Apple to fight order to help hack San Bernardino shooter's phone

[Teh One Who Knocks]

FOX News and The Associated Press


http://i.imgur.com/CFG5FXG.jpg

Apple will fight a federal magistrate's order to help the Obama administration break into an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in last December's San Bernardino terror attack.

In a statement posted on Apple's website early Wednesday, CEO Tim Cook said the order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym "has implications far beyond the legal case at hand".

"We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good," Cook's statement read in part. "Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone."

Cook's statement was published hours after Pym's first-of-its kind ruling, a significant victory for the Justice Department in a technology policy debate that pits digital privacy against national security interests.

FBI Director James Comey told members of Congress last week that encryption is a major problem for law enforcement who "find a device that can't be opened even when a judge says there's probable cause to open it."

The ruling Tuesday tied the problem to the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in a Dec. 2 shooting at a holiday luncheon for Farook's co-workers. The couple later died in a gun battle with police.

Federal prosecutors told the judge in Tuesday's court proceeding — that was conducted without Apple being allowed to participate — that investigators can't access a work phone used by Farook because they don't know his passcode and Apple has not cooperated. Under U.S. law, a work phone is generally the property of a person's employer. The judge told Apple to provide an estimate of its cost to comply with her order, suggesting that the government will be expected to pay for the work.

In his statement, Cook said, "this moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake."

Apple has provided default encryption on its iPhones since 2014, allowing any device's contents to be accessed only by the user who knows the phone's passcode. Previously, the company could use an extraction tool that would physically plug into the phone and allow it to respond to search warrant requests from the government.

The ruling by Pym, a former federal prosecutor, requires Apple to supply highly specialized software the FBI can load onto the county-owned work iPhone to bypass a self-destruct feature, which erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful attempts to unlock it. The FBI wants to be able to try different combinations in rapid sequence until it finds the right one.

"The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake," Cook wrote. "Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a back door. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control."

It was not immediately clear what investigators believe they might find on Farook's work phone or why the information would not be available from third-party service providers, such as Google or Facebook, though investigators think the device may hold clues about whom the couple communicated with and where they may have traveled.

The couple took pains to physically destroy two personally owned cell phones, crushing them beyond the FBI's ability to recover information from them. They also removed a hard drive from their computer; it has not been found despite investigators diving for days for potential electronic evidence in a nearby lake.

Farook was not carrying his work iPhone during the attack. It was discovered after a subsequent search. It was not known whether Farook forgot about the iPhone or did not care whether investigators found it.

The phone was running the newest version of Apple's iPhone operating system, which requires a passcode and cannot be accessed by Apple, unlike earlier operating systems or older phone models. San Bernardino County provided Farook with an iPhone configured to erase data after 10 consecutive unsuccessful unlocking attempts. The FBI said that feature appeared to be active on Farook's iPhone as of the last time he performed a backup.

The judge didn't spell out her rationale in her three-page order, but the ruling comes amid a similar case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Investigators are still working to piece together a missing 18 minutes in Farook and Malik's timeline from Dec. 2. Investigators have concluded they were at least partly inspired by the Islamic State group; Malik's Facebook page included a note pledging allegiance to the group's leader around the time of the attack.

[redred]

Tough call this one, getting the info could save life's but the flip is privacy lost in the future

[Pony]

This wouldn't even be an issue if the Govt hadn't overstepped the bounds in the past with warrantless searches and threats to phone and internet companies to turn over data. Their actions forced Apple and others to create encryption where not even they can access data.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Jack Date - ABC News


The federal court order compelling Apple to help the FBI crack into a phone belonging to Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino, California, attackers, is the latest example of a problem which has confounded investigators in the era of smartphones.

The Apple iPhone -- the one I am typing this on and the one on which you are likely reading this -- has software with a fairly simple and elegant security measure which can be enabled by the user. It is called the auto-erase function. Make 10 failed attempts to open a locked phone using the 4-digit user-created code and the iPhone and all the data it holds will be rendered inaccessible. Investigators believe this function was enabled on Farook's 5c model iPhone.

