I'm seeing a lot of comments to the effect that the government will just try again at some point.
Well, welcome to life in a democracy. Nothing is ever settled with finality because there are plenty of ways for future generations to change the laws we cherish today--for good or ill.
We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that. That we don't do that is a reflection of our cultural values--today--which we continually discuss and reinforce.
We could abolish the EPA, or the IRS, or the NSA. We don't because these have enough supporters who value what they do, today. The 2nd Amendment remains strong today because millions of Americans work every day to keep it that way.
So, the long-term solution for strong encryption must be a cultural one. We have to be prepared to fight the crypto wars forever, like unions are still fighting the labor wars a century later. Like civil rights activists are fighting racism even today--and will be for the foreseeable future.
Is that depressing? Not to me; I find it inspiring, much better than a world in which government decisions are truly final. Beware that level of power IMO.
The problem is not that things change in a democracy. The problem is that the change we get does not represent the will of the people.
A majority of Americans is dissatisfied with the Patriot Act [1] yet it keeps getting renewed.
A majority of Americans thinks political spending is corrupt [2] and that the political system is rigged, yet we get Citizens United to pour even more corporate cash into the machine.
A majority of Americans voted for the Democrat in 2000, but the Republican was installed instead [3].
People overwhelmingly disapprove using public funds to bail out reckless bankers [4], but somehow it happens anyway.
There was a global uproar over SOPA and PIPA which shut down this draconian legislation. But you can't kill the zombie, and it keeps coming back, now in secret trade agreements like TPP and TTIP that citizens aren't even allowed to read.
The Total Information Awareness program was suspended in 2003 [5] after a public outcry over warrantless mass surveillance. Naturally it was all reincarnated into secret NSA programs.
We'll see the same thing with devices and personal encryption. This is only a temporary setback for the powers that be, they'll be back with another sensational, emotional case soon enough.
The current system does not represent the will of the people. It's an oligarchy supported by a security apparatus run amok.
If there has ever been a time to illustrate that our country is an oligarchy and not a Democracy, this has been the year. There is a non-zero chance that even in our rigged, broken system that the candidates that are recognized in one or both parties will be ones that received less voter support and were chosen by the wealthy.
>We have to be prepared to fight the crypto wars forever, like unions are still fighting the labor wars a century later.
Just like the war against CISPA, which was lost to attrition.
>We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that
What does the Constitution matter at all? Our system of checks and balances is beyond broken - its gone. Not to be disrespectful, but anyone who thinks that the Constitution is recognized by the government is delusional or worse. The 1st, 4th, 6th, and 9th amendments have been rendered basically moot by recent government action and court inaction. The truth is that you can't have a functioning democracy without the informed consent of the governed. When the majority of the population lacks the capacity to generate informed consent and those in power work actively to suppress that capacity you end up with the authoritarian oligarchy that we have today.
>We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that.
Actually, I think this is the genius of the amendment system.
You are correct that it could happen. But unlike laws that can be passed or revoked by Congress by political whim, the barrier to creating or overturning Constitutional amendments is much higher and more difficult to pass.
One of the problems that many people have with what the federal government has done in the course of the 20th and 21st centuries is how they have completely ignored the 10th Amendment. I am not sure that the Constitution is an effective protection for civil liberties (or other rights), and I do not know what recourse the citizenry has when the government does ot abide by its own rules.
If a well-funded superpac would systematically and indefinitely try every legal exploit to re-enact slavery you'd be grinning each attempt because "democracy"? ....
The idea that our form of government allows us the freedom to resist predatory laws is inspiring, the necessity to fight that fight... over and over again... is the best representation that true freedom is delicate.
To protect that freedom we need to hold critical thinking above all else to guard ourselves against the faux intellectualism of statements like yours.
I really fail to see what that has to do with living in a democracy.
No matter which system of government, rules (in the broadest sense) can always change. Democracy is just the attempt to better align those rules with the interests of the people (in the broadest sense).
