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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

#81

Post by pfooti »

KMag wrote: post #63
Johnny555 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fa…

Precisely - this seems (or seemed originally) like a best-case scenario for Justice: it's a terrorist's iPhone, rather than a drug dealer's or some other "lesser" criminal's, where the public's fear might not be on the side of the FBI. It definitely feels like fishing for a precedent for other phones (especially the later models where this attack isn't feasible).

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

#82

Post by viraptor »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #8
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?

It's weird that the offer to help was publicized before any solicitation for offers to help. Assuming that number 3 is the case, that ups the likelihood that the exploit is coming from a government insider (likely NSA, although ex-government security researchers are also likely).

Are you saying that if you were happy to work with them and had the ability to crack that iphone, you wouldn't get in touch with them? You can pretty much set the terms in that case. Everyone knows about this case already, so they don't need to explicitly ask.

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

#85

Post by themartorana »

digitalchaos wrote: post #73
themartorana wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No. The government is the moving party. If the moving party drops it, the court drops it.

Boo. IANAL so I can't quite see where the harm may lie in requiring the "moving party" to see through what they started (if the defending party wants it, of course).

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

#86

Post by msbarnett »

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…

> 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 Supreme court becomes more liberal with the next appointment).

Scalia would have hated the DoJ's argument here, honestly. If the Supreme Court even agreed to hear the government's appeal here it might well have been 9-0 against.

And I say this as someone with a low opinion of Scalia, in general.

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

#87

Post by PhasmaFelis »

cageface wrote: post #61
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.

Yeah, this is one of those issues where Democrats and Republicans both just assume that their party is the "good guys" and the other party is the "bad guys," when in fact it's not a particularly partisan issue at all.

("Free speech" is another one of those--both parties have been pretty shitty on free speech since 9/11, but everyone plays down their own party's sins and screams about the other's.)

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

#88

Post by studentrob »

Beautiful. Congrats to the DOJ for seeing the light.

Will Obama now stop seeking "middle ground" as he mentioned at SXSW? Will Burr-Feinstein halt their work on a backdoor bill? Nothing has changed on this front, and there are still a host of reasons why a backdoor law is a bad idea.

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

#89

Post by PhasmaFelis »

Johnny555 wrote: post #26
valine wrote: post #18

So basically they're saying, "This isn't going according to plan. Let's wait for another opportunity and try again."

And lets screw over Apple by claiming that we can crack the phone after Apple claims that no one can. We'll never have to prove it, so we win, Apple loses.

This is gonna get spun as "Apple wanted the phone uncracked, FBI cracked it, FBI wins," but that's not accurate: what Apple wanted was not to be forced to crack the phone themselves. If the FBI backs off on that, Apple has unequivocally won.

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

#90

Post by hackuser »

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…

The following is the best analysis by far that I've seen about the All Writs Act and its application in these cases. It's from the Just Security blog, out of NYU Law School:

https://www.justsecurity.org/29634/readers-guide-magistrate-...

(I'd read the links to the articles in the blog itself.)

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