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FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone

wsj.com

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Re: FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone

#11

Post by belltaco »

agsimeonov wrote: post #6

Were they going to pay Apple if they had somehow forced them to do the deed?

Example: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/verizon-att-get-most-bucks-from-...

>AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 "activation fee" for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that, according to industry disclosures made last year to Congressman Edward Markey.

>And while Microsoft, Yahoo and Google won't say how much they charge, the American Civil Liberties Union found that email records can be turned over for as little as $25.

Re: FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone

#12

Post by oneloop »

Same article on the FT:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af23e3ea-07f1-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd...

James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.”

Re: FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone

#14

Post by losteric »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #4
tomtoise wrote: post #2

Paywalled for me here in the UK. I assume the title sums up the article? Since I can't read the article, from anyone that can, how did they come to that figure? Is that just the cost of the exploit or..? Cheers

> The Federal Bureau of Investigation paid more than $1 million for a hacking tool that opened the iPhone of a terrorist gunman in San Bernardino, Calif., the head of the agency said Thursday. > Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, FBI Director James Comey didn’t cite a precise figure for how much the government paid for the solution to cracking the phone but said it was more than his salary for the seven-…

Well now they have a tool they can use at any time.

Re: FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone

#17

Post by tomtoise »

losteric wrote: post #14
pavel_lishin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Federal Bureau of Investigation paid more than $1 million for a hacking tool that opened the iPhone of a terrorist gunman in San Bernardino, Calif., the head of the agency said Thursday. > Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, FBI Director James Comey didn’t cite a precise figure for how much the government paid for the solution to cracking the phone but said it was more than his salary for the seven-…

Well now they have a tool they can use at any time.

I was just thinking this. Again, I haven't been able to read the article but I was under the impression that the FBI paid to crack this one phone, I didn't realize that they have this tool that could 'hack' more iPhones with.

Re: FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone

#18

Post by RIMR »

oneloop wrote: post #12

Same article on the FT: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af23e3ea-07f1-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd... James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.”

>paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.”

Good! I don't want it to be "scalable". That means they want to expand the data that they are collecting to include more a more phones. There is no need to do that!

Re: FBI Paid More Than $1M to Hack San Bernardino iPhone

#19

Post by fweespee_ch »

oneloop wrote: post #12

Same article on the FT: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af23e3ea-07f1-11e6-b6d3-746f8e9cdd... James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.”

> James Comey, director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the cost was “worth it”, but added that an accommodation needed to be made with Apple and other technology companies in the future, as paying outside technologists to find ways to access highly-encrypted messages on phones used by terrorist suspects was not “scalable.”

That is exactly what we want. If its clearly in the public interest to expended substantial effort as part of a criminal investigation, they absolutely should do so.

The problem is they want scalable access to everything.

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