As long as the FBI keeps within the rules they can obviously try again. And that’s got very little to do with democracy and much more with the rule of law which is really central here.
Everyone – even and especially the government – has to adhere to the law, but there are mechanisms to act within the law or to settle questions or even to change the law, all through some sort of proper and defined process. That’s just what the rule of law is.
However, within the system of rule of law (and the particular implementation of that system in the US) there are certainly ways for questions to be more or less settled. Things that are easy to change (e.g. executive orders) and things that are hard to change (e.g. constitutional amendments). There are graduations to this – and graduations that exist on purpose.
Behind that is also the realization that quickly changing things – while sometimes necessary – is not really always desirable. So there is a certain sluggishness built right into the system on purpose. And achieving constitutional amendment levels of sluggishness is actually pretty hard to overcome in the US. It’s hard to get an amendment, it’s hard to remove it. Quite on purpose. It’s for settling questions for years.
(All of this is not to say that some states don’t try to have some core values enshrined for all eternity. The German constitution has such an article that explicitly forbids amendments of two other articles. No amendment can change that Germany is a democratic and social federal state, that there are elections and three branches of government, that there is rule of law, that every German has the right to resist against anyone attempting to remove that order, that human dignity is inviolable, that human rights are the basis of any human society and that the basic rights defined in the constitution bind as law all three branches of the government. Even if you agree that there is really no way to amend this in any way – something which constitutional scholars aren’t super-decided on – there could still be a revolution of some sort that just abolishes the old constitution … things can always change, also in technically illegal ways.)
> ...much better than a world in which government decisions are truly final. Beware that level of power IMO.
That is certainly a valid point in the case of laws that expand a state's authority, but I don't think that is true where explicit restrictions on the state's authority are put in place (ex: bill of rights). I doubt anybody (outside of the Brady Campaign) will ever look over the bill of rights and think that we would have been better off without the explicit restrictions made clear.
I think that your comment, while true in spirit, misrepresents some of the mechanics in play here.
> We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that.
Of course there is - the constitutional amendment process is designed precisely to be an impediment. Unlike a legal proceeding, where courts can create case law essentially at a whim by legal means alone, the constitutional amendment process is a complex and different political process, requiring quite a few procedural stars to align.
One of the problems is that the courts (and, for that matter, Congress and the POTUS) tend not to abide by the text of the constitution, preferring to usurp the political process with their own legal, legislative, or bureaucratic one, respectively.
> We could abolish the EPA, or the IRS, or the NSA. We don't because these have enough supporters who value what they do, today.
I don't think this is true, but I concede that it's not really measurable. What I mean is: the reason that these methods of control persist is not that they have made a convincing case to the public that their mission is laudable and faithfully executed (environmental protection, accurate and fair taxation, and security for US persons vis a vis international dealings). In fact, it's quite plain to see that all three of these agencies have, from time to time, failed spectacularly at these missions, with some incidents attributable to incompetence and others to misconduct.
Instead, I want to suggest that the reason they persist is that they provide convenient mechanisms for exacting power and that they are controlled by people who desire that capacity.
> The 2nd Amendment remains strong today because millions of Americans work every day to keep it that way.
While I agree with this statement, I think that it is somewhat contrary to your previous one. Here you are talking about the preservation of protections offered by the text of a document, which I agree can only be protected by political vigilance. This is fundamentally different from (and perhaps the opposite of) the assertion by entrenched agencies that they operate by political will.
> So, the long-term solution for strong encryption must be a cultural one. We have to be prepared to fight the crypto wars forever, like unions are still fighting the labor wars a century later. Like civil rights activists are fighting racism even today--and will be for the foreseeable future.
Here's where I start to agree with you. This is beautifully put.
Well, welcome to life in a democracy. Nothing is ever settled with finality because there are plenty of ways for future generations to change the laws we cherish today--for good or ill.
Some thing seem to be permanent. High priority lobbying goals for big corporations. (Examples: Disney & copyright extensions. Corn & corn subsidies. Car dealerships.)