As described by the FBI in court filings, data on iPhones is encrypted. The 4-digit code you enter into your phone initiates a complex calculation which generates a unique key to unlock the data on the phone. No key, no data. The auto erase function, if triggered, will wipe out all the encryption keys rendering the data on the iPhone useless.

The iPhone has another feature to frustrate automated attempts to unlock a phone. A 4-digit code would produce 9,999 unique possibilities. Not a particularly big challenge by itself, but the code must be punched in manually. This would be time consuming enough, but after five failed attempts, the iPhone will require the the user to wait one minute before another attempt. After attempt six the wait is five minutes. Attempt seven and eight, 15 minutes and an hour after the ninth try. More time can be added in the software.

Due to the auto-erase feature, the FBI can't attempt to unlock the iPhone without risking losing all the data. The FBI wants Apple to alter the operating system just on Farook's phone to allow the FBI to bypass or disable the auto-erase function. It also wants Apple to alter the software to allow the test pass codes to be entered without punching the keys by using Bluetooth or other means to speed the process. And the FBI wants Apple to change the operating system to eliminate the delays caused by multiple attempts to unlock the phone.

Why can't the FBI change the operating system codes? Apple has designed its phones so that only Apple software with a special cryptographic signature can run on it. No other software will work.

What about iCloud? IPhones can save data to the cloud. The FBI believes Farook turned this function off sometime after Oct. 19, the date of the phone's last backup.

The is the scenario the FBI and intelligence offices have been concerned about since these security measures were first introduced. Google's Android phones also have encryption capabilities. It is why FBI Director James Comey has been pleading with the tech industry and Congress to come up with a means for investigators to find evidence.

Many of these security features hit the market after the disclosures released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed government efforts to collect phone data in bulk.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

I'm siding with Apple on this, once they do it then it will set a precedent that will be abused

[Muddy]

Once you do it... I have no problem with it being hacked, but not by Apple.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Exactly, if they cant figure it out, then too bad

[Pony]

Many of these security features hit the market after the disclosures released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed government efforts to collect phone data in bulk.

My point exactly.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/


February 16, 2016 A Message to Our Customers

The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.

The Need for Encryption

Smartphones, led by iPhone, have become an essential part of our lives. People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.

All that information needs to be protected from hackers and criminals who want to access it, steal it, and use it without our knowledge or permission. Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information, and at Apple we are deeply committed to safeguarding their data.

Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk. That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.

For many years, we have used encryption to protect our customers’ personal data because we believe it’s the only way to keep their information safe. We have even put that data out of our own reach, because we believe the contents of your iPhone are none of our business.

The San Bernardino Case

We were shocked and outraged by the deadly act of terrorism in San Bernardino last December. We mourn the loss of life and want justice for all those whose lives were affected. The FBI asked us for help in the days following the attack, and we have worked hard to support the government’s efforts to solve this horrible crime. We have no sympathy for terrorists.

When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal.

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

The Threat to Data Security

Some would argue that building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution. But it ignores both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case.

In today’s digital world, the “key” to an encrypted system is a piece of information that unlocks the data, and it is only as secure as the protections around it. Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge.

The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.

The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.

We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data. Criminals and bad actors will still encrypt, using tools that are readily available to them.

A Dangerous Precedent

Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority.

The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.

We are challenging the FBI’s demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country. We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications.

While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.

Tim Cook

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Michael Wolff, USA TODAY


http://i.imgur.com/ETX6RhE.jpg

The dead have few if any rights (well, other than a dead celebrity in California), but Apple, and an array of left-wing supporters, are defending the rights of the San Bernardino terrorist shooters not to have their iPhones searched. (The particular phone in question was the property of the employer of Syed Rizwan Farook, the husband in the duo.)

The FBI, in possession of the dead shooter’s phone, has been stymied in its efforts to break into the device by a doomsday mechanism that wipes the phone after multiple unsuccessful password tries. The FBI has requested, and now a court has ordered, Apple to disable this doomsday feature, allowing the FBI to try as many combinations as necessary. Apple responded with a public letter from CEO Tim Cook, saying such a move would put all its users at personal risk, and that it would appeal the ruling. Donald Trump thereupon jumped in to ask just exactly who Apple thinks it is.

