of attitude, if I were that weak." - Arnold

Post: #70

(02-18-2016 01:09 PM)Benoit Wrote:  there are other routes to gather that information.

Give the phone to McAfee!

Post: #71

(02-18-2016 01:17 PM)Ghost Tiger Wrote:  

(02-18-2016 01:09 PM)Benoit Wrote:  there are other routes to gather that information.

Give the phone to McAfee!

But what if the government forces McAfee to hack even more iPhones? What then? He should have kept his mouth shut.

Post: #72

Here's proof that the FBI can't hack the iPhone.
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/700394670879281152

Post: #73

(02-18-2016 01:20 PM)tynamite Wrote:  But what if the government forces McAfee to hack even more iPhones? What then? He should have kept his mouth shut.

McAfee would just pull a Snowden and go on the lam. Or just go to prison in defiance. I have faith in his hatred for the government.

Post: #74

(02-18-2016 12:06 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

(02-18-2016 12:01 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

(02-18-2016 10:27 AM)Ghost Tiger Wrote:  John McAfee just threw down the gauntlet...

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcaf...ree-2016-2

Says he can hack the phone with social engineering within three weeks and the government won't have to force Apple to make this stupid back door. He can do it.

How much cocaine does he require?

A kilo of cocaine and 20 hookers oughta do the trick, I have faith in him

I think his 'drug of choice' was crystal meth.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/in...tware.html

Post: #75

John McAfee is full of shit, if social engineering is all it took, the FBI could cover that easily. This is all theater for public consumption anyway, Apple will comply but just doesn't want to look like it rolled over easily all in the name of plausible deniability. There's probably nothing of intelligence value on that phone anyway.