191–200 of 352 posts
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Do we (reasonably) know if this still works?
This still works as written. Just test it yourself with a Mac and Apple Configurator.
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> Apple may be legally required to at the very least, comment on this situation. "Required" to comment? By whom and for what reason?
Sending a cease and desist to Cellebrite for shipping their DLLs in their product I imagine. Obviously there may be some backchannel, but that is probably how it would go if you assume Apple and Cellebrite have no relationship.
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No, because that would be active retaliation. More realistically it is like dropping a file on your private file server DONT_RUN_THIS_BLOWS_UP_YOUR_COMPUTER.exe. You never run it, but maybe somebody exploits your file server, gets all your files, and automatically runs them? Oh well.
It really is like dropping a file on your private file server DONT_RUN_THIS_BLOWS_UP_YOUR_COMPUTER.exe - but contrary to your expectations, it's not "oh well", if you placed it there with the intent to trap someone who you expect to be looking at your computer, you may well be liable if their computer blows up, there's no significant difference from active retaliation - the consequences are there, the intent is there…
Liable for what? You haven’t promised that the code is safe, and they chose to run it.
> there's no significant difference from active retaliation
There is a significant difference, in active retaliation you choose to attack someone elseks computer, with a trap file the attacker chooses to run files they have stolen from you. Big difference.
> You'd be just as liable as for physical boobytraps on your property, with pretty much the same reasoning.
The reasoning is different, lethal or injurious man traps are prohibited because you don’t respond to trespassing with lethal force and you don’t know who or what may trigger the trap. Man traps that lock the intruder in a room without injuring them are fine, and used in high security installations.
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Sending a cease and desist to Cellebrite for shipping their DLLs in their product I imagine. Obviously there may be some backchannel, but that is probably how it would go if you assume Apple and Cellebrite have no relationship.
They could send such a C&D, and they may be inclined to for the sake of public perception, but what would "legally require" them to do so?
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No, because that would be active retaliation. More realistically it is like dropping a file on your private file server DONT_RUN_THIS_BLOWS_UP_YOUR_COMPUTER.exe. You never run it, but maybe somebody exploits your file server, gets all your files, and automatically runs them? Oh well.
It really is like dropping a file on your private file server DONT_RUN_THIS_BLOWS_UP_YOUR_COMPUTER.exe - but contrary to your expectations, it's not "oh well", if you placed it there with the intent to trap someone who you expect to be looking at your computer, you may well be liable if their computer blows up, there's no significant difference from active retaliation - the consequences are there, the intent is there…
They have to use the exploit to figure out if the phone can nuke that hardware's usability in the future or integrity of any locally stored, non-offsited data.
UNLESS Cellebrite can produce publically for a court of law proof that any potential exploit isn't a valid concern, which means spilling implementation details about how the device works.
Nobody can continue to shut up AND maintain the status quo. Either everyone clams, and Signal can sow reasonable doubt without challenge, crippling Cellebrite's value as a forensic tool. Or someone has to open up about the details of their tool, which, like it or not, will speak very loudly about the ways and methods behind these exploits.
The Checkmate is implied, and oh my, is it deafening.
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Is it malware if users desire for their devices to be resistant to surveillance tools?
Those are not related issues - it's malware or not malware based on what it does or did (e.g. did it corrupt data on someone else's computer system because it was intended to do just that thing?) regardless of the reason for placing it there. If you can't figure out a way to satisfy your desire for your devices to be resistant to surveillance tools with legal means, well, then you can't satisfy that desire. Furthermo…
As for tampering with evidence, your claims are certainly overbroad, otherwise one could consider Signal's vanishing messages and deliberate lack of logging to be tampering with evidence. In any case, an individual is hardly responsible for those actions; they presumably did not deliberately seek to destroy Cellebrite data since Signal may choose to do this entirely at random.
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I would assume their aesthetically pleasing files would not be part of their client code since the clients are fetching these files from Signal. So whether they're fetching aesthetically pleasing files would be easy to tell, but trickier to tell if those files actually have payload.
Automatically open the files with Cellebrite software tools in a sandbox environment?
> Files will only be returned for accounts that have been active installs for some time already, and only probabilistically in low percentages based on phone number sharding.
You would have to have an already existing Signal account that's been around for some time and hope you get sent one of these files.
This is truly a hacker’s retort. It attacks Cellebrite's ability to operate by casting doubt on the reports generated by the product that their customers may wish to use in court. It places them in legal peril from Apple, and removes any cover Apple would have to not take legal action. (I assume someone at Apple knew they were shipping their DLLs?) It makes a thinly-veiled threat that any random Signal user's data ma…
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I’m not sure what you mean. The end of the post pretty clearly describes the framework they’re using to roll out these exploits as latent files within the Signal app.
The end of the post is extremely specifically and carefully not describing a framework for rolling out files to exploit these vulnerabilities; those files as described do nothing, and serve only aesthetic purposes. While it's easy to read that as a wink that they are exploiting the vulnerabilities they found while maintaining plausible deniability that they aren't, it's equally possible it's the other way around: the…
And Signal can develop a few land mines to deploy at any time, and just... hold on to them for a rainy day.
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They could send such a C&D, and they may be inclined to for the sake of public perception, but what would "legally require" them to do so?
If they ignore cellebrite using their stuff they may have waived their right to be upset about someone else doing the same thing.