AFTER MORE THAN a month of insisting that Apple weaken its security to help the FBI break into San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone, the government has dropped its legal fight.
“The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple,” wrote attorneys for the Department of Justice on Monday evening.
It’s not yet known if anything valuable was stored on the phone, however. “The FBI is currently reviewing the information on the phone, consistent with standard investigatory procedures,” said Department of Justice spokesperson Melanie Newman in a statement.
The news is a partial victory for Apple. The government doesn’t get to establish a legal precedent that would allow it to access other devices in the future, and Apple doesn’t have to design malware to hack its own phones. “Broadly, digital security wins,” David Kaye, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, tweeted about Apple’s “victory.”
This doesn’t mean the pressure on Silicon Valley to help law enforcement access unencrypted data will disappear. At least a dozen more cases are being pursued at the federal level, according to court documents from Apple’s attorneys.
“One down, 200+ more to go,” wrote Matt Blaze, associate professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, in a tweet responding to the DOJ’s brief.
Lawmakers are also still threatening to craft legislation that would penalize companies for refusing to decrypt communications for law enforcement.
It’s unclear who helped the FBI access the phone, or whether they’ll tell Apple about it so the company can patch the security hole; the Israeli press reported that forensics company Cellebrite, known worldwide for helping law enforcement hack into phones, was responsible.
Security researchers think the FBI is either using a software-based attack or a technique that involves copying a chip in the phone in order to trick it into allowing more than 10 password guesses.
“Those two are likely the only ones they’d have had time to develop in such a short time,” Jonathan Zdziarski, a security researcher, wrote in a message to The Intercept. “This whole case lasted less [time] than some people’s European vacations.”
Ryan Duff, an information security researcher, thinks the solution is most likely software-based, “unless [the FBI] got really lucky,” he wrote in a tweet.
And if indeed software was the key, then Zdziarski believes that the FBI might be able to use the tool on other versions of Apple’s software — leaving many other iPhones vulnerable.
Though some security researchers have suggested the FBI might be forced to reveal the security flaw because of a little-known White House “Vulnerabilities Equity Process” — a system designed to protect cybersecurity by revealing bugs discovered by the government — others are doubtful the FBI will have to oblige.
“The FBI has been sitting on a Firefox/Tor exploit for more than a year,” tweeted Chris Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union. “The equities process is a farce.”
While we’re thankful no legal precedent was set, there still needs to be legislation passed ASAP protecting digital rights. We saw Senator Wyden’s proposal at RightsCon/CryptoSummit and it looks promising.
What’s the infofbi found in the phone can’t they share it.
How safe is Apple products now
It is pretty damn obvious who the enemy is now! And it does not govern!
Its been obvious for years;Zionism.
Privacy= at the core it is belonging/pertaining to oneself/personal(not the state not open to the public). One’s own(domain) as the state of freedom from intrusion.Therefore, this indeed is its pristine/prime RADICAL tenor/meaning. Thus, do not let the usa-governance re-redefine and malign it with their manipulations, fallacies and deceptions.
to Privatize: taken away from the public domain.
Privacy::::::::: right to do things without any ones involvement.
to Deprive:::: take away privacy.
As one brilliant Russian stateman said, “start calling things by its name”
DO you wish and plan to perpetrate the very usa-patriotic thing to do? Then begin by sabotaging encryption and abolishing privacy. You plan a new world order or rather a one world government while under the voice of democracy? Lay first the foundation of blanket surveillance while the statutes of the constitutional rule of law do not struggle(being sabotaged) to be pierced until there is nothing else to pierce. – Alejandro Grace Ararat
We know FBI STASI have it all.
COINTELPRO / Stingrays / NSA & CIA Encryption.
Eliminate dissent / Directed Energy Weapons.
Are you the next target?
so COMEY LIED. He lied before congress. He lied to the American people. He lied to God. And yet he still has his job after trying to extort Apple inc and Americans. President Obama is now a failure.
Say, Jenna, I don’t think I told you my house has guard bunnies. Not fierce like Monty Python’s “killer rabbit with big pointy teeth” or anything, more like the run away from strangers and loud noises type. So you have to be paying close attention to catch their guard-signals, they are a bit subtle. A bunch of them like to hang out in the yard under the pinons and spruce trees and munch on anything green this time of year, like my just starting to grow day lilies. The whole situation has my dogs a bit depressed, because I frequently cut up and throw the bunnies on-the-verge [organic] apples, whenever available. Keeps ’em on duty, you know.
No analogy between this disclosure and your article, but there’s cute bunnies – and apples.
I don’t really believe the FBI succeeded in cracking the phone. This is an exercise in face-saving, because they knew they were going to lose the case. Anyone who has gone to the trouble of reading the briefs knows that government’s argument was risible. They didn’t want to risk establishing yet another bad precedent (they already have one in NY) so they backed off.
Another secret or just another lie?.? I do not hear them saying they found anything worth what is has cost them
Nice cover story. Apple spilled the beans,but doesn’t want to hurt its financial status by letting their customers know nothing is sacrosanct anymore, like the old “right to privacy”.
Lets be real, given enough time every attack will be successful. Next, if you want a completely secure phone then be prepared to fork over $5k and lose access to your instagram and snapchat.
If you have to worry about the Government actively hacking you then you should know better than to use standard commercial products. What matters here is they cannot compel a vendor to issue malicious updates which is the real victory.