> We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again
No. You can't roll back a human right. If you did it wouldn't be a valid law and people would be justified in armed resistance to it.
> We could abolish the EPA, or the IRS, or the NSA. We don't because these have enough supporters who value what they do, today.
Well, in the case of the NSA it's more because we suspect they'd commit treason and bring down the country if we tried.
(ie, pull out an old tape of Obama and frame him with something, etc.)
> Well, welcome to life in a democracy. Nothing is ever settled with finality because there are plenty of ways for future generations to change the laws we cherish today--for good or ill.
Yes, things can always be screwed up. But it should be illegal for a government worker (ie FBI) to specifically try to undermine existing decisions by, for instance, lying in court, or paying for propaganda they know to be untrue. Both things we know they do.
I feel like cases shouldn't be droppable unless both parties mutually agree, and the courts also must first agree.the courts should not agree if it's a case that could set a precedent that can have far reaching implications.
What if next time, a smaller player than Apple was caught in this sort of case, and they can't fight back as easily? Then it'd be easier to setup a precedent favourable to one party. This seems like a way to legally manipulate the common laws, and I think courts should put in place measures to prevent such manipulation.
One of the reasons that courts do not allow cases to continue when a party loses interest in the dispute (for whatever reason) is that the court can no longer trust that party to continue making a forceful case. You can end up with situations where the party refuses to spend money on making good arguments and finding evidence, then make very bad precedent because of it.
Big companies can still buy little companies to take on their lawsuits, or they can provide funding & resources to fight a legal battle as part of an investment.
I suspect that Google bought YouTube in part to avoid precisely this situation. If Viacom had won their lawsuit against YouTube, it would have endangered Google's core business: they would become liable not just for copyrighted material that they know about, but any copyrighted material on their servers, which encompasses the whole web. So they pay $1.6B for a tiny startup and a big lawsuit, and then use their full legal resources to fight (and eventually win) the lawsuit.
(There is possibly an interesting get-rich-quick hack in there: do something in a legal grey area that lots of big companies are doing too, as part of their core business, and then get sued. It is then in the big company's interest to acquire you and fight your legal battles, lest they get put out of business by an unfavorable precedent. You're playing with fire in this case, though, since if the big company doesn't come to your aid you have a multi-hundred-billion dollar lawsuit hanging over you.)
If you force parties to fight cases that are moot, cases where both parties' interests aren't affected, then you're deciding cases based on arguments from people who don't care about winning. That's sort of antithetical to the adversarial system, where a basic premise is that the best way to make a decision is to hear parties on each side of the issue.
If a similar case occurs, then 3rd parties (Apple, ACLU, etc) may be able to submit amicus briefs to help the defendant. Apple might also be able to intervene and become an actual party in the case, if it can convince the court that the case's outcome will harm its interests (see Rule 24 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure).
I feel like cases shouldn't be droppable unless both parties mutually agree
So if you made a bad decision to enter into litigation with someone, you're held to the consequences of that even after you've changed your mind? Unworkable in practice, and even in theory it's bad because you might wind up setting a precedent for someone whose case was similar to but better founded than yours.
> I feel like cases shouldn't be droppable unless both parties mutually agree, and the courts also must first agree.the courts should not agree if it's a case that could set a precedent that can have far reaching implications.
But what if both parties mutually agree, but the courts don't agree? Then we get a precedent set where one side doesn't see any reason to bother to try to win. That's a horrible way to set precedent. And that's how horrible precedents get set.
The All Writs Act basically demands that the FBI drop the court order if they can find another route to achieve the goals of the writ. By many reports, the FBI was no happier than Apple about the case being dropped.
I would treat this claim with a great deal of skepticism. However, this is by far the smartest play for the government. Had they gone to court and lost (probably after an appeal), they would have set a precedent that would be very problematic for them going forward. By claiming this, falsely or otherwise, they hurt Apple's security reputation (most consumers will not understand or care that this happens to be an old iPhone with an old version of iOS - they will just hear or read that an iPhone was cracked), and they avoided a potentially problematic legal outcome.