In this, Trump has once again raised the obvious issue: how did Apple become responsible for our security?

The FBI is presumably looking for other bad guys who Farook and Tashfeen Malik may have plotted or communicated with. But Apple’s Cook in his letter quickly dismissed that as a small potatoes issue and threw a blanket of principle over any efforts by law enforcement to mess with the iPhone or, it seems, any encryption methods at all. Apple, Cook insisted, is protecting our security while the FBI is undermining it.

This is part of the Snowden effect, a view of the world that emerged after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released stolen documents showing the extent of the government’s data collection — much of it through cellphones. In this new world, not only does the government’s interest in data and its access to technology have vast, if unspecified, conspiratorial implications, but it is one in which technology companies, if they are found to have offered any assistance, get awfully bad press.

Extending Apple some sort of benefit of the doubt, it is not clear whether the company truly sees itself as an ultimate protector and enforcer of a new tech order, existing beyond the capabilities of courts and government authority to regulate, or if it is, in the Snowden age, just doing some proactive PR and marketing.

It’s certainly quite a melodramatic and chest beating letter, not to mention a fairly preposterous one.

Instead of limiting the issue to the two dead shooters and, merely, accommodating the FBI by providing the data on the phone in question, Apple has elevated the FBI’s demand to “dangerous precedent,” deeming it the first domino in a sequence that would, in Apple’s telling, make everybody’s phone transparent to all the world’s bunko artists, sleazebags and brigands. (I am, in this, being no less broad than Apple in its evocation of “sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals.”)

Said Cook: “The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.”

Actually, the government is saying it will use this as entrée to only one phone. That it “could” be used widely and as a universal pass key is entirely theoretical. (Technology people often operate on the basis of untested metaphors relating virtual life to real life — hence, this request is like a pass key, rather than, say, akin to the New York City subway advisory that “large backpacks are subject to random search by the police.”) The government, Cook goes on, "could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.”

That’s the nub of the argument and of Apple’s agitprop. The government is the enemy, even the operative villain in modern life, perfidiously or mindlessly intent on taking away the privacy of its citizens. Technology companies, on the other hand, have created all manner of tools to protect our privacy.

Come again? In some more precise ontological understanding, it is technology companies that have not only created the means by which our privacy is, on a constantly expanding basis, ever-more lost, but they are the prime beneficiaries of this access to messages, heath records, financial data and all the rest.

It is technology companies whose foremost business goal is to protect their data monopolies and, indeed, the illusion that privacy exists (pay no attention to the fact that we are not private to them).

Edward Snowden, whose theft and escape were enabled by encryption protocols, has been an active tweeter on the side of Apple in the current debate. Snowden, perhaps honorably but quite mindlessly, too, showed both how communication devices potentially compromise our privacy and, as well, how would-be terrorists might circumvent such exposure and protect their dastardly plans. In response, technology companies must grandly assert the virtue of their devices, and law enforcement must dig deeper into them.

[RBP]

By their own admission, Apple has unlocked phones for the government some 70 previous times. This is a PR moves because Apple is afraid of ruining it's reputation.

[RBP]

A 2015 court case shows that the tech giant has been willing to play ball with the government before—and is only stopping now because it might ‘tarnish the Apple brand.’

Apple CEO Tim Cook declared on Wednesday that his company wouldn’t comply with a government search warrant to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers, a significant escalation in a long-running debate between technology companies and the government over access to people’s electronically-stored private information.

But in a similar case in New York last year, Apple acknowledged that it could extract such data if it wanted to. And according to prosecutors in that case, Apple has unlocked phones for authorities at least 70 times since 2008. (Apple doesn’t dispute this figure.)

In other words, Apple’s stance in the San Bernardino case may not be quite the principled defense that Cook claims it is. In fact, it may have as much to do with public relations as it does with warding off what Cook called “an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers.”