There will always be software flaws, I know, I find them all the time, but that requires talent and resources thus the Government is limited in its capacity to attack. If all it took was a subpoena then they would have nearly unlimited resources.
Besides lets live in reality for a moment here, every government on earth is hacking devices for intelligence purposes, why should the U.S. hamstring itself because people want to buy cheap (yes the iPhone is cheap compared to secure alternatives) off the shelf products and expect to be completely protected.
+1 Insightful
Reading the public comments on this story in the New York Times and Washington Post, I’m astonished at the number of bleating sheep that believe “So what if the government can look at your phone without your permission or a warrant? If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to be worried about!” Of course, many of them could be government trolls on a damage control mission, but the sheer number of these posts and the number of “likes” they receive says that as a supposedly “free” nation, we are in a heap of trouble.
I don’t care if the FBI releases the exploit, Apple now knows that there is a way into the phone, and they can work on improving the security. The sad part of this is that if the government was working for us, they would be the ones protecting our privacy from a corporation, not the other way around.
The good news is that Apple had the will and financial resources to resist giving the government what it really wanted: a backdoor in every phone government at every level could exploit simply by going to a pet judge for a no questions asked warrant.
I don’t need a phone that is absolutely impossible to crack. That may never happen. I need a phone that takes considerable time, effort, and money to crack, with a good possibility of the data being destroyed if a mistake is made. A phone that will not accept a silent “update” turning it into a surveilance device. A phone that cannot be plugged into a black box at a traffic stop or customs station and popped open in a few seconds. It looks like Apple may be well on the way to produce such a phone.
The WAPO is so horrid, and it’s comment section so disgusting, I eventually added its URL to my /etc/hosts. That way I never accidentally give that troll disguised as press any traffic, and traffic is the lifeblood of any website.
“FBI Got Into San Bernardino Killer’s iPhone Without Apple’s Help”
Riiight, and I’m Maria of Romania. Let’s see the proof. You know damn well they would have held a press conference with all the bells and whistles–and preening officials–had they actually pulled it off. CIA Director John Brennan had no problem lying in open testimony to the Senate, and suffered no consequences even after he was caught. The FBI simply came up with a face-saving lie. The last thing the FBI wanted to do was face court, which Apple was pursuing agressively; that was the news 10 days ago, and now they achieved a magical ‘open sesame’? Riiight.
The FBI just blew up their argument that Apple had the “exclusive technical means” to access Farook’s phone. One hopes that judges will look with greater scrutiny on the FBI’s All Writs requests in the future for this reason.
I always expected the NSA had a back door. The joke is that this – the proof that the iPhone was never secure in any way shape or form – is supposed to be a “victory” for privacy. If this is what passes for victory nowadays, who the fuck cares? Give me a script written by an 11-year-old who knows nothing about number theory and I’ll have more trust in it than anything put out by any computer professional, because they all serve one master! There’s always a chance that the spook resources for cracking word scrambles and Caesar ciphers aren’t a hundred percent reliable, which is more than I’d say about their resources for cracking commercial products.
But there’s one thing I still want to see, which is the closing of the loop. This whole psychodrama was about one thing: a haggle over price. So at some point (probably well in the past) there ought to be a miscellaneous transfer of funds from whoever (someone guessed Cellebrite above) back to Apple to cover the construction costs for that pretty back patio entrance they put in.
If only the government spent this much effort on infrastructure…
The Zionist borg unlocks the phone of American privacy.Sheesh.
The nexus of our crisis rears its ugly heads once again,and America pays.Notice the MSM doesn’t mention that an Israeli co helped the crummy traitors spy on US.
Seem like possible solution could be rather simple for the FBI. Hold write high / low on nand prom pin while testing a few 1000s combinations and tricking the clock.
Hopefully Apple will patch this security failure ASAP.
I suspect the FBI already knew how to crack it. They were seeing how far they can take it. Seriously, the phone belong to the county … why would a terrorist keep sensitive information on it?!?
Thy did. The company that did it they have worked with since 2013. It is an israeli company. It is called CELLEBRITE.
But the FBI, now a zionist proxy, just wanted to abuse the American people and try to rob us once again. It’s what zions do- steal for a living.
Very nice, but please use the word “malware” correctly and don’t misuse us it for the sake of rhetoric. A specially modified OS installed locally ain’t that. Otherwise any unapproved console-opening software would be “malware”, which would please Sony et al. greatly but would not be exactly reality-based.
The Government never fails to exploit an opportunity to gain more power & control over its citizens . That is why we must remain ever villi-gent !
Thank you DoJ for another indisputable claim that can never be independently challenged.
Some cynical people might suspect a political agenda.
Not me.
I know the FBI and the DoJ are both above that sort political skulduggery which some might use after a terrorist attack as a rationale to increase their police powers.
“Thank you DoJ for another indisputable claim that can never be independently challenged.”
Exactly. Because it’s BS.
Surveillance State music video.
Female MC destroys the mic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8NY-SCbF_Y
I would not be surprised if Apple has secretly assisted this 3rd party. Therewith avoiding the entire thing (for now).
On the other hand the FBI will have the obligation to share the discovery in this security vulnerability…
Don’t count on it.
the F…B…I… wanted to rob the public and at the same time hide the fact that they are a zionist proxy. The f…b…i… have used this company to hack since 2013 but did not want to reveal their zionist alliance to America. The company is called CELLEBRITE.
These holier than thou hypocrites want no tales of ethnic heroes being zeroes,and the fact that terror was created by them,Zion, in the first place.