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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

#61

Post by HappyTypist »

duskwuff wrote: post #56
mtmail wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McAfee's offer was a PR stunt. He admitted it a week later.

And he made a series of public statements which made it clear he had no understanding whatsoever of the technical issues involved. First, he claimed that he would use "social engineering" to access the phone's data. Later, he claimed that he could do it easily by clearing the area of flash memory containing the phone's password, apparently unaware of the fact that the password was used as a key to encrypt data. Sourc…

Social engineering could plausibly work against Apple employees.

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

#62

Post by vitd »

and-can wrote: post #43
isleyaardvark wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> was not “scalable.” This is the same James Comey that said they just were just asking Apple for access to just that one phone.

“The relief we seek is limited and its value increasingly obsolete because the technology continues to evolve. We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist’s passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That’s it. “We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land,” Comey continued. “I hope…

That's a lot of double-speak. They know that removing the timeout so they can try thousands of passwords per second opens up a huge security hole. What he's saying is "we want it both ways". We don't want to take away security for users, we just want to make it easier for someone who's not the owner of the phone to get into it.

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

#63

Post by Zigurd »

aidanhs wrote: post #7

To me this raises a question about selling security vulnerabilities to state actors in general (in the context of the Facebook vulnerability thread where the standard discussion about value is being hashed out). Specifically, I live in the UK and one of the complaints law enforcement has is that US companies can (and do) totally ignore valid court orders because they don't apply in the US (reddit being an arbitrary c…

Imagine if some eager beaver out there started weaponizing microbes and selling them to the highest bidder. They would rightly be droned to a greasy smear on their lab wall. "Security researchers" who sell vulns to governments are no better.

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

#64

Post by intrasight »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #33
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.”

> was not “scalable.” This is the same James Comey that said they just were just asking Apple for access to just that one phone.

Indeed. Americans need to wake up to the fact that these spooks simply cannot be trusted. The very concept of trust is alien to their culture. Would be nice of we could count on congress to provide adequate oversight.

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

#66

Post by astronautjones »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #33
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.”

> was not “scalable.” This is the same James Comey that said they just were just asking Apple for access to just that one phone.

Well, heads of US security apparatuses haven't seemed to be capable of anything beyond immediate contradiction lately

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

#67

Post by noir_lord »

GeechieCloud wrote: post #53
euyyn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by all accounts, received nothing of value for the money How can you know that?

come on do all internet comments have to be perfect? how about "by all public accounts to date". I'd have though that extra context wasn't necessary.

> I'd have though that extra context wasn't necessary.

New to the internet?

Unless you lawyer every possible comment against the most uncharitable reading while combining it with the kind of source research that would make a Harvard law professor weep a tear of joy you'll get called on it.

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

#68

Post by discreditable »

coldcode wrote: post #55
belltaco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 C…

So the only argument the FBI hears is how much? Disgusting.

An argument you could make is that by associating a cost with wiretapping it discourages frivolous usage.
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