The DOJ came out on top here, whether they are lying or not.
The hearing was before a federal magistrate judge and was largely administrative. Binding precedent wouldn't have been set until the case hit a higher court on appeal (which would have been inevitable regardless of who won as both sides had significant incentives for appeal). The DOJ could have dropped the case at any point before then to avoid an undesirable precedent. Until that point, a negative ruling wouldn't have been an insurmountable problem even if other, similar cases were brought. At worst, it could be pointed to as a point of persuasive authority ("here's what another judge did, your honor - doesn't that sound grand?"), but that's not binding. A lot of coverage and discussion confused an eventual precedent with the magistrate hearing.
The most likely reason for dropping the case would have had nothing to do about precedent and everything to do with the fact that they couldn't proceed without lying to the court. The entire basis for the case was that the government had no other choice but to compel Apple to build "GovOS." The moment they became aware of the existence of an alternative method, they had a duty to update their brief and inform the court. And at that point, with the entire basis for their case effectively gone, they were pretty much out of options.
From the FBI's perspective, that was rather unfortunate. They probably figured this was the perfect case to pursue to try and gain the sort of precedent they wanted (an instance of Islamic terrorism on American soil? It checks all of the boxes for manipulating the public into supporting the FBI). Most likely, they never expected Apple to fight back for fear of the PR consequences of impeding a terror investigation. Minor miscalculation, that.
As to the possible lying, English isn't my native tongue, but I found the use of the phrase "without compromising any information on the phone" in this statement:
“Our decision to conclude the litigation was based solely on the fact that, with the recent assistance of a third party, we are now able to unlock that iPhone without compromising any information on the phone,” Eileen Decker, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said in a statement.
at least curious. Googling "no data was compromised" gives me only links that use that in the meaning "third parties did not get access to the data".
So, if that really is what Eileen Decker said, what exactly did she mean?
Maybe, but they didn't actually accomplish any of their real goals—making it easy to force Apple to break their security. This particular phone is immaterial, and Apple can always talk big later about how they patched any of the security holes that the government used, to recover face.
>>they hurt Apple's security reputation (most consumers will not understand or care that this happens to be an old iPhone with an old version of iOS - they will just hear or read that an iPhone was cracked)
And? What makes you think most consumers will care that the government cracked an iPhone?
It stinks that the case ended like this — without setting a sensible precedent — but I think there is still some upside:
FBI director Comey's "Going Dark" narrative no longer holds water with anyone who's paying attention. He cried wolf so loud he's been heard on every continent. If and when he tries this again, he'll get a ton more blowback.
Similarly, Obama's jibes about security "absolutism" now appear ridiculous. As are his criticism of impenetrable black boxes protecting child molesters. What he really wants is for the Emmental-like extensions of our brains to have even more holes. That's an obviously un-winnable argument.
Also, the bar for proving you've tried all possible alternatives for gaining access just got a lot higher in applying the All Writs Act. It took three months plus a month of major international news stories specifically about this court case to gain entry — something that might really be impossible to achieve next time. But now everyone knows when they swore under oath many times in multiple public venues that they couldn't gain access, what they really meant was "not yet" and not "it's impossible".
Finally, Apple should now be motivated to remove themselves as the weak link in their security ecosystem. System updates shouldn't be possible without first wiping the information needed to derive the encryption key or first supplying that key. I can also dream about them open sourcing their code to allow security researchers to bug hunt (an impossible dream). And maybe they'll change their minds on bug bounties. Whatever happens, it's now beyond doubt that foreign entities are exploiting vulnerabilities in the iPhone and we all expect Apple to beef up their security accordingly — regardless of how this may hinder law enforcement.
You could say they dropped it because they accessed the phone.
You might also say they dropped it because going to court and losing would greatly narrow the scope of the All Writs act. Then the "maybe illegal" spying coersion becomes "actually illegal"
It'll be easy enough to infer which it is later because if they have actually got data out of the phone then they'll amend the complaint against the co-conspirator(s) with the newly available information.
