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U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#51

Post by panarky »

nostromo wrote: post #27

I suspect that the intelligence and law enforcement communities are afraid that if this case goes to the Supreme Court the All Writs Act may be scaled back or ruled unconstitutional. The All Writs Act goes back to 1789 and is used for all sorts of things, like wire tapping, obtaining call and ISP records, etc., and now trying to force Apple to make malware for their own phone. It's definitely a risk for the FBI to fi…

This needs to be decided once and for all.

A savvy judge would not allow the Department of Justice to cancel the hearing just to avoid setting a precedent.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#53

Post by Johnny555 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #45

I suspect this is a "Strategic Retreat" on the Justice department. The ability to reflash the phone and avoid triggering the unlock erase was a pretty obvious workaround. So after investing a lot of time and money in trying to get case law to expand the DoJ's power over corporations to conscript them into the War on the 4th Amendment, it become possible that they would see a judgement against them (especially if the…

Supposedly it's not possible to reflash the phone without the new code being signed by Apple, which is why the FBI needed Apple to do it in the first place.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#54

Post by Angostura »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #45

I suspect this is a "Strategic Retreat" on the Justice department. The ability to reflash the phone and avoid triggering the unlock erase was a pretty obvious workaround. So after investing a lot of time and money in trying to get case law to expand the DoJ's power over corporations to conscript them into the War on the 4th Amendment, it become possible that they would see a judgement against them (especially if the…

> The ability to reflash the phone and avoid triggering the unlock erase was a pretty obvious workaround.

Could you explain that a little for me?

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#55

Post by jonknee »

wildmusings wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you prefer that they try to force Apple's hand anyway, even though they might have found another way that makes the issue moot? Yes, very much so. That way we can put this behind us rather than to wait for the inevitable re-run with conditions carefully arranged to be more favorable in order to set precedent.

Their legal reasoning heavily relies on Apple being the only party capable of assisting with unlocking the phone. They are talking about compelling someone, so if there's a possibility that it's not necessary, they have a duty to find out. Also, US courts don't rule on abstract ideas or hypothetical cases. No "case or controversy", no judicial standing. If the FBI can unlock the device without compelling Apple, there…

They went to a great deal of effort to start this case, it would be preposterous if they hadn't exhausted other routes beforehand. They're quite obviously backing away from it on purpose.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#56

Post by lmcd »

Here's one approach you could use if you had a reliable zero-day at your disposal. I've been out of the jailbreak scene for a while, so I might be way off the mark:

1) Have zero-day ([0]) that can be used to deliver executable payload over SMS (think Stagefright). iOS devices can receive text messages before the filesystem is decrypted. Perhaps Apple should close this vector.

2) Deploy dylib that patches the SpringBoard UI (where the lock screen lives), disabling the code that counts incorrect passcode attempts

3) Brute force the passcode

[0] http://www.wired.com/2015/11/hackers-claim-million-dollar-bo...

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#57

Post by jsolson »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #45

I suspect this is a "Strategic Retreat" on the Justice department. The ability to reflash the phone and avoid triggering the unlock erase was a pretty obvious workaround. So after investing a lot of time and money in trying to get case law to expand the DoJ's power over corporations to conscript them into the War on the 4th Amendment, it become possible that they would see a judgement against them (especially if the…

> The ability to reflash the phone and avoid triggering the unlock erase was a pretty obvious workaround.

Or just replace one of the off-chip AHB/AXI devices and inject code via DMA. It won't work beyond the iPhone 5C, but I have yet to come up with a plausible reason why it wouldn't work there.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#58

Post by wfunction »

r00fus wrote: post #37
nostromo wrote: post #27

I suspect that the intelligence and law enforcement communities are afraid that if this case goes to the Supreme Court the All Writs Act may be scaled back or ruled unconstitutional. The All Writs Act goes back to 1789 and is used for all sorts of things, like wire tapping, obtaining call and ISP records, etc., and now trying to force Apple to make malware for their own phone. It's definitely a risk for the FBI to fi…

So why did they push it so far? Was it really just a game of chicken where the FBI wanted to stare down Apple?

Would it be foolish to think they struck some kind of behind-the-doors deal with Apple?

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#59

Post by msbarnett »

nostromo wrote: post #27

I suspect that the intelligence and law enforcement communities are afraid that if this case goes to the Supreme Court the All Writs Act may be scaled back or ruled unconstitutional. The All Writs Act goes back to 1789 and is used for all sorts of things, like wire tapping, obtaining call and ISP records, etc., and now trying to force Apple to make malware for their own phone. It's definitely a risk for the FBI to fi…

> I suspect that the intelligence and law enforcement communities are afraid that if this case goes to the Supreme Court the All Writs Act may be scaled back or ruled unconstitutional.

It's not that the act is unconstitutional, it's that the interpretation of it that the DoJ has been selling to magistrate judges in ex parte hearings is extremely broad and would never survive appeal.

The Supreme Court has made it very clear in multiple rulings that A) The AWA is certainly constitutional and B) it is extremely narrow in its powers and it doesn't grant courts anything even remotely similar to the powers the FBI has been pressuring magistrate judges into believing it has.

So, essentially, by avoiding a highly publicized appeals smackdown, the FBI can still convince magistrates to issue wildly out-of-line AWA writs, and use those writs to pressure companies/people into doing things they wouldn't be held to if they had the time/money to actually appeal.

edit:

> The All Writs Act goes back to 1789 and is used for all sorts of things, like wire tapping, obtaining call and ISP records, etc

Also, I see this mistake a lot (I'm not saying you're making it, but it's a pretty common one). The AWA doesn't actually give the government the power to wire tap things, etc. There are separate statutes that authorize wiretapping. All the AWA does, per the Supreme Court, is give courts the authority to issue common law writs in the course of carrying out powers conferred by some other statute. The AWA is described as being a source of "residual" (secondary) power that only acts to help carry out some primary source of authority.

The DoJ has been pushing an argument that the AWA is a source of primary power in-and-of-itself in any area of law where congress hasn't passed a law saying a court can't do X thing, and the writs don't have to have antecedents in common law. This more-or-less contradicts any number of Supreme Court rulings. They've only been getting away with it because they get a magistrate Judge to issue them by asking for them in "emergency" ex parte hearings, meaning the other side isn't present to offer a competing argument, which the FBI excuses by arguing its a time-sensitive matter (even though it generally isn't). One of the amicus briefs in this case was submitted by 32 law professors, who pointed out that this violates due process.

Re: U.S. Says It May Not Need Apple’s Help to Unlock iPhone

#60

Post by gpm »

georgespencer wrote: post #3

One of three things is true: 1. The FBI is lying to save face, 2. Someone -- but probably needs to be some people -- from Apple is willing to help them, 3. There is an undisclosed vulnerability in iOS which Apple is unaware of. I find it really hard to believe that someone would disclose a zero day exploit to the FBI without charging significant $ for it. Am I missing something obvious?

The ACLU showed a plausible path forward by just desoldering the storage and just rewriting it and trying again when the phone wipes it.

John McCafee and others (ex US govt officials IIRC) have mentioned decapping as a serious option for the NSA.

Snowden and Richard Clarke (advisor to bush on cyber security, advisor to Bill Clinton on counter terrorism, etc) have said the NSA has ways without being specific about how.

I don't think this counts as a serious vulnerability. If you have access to the kind of hardware and technical ability the US govt does, Apple probably isn't too concerned about you being able to break one phone at a time with significant effort involved.

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