FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
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Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#2Trump is in trouble now.
EDIT: It is suspected that Michael Cohen, being a long time Trump friend and personal lawyer, is familiar with Trump's money laundering. If Michael Cohen believes he's at risk of being sent to jail for many years, he might collaborate with the FBI.
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#3Trump is in trouble now. EDIT: It is suspected that Michael Cohen, being a long time Trump friend and personal lawyer, is familiar with Trump's money laundering. If Michael Cohen believes he's at risk of being sent to jail for many years, he might collaborate with the FBI.
Could you please increase the amount of information in your comments?
Edit: thanks.
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#4The article doesn't specify whether or not the encryption was "broken", or whether Cohen is simply cooperating. My hunch tells me it's the latter.
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#5The article doesn't specify whether or not the encryption was "broken", or whether Cohen is simply cooperating. My hunch tells me it's the latter.
Yea this is key. It's possible to have Signal on your device but not implement any device locking passcode or passcode for unlocking Signal... That would make it trivial to recover data if you have the device.
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#6> The letter to Judge Kimba Wood stated that "the Government was advised that the FBI’s original electronic extraction of data from telephones did not capture content related to encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Signal... The FBI has now obtained this material."
I don't get this. How could you possibly decrypt encrypted messages without WhatsApp or Signal's assistance?
Isn't the whole point of encryption that no-one can decrypt it unless they have the necessary keys?
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#7> The letter to Judge Kimba Wood stated that "the Government was advised that the FBI’s original electronic extraction of data from telephones did not capture content related to encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Signal... The FBI has now obtained this material." I don't get this. How could you possibly decrypt encrypted messages without WhatsApp or Signal's assistance? Isn't the whole point of en…
I haven't used Whatsapp or Signal, but you don't login every time you use the chat app, right? The phone could have just been unlocked by the owner or the PIN or pattern guessed, assuming the keys are stored on the device.
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#8[deleted]
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#9> The letter to Judge Kimba Wood stated that "the Government was advised that the FBI’s original electronic extraction of data from telephones did not capture content related to encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Signal... The FBI has now obtained this material." I don't get this. How could you possibly decrypt encrypted messages without WhatsApp or Signal's assistance? Isn't the whole point of en…
Encryption in transit doesn't imply encryption at rest.
For instance, WhatsApp on Android will happily back up to Google Drive, if you allow it, and it does so in cleartext.
Re: FBI Recovers WhatsApp, Signal Data Stored on Michael Cohen’s BlackBerry
#10The article doesn't specify whether or not the encryption was "broken", or whether Cohen is simply cooperating. My hunch tells me it's the latter.
Is the model of the phone known? If it's a relatively new BlackBerry running Android, and if it can be rooted:
* the main WhatsApp msgstore database in /data is not encrypted
* the msgstore backup databases (.crypt* in /sdcard) can be decrypted easily using the key file (mentioned in the article) which is also stored in /data
I would hazard a guess that Signal messages are also not stored encrypted at the source and destination (beyond the protection offered by the operating system).