So in the last week, a lot of media reports around the Brussels attacks have focused on how, in the immediate aftermath of the arrest of an alleged Paris conspirator, the Belgian authorities were premature in announcing that they were learning information about his co-conspirators, which caused those people to bring forward their attack plans.
Now, the FBI has just announced to the world that any information locked up in the San Bernardino iPhone is now in their hands. Presumably any co-conspirators who thought their contact details might be in that phone are now aware of that.
Now, on the other hand, for the past month or so, the FBI has on the contrary been doing a very good job of informing the world, with to some extent Apple's help, that they did not have access to the information in that phone. That may have served to reassure those same conspirators that the FBI was not onto them.. When perhaps they had actually cracked the phone some time ago, and were in fact in the process of employing that intelligence.
Too charitable to suspect the FBI of having pulled that off?
AFAIK didn't the San Bernadino person not use their work phone for this? The iPhone the FBI wanted into was their work phone, already Government-controlled. Not their burner phone, which was destroyed.
I wish Apple would be able to recoup their legal costs from the DoJ -- the government shouldn't be allowed to force a company to spend money on defending their rights (using our "unlimited" tax dollars to do so), only to drop the case at the last minute making the entire case moot.
Apple should be able to recover their legal costs.
Somewhat agree, but Apple DID have a court order they were fighting. They did choose to fight this legally adjudicated and issued order. The owner of the phone and the law enforcement both wanted the phone decrypted.
FWIW, I agree that privacy is ignored and should be respected, but apple chose this fight. I'm glad they did, but they knew it would cost them.
While I agree, the counterargument will likely be that all of Apple's lawyers are on salary and as such Apple's legal costs would be no different with or without the court proceedings.
Who wants to take bets on how? My bet is they copied the flash, and are iterating passcode guesses until it slows down too much (or implodes, however it's configured) and then they reflash and iterate again. And it was only a 4 digit passcode, so it was pretty easy to do this.
The next bet is whether they find anything relevant? My bet is no. Next bet after that is whether they admit it? My bet is they won't.
But the more important one is if they tell Apple or open a CVE for the exploit they used if it's not a flash and guess technique they used? Is it ethical for FBI to sit on an exploit?
Yea I'm wondering the same thing. They should be bound by a public records request as the methods aren't related to national security (once the investigation has been deemed closed). Also, they should be required to disclose the amount of taxpayer money used for this workaround...
> My bet is they copied the flash, and are iterating passcode guesses
Sounds reasonable. No trivial task I bet, but with the world's attention on the case a lot of kids would be having a crack at the trendiest break-in job going right now.
The guys who cracked the iPhone probably earned the equivalent of signing a record label deal. At the very least, the FBI liked and subscribed.
This is possibly the worst outcome. The tide of public opinion was turning towards Apple and privacy, and away from the FBI; for it to enter the court under this pretence there was a strong argument to be made against the latter. With this announcement, for the many, this matter will now be "resolved". When it inevitably rears its ugly head again, the same pretence may no longer be true.
I think I know what you mean but don't forget there is a specific and horrible case here too. Many people died and now the FBI has access to the phone. I don't know what the odds are that they will find anything useful in way of easing the pain of the victims or preventing an occurrence, but certainly it seems highly plausible. And at the very least a lot of resources going into this part of the investigation can now be used elsewhere. They were able to access the phone and (hopefully) it required some expensive physical+software breaks, which seems to be a reasonable compromise in the privacy vs security debate.
There are a huge number of side effects that would have to be dealt with, but this case has made me think that Apple should have the option to say, "changed your mind? Nooo, that ship (which you, the FBI, built and christened) has sailed, buddy, and you're on board. This is going before a judge, like it or not, and we're doing it now."
The reality is that the FBI accessed it, so they no longer required Apple's help.
"The Justice Department said Monday it has accessed data on the iPhone used by a shooter in last year's San Bernardino, California, attacks and no longer needs Apple's help in cracking it."