For its part, the government’s public position isn’t clear cut, either. U.S. officials insist that they cannot get past a security feature on the shooter’s iPhone that locks out anyone who doesn’t know its unique password—which even Apple doesn’t have. But in that New York case, a government attorney acknowledged that one U.S. law enforcement agency has already developed the technology to crack at least some iPhones, without the assistance from Apple that officials are demanding now.

The facts in the New York case, which involve a self-confessed methamphetamine dealer and not a notorious terrorist, tend to undermine some of the core claims being made by both Apple and the government in a dispute with profound implications for privacy and criminal investigations beyond the San Bernardino case.

In New York, as in California, Apple is refusing to bypass the passcode feature now found on many iPhones.

But in a legal brief, Apple acknowledged that the phone in the meth case was running version 7 of the iPhone operating system, which means the company can access it. “For these devices, Apple has the technical ability to extract certain categories of unencrypted data from a passcode locked iOS device,” the company said in a court brief.

Whether the extraction would be successful depended on whether the phone was “in good working order,” Apple said, noting that the company hadn’t inspected the phone yet. But as a general matter, yes, Apple could crack the iPhone for the government. And, two technical experts told The Daily Beast, the company could do so with the phone used by deceased San Bernardino shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook, a model 5C. It was running version 9 of the operating system.

Still, Apple argued in the New York case, it shouldn’t have to, because “forcing Apple to extract data… absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand,” the company said, putting forth an argument that didn’t explain why it was willing to comply with court orders in other cases.

“This reputational harm could have a longer term economic impact beyond the mere cost of performing the single extraction at issue,” Apple said.

Apple’s argument in New York struck one former NSA lawyer as a telling admission: that its business reputation is now an essential factor in deciding whether to hand over customer information.

“I think Apple did itself a huge disservice,” Susan Hennessey, who was an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at the NSA, told The Daily Beast. The company acknowledged that it had the technical capacity to unlock the phone, but “objected anyway on reputational grounds,” Hennessey said. Its arguments were at odds with each other, especially in light of Apple’s previous compliance with so many court orders.

It wasn’t until after the revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that Apple began to position itself so forcefully as a guardian of privacy protection in the face of a vast government surveillance apparatus. Perhaps Apple was taken aback by the scale of NSA spying that Snowden revealed. Or perhaps it was embarassed by its own role in it. The company, since 2012, had been providing its customers’ information to the FBI and the NSA via the PRISM program, which operated pursuant to court orders.

Apple has also argued, then and now, that the government is overstepping the authority of the All Writs Act, an 18th-century statute that it claims forces Apple to conduct court-ordered iPhone searches. That’s where the “clear legal authority” question comes into play.

But that, too, is a subjective question which will have to be decided by higher courts. For now, Apple is resisting the government on multiple grounds, and putting its reputation as a bastion of consumer protection front and center in the fight.

None of this has stopped the government from trying to crack the iPhone, a fact that emerged unexpectedly in the New York case. In a brief exchange with attorneys during a hearing in October, Judge James Orenstein said he’d found testimony in another case that the Homeland Security Department “is in possession of technology that would allow its forensic technicians to override the pass codes security feature on the subject iPhone and obtain the data contained therein.”

That revelation, which went unreported in the press at the time, seemed to undercut the government’s central argument that it needed Apple to unlock a protected iPhone.

“Even if [Homeland Security] agents did not have the defendant’s pass code, they would nevertheless have been able to obtain the records stored in the subject iPhone using specialized software,” the judge said. “Once the device is unlocked, all records in it can be accessed and copied.”

A government attorney affirmed that he was aware of the tool. However, it applied only to one update of version 8 of the iPhone operating system—specifically, 8.1.2. The government couldn’t unlock all iPhones, but just phones with that software running.

Still, it made the judge question whether other government agencies weren’t also trying to break the iPhone’s supposedly unbreakable protections. And if so, why should he order the company to help?

There was, the judge told the government lawyer, “the possibility that on the intel side, the government has this capability. I would be surprised if you would say it in open court one way or the other.”

Orenstein was referring to the intelligence agencies, such as the NSA, which develop tools and techniques to hack popular operating systems, and have been particularly interested for years in trying to get into Apple products, according to documents leaked by Snowden.

