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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

#61

Post by cageface »

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…

especially if the Supreme court becomes more liberal with the next appointment

This is the only thing I'm not so sure about. This issue doesn't seem to divide neatly along liberal/conservative lines.

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

#62

Post by rewrew »

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…

Last week the former US "cyber czar" Richard Clarke called the FBI out directly for doing it solely for legal precedent, and stated that virtually no one even in the gov't were on their side: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/former-cyber-czar... >>Clarke noted that Comey and the Justice Department were not getting support in their case from the defense and intelligence communities. "The Justice Department and the FBI are on their own here," he said. "The FBI director [Comey] is exaggerating the need for this, and the Attorney General [Loretta Lynch] is letting him get away with it."But the weird thing is that, from the beginning, most legal experts thought the likely outcome would be that All Writs would be found too broad, so the FBI had to have been suffering from some hubris + bad legal council. So maybe someone with enough muscle finally called them out on it?

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

#63

Post by KMag »

Johnny555 wrote: post #53
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.

The GP isn't talking about flashing an unsigned image. They're talking about physically connecting to the NAND flash chip, making a disk image, and then every 9 attempts, resetting the state of the flash back to its initial state. The image as the phone currently exists is already signed by Apple, so no cooperation from Apple is necessary.

The major weakness with this model of iPhone is that it keeps the number of failed attempts stored in the NAND flash, not on the CPU die, and is therefore vulnerable to having its state reset like this. It's a fairly obvious attack that the FBI must have known about, but failed to mention in order to try and set precedent.

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

#64

Post by Zigurd »

wildmusings wrote: post #32

There's a lot of cynicism in this thread. 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?

The FBI looks as if they are lying about the situation. The lawyers who started this adventure deserve to be jeered. We don't need people like that in our government.

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

#65

Post by jamesrom »

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?

Who said they aren't paying for the exploit?

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

#66

Post by chejazi »

Nadya wrote: post #4
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?

>Am I missing something obvious? John McAfee did promise to do it for free. /½ s The guy is eccentric but I don't think he's an idiot and I do think he is likely talented, or at least rich enough to hire those who are. That being said - he admits he was full of shit [0] and then claims that he has a proper method that isn't full of shit but which he didn't want to disclose. Chances are he's probably full of shit on t…

Earlier, he claimed he would use social engineering to unlock it, not some technical hacking [1]. Much more believable in my opinion. But the timestamp on the parent's article makes me skeptical that that proposal stood much ground.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-ill-decrypt-san-b...

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

#67

Post by rewrew »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #6
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?

I am guessing they caught wind of possibly losing the case and don't want the precedent set. That's what this was always about, right?

Yup, and they've been called out on it, too, by others in the government even: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/former-cyber-czar...

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

#68

Post by themartorana »

msbarnett wrote: post #59
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…

They certainly got a clue they weren't going to win - so can Apple now do anything to push the case forward for judgement?

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

#69

Post by njharman »

wildmusings wrote: post #32

There's a lot of cynicism in this thread. 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?

This was never about getting access to that phone's data. It was about getting tools / precedents set so they can use them on every other phone the seize in the future.

Just cause it's cynical does not mean it's not accurate.

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

#70

Post by vectorjohn »

msbarnett wrote: post #59
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…

What powers would you say the AWA grants, then?
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