Apparently a 3rd party from Israel (http://www.cellebrite.com/) helped the FBI which begs the question, how did they do it? Do they have universal access to all iOS devices or just this particular device? This really makes me start to think there is a backdoor.
I think they (apple) might send a specially prepared iPhone undercover with some verbose logging enabled and ask to have it cracked by such a company, and try to locate the breach.
The FBIs motives have always been nakedly transparent in this case. They had no interest in the specific phone, they wanted to use it as a wedge issue to force a precedent. Once they figured out this avenue was a bust, they withdrew to find a different angle. Since everything is classified anyway, it's irrelevant if they actually cracked the phone or not but if they did, it was probably by buying an exploit from the NSA TAO store [1].
So what happens to the other 200+ iphones that law enforcement needed opened?
It seems like there are at least certain iphones that can be opened using this method and similar hardware based approaches. Are the feds going to move forward with that? It seems like accessing this particular phone wasn't trivial or cheap. So I'd imagine that it will come down to whether or not it's "worth" the cost of flashing individual chips for each of the other devices.
And what happens if there is potentially exonerating evidence on one of those phones? Does the defense team have to come up with the money to pay for a lab or outside company to open the phone? And also, is an encrypted phone going to be the new 'dna evidence'? Like, will a brand new iphone that's linked to a major crime be held away for years until the security community can hack it, potentially setting people free or sending them to jail?
Sorry for all the interrogatives. Even though this particular case has been settled, there are still a lot of questions surrounding default device level encryption.
Am I thinking right when it seems to me like the feds are kicking the can down the road?
Even though the feds found an exploit that allows 'em to decrypt the current iOS, Apple's response is undoubtedly gonna be much-improved security in the next version.
So in a few years when the feds demand that an iOS 10.x device be decrypted, this whole pageant will start over again.
OK. But what does it say about the scant majority of the country that at least tacitly (through polls) supported the FBI in this?
I think this whole thing is every bit as much a trial balloon to see how the public accepts the various arguments. And I think that's still unclear. The polls suggest a scant majority supported the FBI, but not enough to get Congress to change the law make it clear companies can be rolled over by the government.
Yes. AAPL has averred to the judge that they in fact accessed the phone. I was skeptical over the last 72 hrs whether that was a ruse or not. I now think it is not.
"The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook's iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc. mandated by Court's Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016."
The government also gets to use the same logic regarding the power of the court to compel at some time in the future, when this assuredly comes up again.
So, the US DOJ has in hand an exploit which allows them to access protected data on an iPhone, access that Apple and the phone's designers clearly did not intend to be allowed. Ethical behavior would have the US DOJ describe the exploit to Apple immediately so that the flaw in the system can be repaired. Publishing the exploit in publicly available documents would speed Apple's efforts to repair the fault.
Who wants to be there was absolutely nothing on the phone of value for the intelligence community? It's like the Reddit "what's in the safe" threads.
I just wonder what methods they used, I think it'd be pretty interesting to learn just the general strategy, as I assume they would never tell how exactly they did it.
Was I the only one who assumed the DOJ could unlock the phone for a while now, but instead chose to legally force Apple to do it to set a precedence? This news almost seems like a win for Apple; if there was a good chance that the DOJ would have won the case, they probably would have pursued it till the end.
I promise I don't wear a tin foil hat, but it would be great if they proved that they did access it. The cynic in me wonders if they're tapping out because they didn't want to lose in court and set a precedent they don't like.
The case is droppable because it lacks public support. That was clear a month ago. It's an impossible scenario - requiring an engineering effort from a consumer focused company. If Apple wanted to comply, it would have been extraordinarily costly.
What's good about the case is that it brought forth a discussion about privacy. This case coupled with the Clinton email scandal should move a few ideas forward developing solutions that wouldn't otherwise have been profitable ventures. Where Lavabit had a very niche market a few years ago, companies thinking along those lines will have success moving forward.