There was no further explanation of how Homeland Security developed the tool, and whether it was widely used. A department spokesperson declined to comment “on specific law enforcement techniques.” But the case had nevertheless demonstrated that, at least in some cases, the government can, and has, managed to get around the very wall that it now claims impedes lawful criminal investigations.

The showdown between Apple and the FBI will almost certainly not be settled soon. The company is expected to file new legal briefs within days. And the question of whether the All Writs Act applies in such cases is destined for an appeals court decision, legal experts have said.

But for the moment, it appears that the only thing certainly standing in the way of Apple complying with the government is its decision not to. And for its part, the government must be presumed to be searching for new ways to get the information it wants.

Technically, Apple probably can find a way to extract the information that the government wants from the San Bernardino shooter’s phone, Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Daily Beast.

“The question is, does the law give the government the ability to force Apple to create new code?” he said. “Engineers have to sit down and create something that doesn’t exist” in order to meet the government’s demands. Soghoian noted that this would only be possible in the San Bernardino case because the shooter was using an iPhone model 5C, and that newer hardware versions would be much harder for Apple to bypass.

But even that’s in dispute, according to another expert’s analysis. Dan Guido, a self-described hacker and CEO of the cybersecurity company Trail of Bits, said that Apple can, in fact, eliminate the protections that keep law enforcement authorities from trying to break into the iPhone with a so-called brute force attack, using a computer to make millions of password guesses in a short period of time. New iPhones have a feature that stops users from making repeated incorrect guesses and can trigger a kind of self-destruct mechanism, erasing all the phone’s contents, after too many failed attempts.

In a detailed blog post, Guido described how Apple could work around its own protections and effectively disarm the security protections. It wouldn’t be trivial. But it’s feasible, he said, even for the newest versions of the iPhone, which, unlike the ones in the New York and San Bernardino cases, Apple swears it cannot crack.

“The burden placed on Apple will be greater… but it will not be impossible,” Guido told The Daily Beast.

[DemonGeminiX]

There is no Constitutional guarantee to the right of privacy. However, the 4th does guarantee against unwarranted searches. But that's not the case here. A court order was issued. Apple needs to comply. Given what RBP posted, this is just grandstanding.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I don't think the issue is trying to access the information on the phone. If it was as simple as plugging the phone in at the Apple HQ and gaining access with a few simple commands that were proprietary to Apple, I'm sure they would have done it by now. The issue is the software the Feds want Apple to write to circumvent the current iOS that allows data to be encrypted and the encryption key being wiped after so many wrong tries at the PIN. The Feds are claiming gthat it will only be used once, on this articular phone, but with their track record when it comes to spying on citizens without warrants, do you honestly believe that they would never use this new backdoor that Apple created for them ever again?

[DemonGeminiX]

So deal. Let Apple get the data and send the data to the Feds without giving the Feds the method to crack the encryption. Immediate needs are met in the interests of national security. But don't just flat out say no. Try to work with them.

What kills me is we have legitimate hackers and encryption code breakers over at the NSA and yet no one's mentioned them yet. This kind of thing is in their wheelhouse. Just take the phone over to them.

[RBP]

I don't think the issue is trying to access the information on the phone. If it was as simple as plugging the phone in at the Apple HQ and gaining access with a few simple commands that were proprietary to Apple, I'm sure they would have done it by now. The issue is the software the Feds want Apple to write to circumvent the current iOS that allows data to be encrypted and the encryption key being wiped after so many wrong tries at the PIN. The Feds are claiming gthat it will only be used once, on this articular phone, but with their track record when it comes to spying on citizens without warrants, do you honestly believe that they would never use this new backdoor that Apple created for them ever again?

That's according to Apple. But that argument applies to NEW iphones and not to the ones in question, so it makes no sense. They are the same as the previous cooperation by Apple.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

FOX News and The Associated Press


The White House appears to be willing to compromise with Apple in its fight with the tech giant to comply with a federal court order to provide “reasonable technical assistance” in the government’s investigation of the locked iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino gunmen.

The Obama administration told a magistrate judge Friday it would be willing to allow Apple to retain possession of and later destroy specialized software it was ordered to create to help federal authorities hack into the encrypted iPhone belong to Syed Rizwan Farook.

"Apple may maintain custody of the software, destroy it after its purpose under the order has been served, refuse to disseminate it outside of Apple and make clear to the world that it does not apply to other devices or users without lawful court orders," the Justice Department told Judge Sheri Pym. "No one outside Apple would have access to the software required by the order unless Apple itself chose to share it."

On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered Apple to help the FBI hack into the phone used by Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in December.

Although the judge instructed Apple to create the software for the FBI, she said it could be loaded onto the phone at an Apple facility. The Justice Department made explicit Friday that Apple could retain custody of the software at all times.

That's a good "compromise position" because "they're giving all the power to Apple," Jason Healey, a former director on cyber policy at the White House, told the Associated Press.

"They're telling Apple, 'You hold the software, we're not asking you to put a backdoor in the encryption, we just want to be able to brute force this thing,'" Healey said. "If the precedent is this, that they deliver the phone to Apple and Apple does it, I think that's a pretty good precedent that can't be done en masse on the next thousand iPhones."

Authorities want Apple to bypass a self-destruct feature that erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful attempts to guess the passcode. Apple has helped the government before in this and previous cases, but this time Apple CEO Tim Cook said no and Apple is appealing the order.

The Justice Department filed a motion earlier Friday to compel Apple to comply with the court order.

"Apple has attempted to design and market its products to allow technology, rather than the law, to control access to data which has been found by this Court to be warranted for an important investigation. Despite its efforts, Apple nonetheless retains the technical ability to comply with the order, and so should be required to obey it," the motion states.

While the judge on the case says the government is only asking for help unlocking one, single iPhone, Apple says the case is much bigger than that and sets a dangerous precedent. Cook says the company doesn't have a system to bypass the self-destruct one.
Apple Inc. (AAPL) | FindTheCompany

"Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes," Cook said.

The company has an additional three days to file its opposition to Tuesday's court order which is now due on Feb. 26, a law enforcement official tells Fox News.

[DemonGeminiX]

[-(

See? Told ya.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

FOX News and The Associated Press


FBI Director James Comey said late Sunday that the agency owed the victims of last December's San Bernardino terror attack a "thorough and professional investigation", in an effort to explain why law enforcement officials are trying to compel Apple to help them gain access to a cellphone owned by one of the gunmen.

In a post on the Lawfare blog, Comey wrote that the FBI "can't look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don't follow this lead."

The post was Comey's first public statement since Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company would fight a federal magistrate's order to help the FBI hack into Syed Farook's work-issued iPhone. Farook, along with wife Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in the Dec. 2 attacks.

Cook claimed that the judge's order required Apple to "build a backdoor to the iPhone", which he described as "something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create."

The CEO said that if the technology to hack Farook's iPhone was created, it "would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes."

"The San Bernardino litigation isn't about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message," Comey wrote in his blog post. "It is about the victims and justice."

"The relief we seek is limited and its value increasingly obsolete because the technology continues to evolve," Comey continued. "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."

On Friday, the Justice Department filed a motion to compel Apple to comply with the court order. U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers said Apple has followed court orders to unlock phones at least 70 times in various cases.

Apple has until Feb. 26 to file its opposition to the initial order.

Comey did acknowledge in his statement that the clash has laid bare a tension between privacy and security. But he said that divide should not be resolved by the FBI nor "corporations that sell stuff for a living."

"It should be resolved by the American people deciding how we want to govern ourselves in a world we have never seen before," he said.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

FOX News and The Associated Press


http://i.imgur.com/65k1qLz.jpg

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has broken with other Silicon Valley giants by backing the FBI in its battle with Apple over hacking into a locked iPhone as part of the investigation into last December's San Bernardino terror attack.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Gates said a court order requiring Apple to help the FBI access a work phone belonging to gunman Syed Farook was " a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case."

Gates went on to compare the FBI's request to accessing bank and telephone records. However, he added that the government must be subject to rules about when it can access such information.