Nope. The government does not have to disclose investigative techniques. If Apple wanted to help the government, they could have, but they chose not to take that tact. Expecting the government to help Apple now is folly.
This doesn't really mean anything. The question is: Does Apple have the right to make an uncrackable phone? We have no resolution on that issue: Only the knowledge that the iPhone 5s is not such a phone.
Hmmm, well, what metaphysical Right does the action of creating such a phone fall under, philosophically speaking?
Which broader Right is this specific activity a representation of?
What does the act of fabricating a secret keeper mean, and does a company gain rights, or are the rights of some set of individuals collectively conferred upon the company by default?
Would making a different object, such as a gun, alter said rights? Pretty sure the constitution says Apple can proceed without interference, but these are questions worth contemplating.
This is a legally naive question, but how does this not run afoul of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
Particularly, how isn't this some violation of section a2 ("intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access," the same thing that got Aaron Swartz indicted)? Is it basically, since the feds had a warrant, they can do whatever they want? (And if they don't have a warrant, is it still legal?)
The phone belonged to San Bernardino County, which was quite happy to have the FBI get to work on it. Syed Farook had been authorized to use the phone, but only under the county's terms. If it had been Farook's phone, and if his surviving relatives asserted some claim, that might have made matters a little trickier.
But in this case, Farook is dead. He never owned the phone. The organization that did own the phone wants the FBI to crack it, for easily understandable reasons. On ownership, at least, the facts are unusually friendly to the FBI.
There are really a few sub-questions: Is it legal, and are the results admissible as evidence?
Whether or not it's legal depends on the circumstances. There are many cases in which the police can search something, e.g., if they believe it's critical to prevent an immediate threat. Whether or not it's admissible is more thorny, and something that's still being fought out in the courts. (google: warrantless cell phone search admissible)
There are laws against breaking into people's homes, and yet the police still does it daily. IANAL, but I assume a warrant would apply to this case just the same.
From here, what's stopping the FBI from claiming they found X, Y, and Z on the phone, and further claiming they were all important pieces of evidence, that could possibly have prevented the attack, etc., etc., when they really didn't? Then, use that to bolster their arguments against encryption and privacy?
What means will keep them honest about what they did or did not find?
So, the long-term solution for strong encryption must be a cultural one. We have to be prepared to fight the crypto wars forever, like unions are still fighting the labor wars a century later. Like civil rights activists are fighting racism even today--and will be for the foreseeable future.
So true .. and it up to you to continue our peoples struggle. - I've seen this time and time again .. WTC7 was one of those don't believe your eyes. and Now the Gov. lackeys need your info to sell as so-called information brokers to get you special offers. Based on any and all of your actions. ( think supper cookies ) but moved to a mobile platform you! And you if don't want special offers - then you are a terrorist! - and YOU become the focus. Not WTC7 - Waco or that poor man in the US house who forgot he was 2nd admin C&C denied. But did not get a chance to explain - before the cover up started. I support APPLE & Mr. Snowden vs. the FBI/INFORMATION BROKERS on this hope you do as well.
This claim seems dubious at best. There's no proof that they got access, and it's in their best interest to claim they did. On one hand, I'm not totally sure we should assume that they're not capable of gaining access to iPhones willy-nilly. On the other hand, I'm re-evaluating my security posture...
Well if they got access and there is any data that helps them bring prosecutions (eg against the neighbor who;s charged with helping the alleged terrorists) they'll have to say where that evidence originated.
^ Link includes an image with 7 other cases where Apple has either objected to warrants, 2 that are still in process.
The most interesting one is the last, which involves an iPhone 6+ running iOS 9.1. It's not yet clear whether the zero day that allowed the government to access the San Bernardino phone also works on the iPhone 6, which has a secure enclave (unlike the San Bernardino phone). There are some other iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S devices in the list too running older versions of iOS.
Congratulations Apple and encryption. A precedent has be set. The FBI can't just bully companies into complying with their requests. Hopefully companies in future will have the integrity and courage to stand up like Apple did.