"I hope that we have that debate so that the safeguards are built and so people do not opt — and this will be country by country — [to say] it is better that the government does not have access to any information," Gates said.

The San Bernardino County-issued iPhone 5C was used by Farook, who with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at an office holiday party in December before they died in a gun battle with police. The government said they had been at least partly inspired by ISIS.

The couple physically destroyed two personal phones so completely that the FBI has been unable to recover information from them.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that creating such software is a dangerous precedent that would threaten data security for millions by making essentially a master key that could later be duplicated and used against other phones.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday expressed his support for Apple while in Barcelona, Spain, to speak at the Mobile World Congress, saying he believes in helping the government in its fight against terrorism but that encryption is important.

"I don't think that back doors into encryption is going to increase security or is in the direction the world is going," he said.

Twitter boss Jack Dorsey also tweeted his support last week for Cook's "leadership", while Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the order for Apple to hack the phone "could be a troubling precedent."

Meanwhile, family members of attack victims and survivors intend to file court papers in support of the original order by a federal magistrate.

The victims "have questions that go simply beyond the criminal investigation ... in terms of why this happened, how this happened, why they were targeted, is there anything about them on the iPhone -- things that are more of a personal victim" view, attorney Stephen Larson said, adding that the brief would be filed before March 3.

Robert Velasco, whose 27-year-old daughter Yvette Velasco was killed in the shooting, told The Associated Press that he didn't have to think long before agreeing to have his name added to the legal filing in support of the FBI.

"It is important to me to have my name in there," Velasco said. "I lost my daughter in this and I want the court to see that I am seeking justice for my daughter."

Gregory Clayborn, whose 27-year-old daughter, Sierra, died in the attack, said he hasn't been asked to join the case but believes Apple is obligated to unlock the phone.

"This makes me a little bit angry with Apple," Clayborn said. "It makes me question their interest in the safety of this country."

Clayborn said he understands Apple's concerns, but unlocking one phone for the FBI, he said, is "as simple as it gets."

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Of course Gates would, he has been helping them spy forever

[Teh One Who Knocks]

[-(

See? Told ya.

Justice Wants Apple to Unlock at Least Twelve Other iPhones
Gabrielle Bluestone - Gawker


http://i.imgur.com/Vmb0i5K.jpg

The Justice Department is seeking court orders that would force Apple to help it bypass the security features on at least twelve other iPhones not connected to terrorism cases, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Specifically, investigators want the company to develop a new operating system that would allow them to test out thousands of passwords without triggering an iOS feature that disables the phone after 10 incorrect attempts.

Apple has so far resisted a court order, issued last week by a federal magistrate, to help the FBI unlock a cell phone belonging to Syeed Farook, who carried out the San Bernardino shootings.

“They are not asking Apple to redesign its product or to create a new backdoor to one of their products,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest explained last week. “They’re simply asking for something that would have an impact on this one device.”

But according to the Journal, it’s not just one device—prosecutors are reportedly pursuing court orders in at least twelve other cases under the All Writs Act, an 18th century law that, on its face, allows Congress to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”

It’s unclear what evidence authorities are seeking from the twelve pending cases, but the Journal reports “they don’t involve terrorism charges.” At least one case, in New York, concerns a federal drug investigation.

Papers filed in that case reportedly indicate the government has successfully obtained court orders in similar investigations.

“In most of the cases, rather than challenge the orders in court, Apple simply deferred complying with them, without seeking appropriate judicial relief,” a letter filed with the court alleges.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook described the court order as a slippery slope that would ultimately result in the government having power “to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data.”

“The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge,” Cook wrote.

[DemonGeminiX]

Now Apple can tell the Justice Department to go fuck themselves... after they unlock the San Bernandino shooter's phone.

[Pony]

Don't forget the tens of thousands of phones State and Local Police want unlocked.....

....I'm sure the govt or any of the thousands of police departments would only ever use the hack after going through the proper legal channels and never infringe on an individuals rights.

[DemonGeminiX]

That's what the 4th Amendment is for. If they got a warrant, kudos. If not, go talk to my lawyer.