Hard to verify.
Perhaps if the FBI or other law enforcement continue to use the supposed vulnerability - eventually information obtained from a breached iPhone will appear in court as evidence..
While the claim about accessing the iPhone seems difficult to substantiate, the suggestion that the FBI have dropped the case seems likely. The fact that they can drop the case in this instance, when the wheels had started to come off, smacks of having their cake and eating. Let's hope the next case where they try to get the ball rolling towards the dangerous precedent they are looking to set yields a similar outcry as this one.
Meh. If any of this exposes anything, it is that you do not want your secrets to rest in anyone's hands but your own. Apple may/may-not have managed to protect their keys, but there is no guarantee that is the case.
Meanwhile Joe Public comes away with the idea Apple==SafeEncryption.
If this were some new encrypted messaging service we'd all be ripping the shit out of it just on this basis.
Now does this mean that iPhones can be hacked? The government has said that in the vast majority of cases it will disclose security vulnerabilities, though in a small handful it doesn't. It would be good for everyone’s security if they disclosed, but they probably won’t
It means there is a known & exploitable flaw in one security option on one model of phone running one version of an operating system. Given that a government had to hire a computer forensics company to do it, I wouldn't call this a "hack" (a la the difference between a locksmith and a burglar).
Apparently there is a law (enacted under the Obama) requiring the disclosure of the cracking technique, at least to the manufacturer, precisely to facilitate improvements in security.
I'm a little worried now about how long it will be before they come back and claim that there was some critical piece of evidence on the phone and start saying how evil Apple is for not wanting to cooperate because what are they, freedom haters?
As much as I dislike its implications, this is the way the case should have gone. Most of us knew the Feds would eventually crack the iPhone - the attempt to deputize Apple in their investigation was a matter of expedience.
Probably copied phone's memory and implemented a way to restore the state of the phone, then brute force try passcodes? I guess that could take only a week if they had only a 4 digit passcode.
Here's what really happened: they made Apple the offer they couldn't refuse, and Apple unlocked it. The rest is just a PR move for naive people to keep thinking their Apple phones are secure.
Is there any avenue for Apple to begin legal action against the US Gov't for hacking the phone, in order to shine a light on the truth of how the phone was "hacked"?
So, finally, the need for the perception that they can accomplish this on their own outweighed the need for the perception that they can compel this of a third party.
I suspect they didn't actually crack it. I think it's likely that they just realized the losing battle they were fighting. It sounded like a lot of public sentiment was against the FBI and they were unlikely to win the case (and it seemed like the information wasn't vital to them anyway) so they just gave an excuse to drop the case.
This has an additional benefit: rather than having the "boundaries" here be defined by a ruling, now in theory they have more time to work in a "gray area".
I'm sure Apple already knows how they are doing it.
The tech that FBI is claiming to have cracked is the iPhone 5C which does not have the Secure Enclave hardware that all later iPhones do and which are far more of an actual challenge to crack.
Legally none. Ethically? I think it's worth debating what sort of public trust should be granted to government that sits on an exploit.
But it also requires knowing how they did it. I think most likely they copied the flash, started iterating passcodes, and then reflashed the phone everytime they ran out of attempts. That's sufficiently obvious (to me anyway) that it's not much of an exploit worth documenting and also there's no software fix for such a thing. You'd need to put the passcode attempt counter on some separate piece of hardware that either can't be externally read or reflashed.
Woah, wait a minute. By purposely bypassing security restrictions present on the device via some sort of exploit isn't the FBI violating the iPhone terms of use? Could Apple theoretically sue them for doing this (and most importantly, for not sharing _how_ they did this)?
As I understand it, one is not allowed to sue the government unless the government gives you permission first. I don't know if there are any limitations around this other than public opinion.
But I suspect if Apple attempted this, the FBI would just say they're not allowed to sue.
Just a random thought: Isn't it quite an interesting coincidence that they found a way into the iPhone just as people were reporting problems with iOS 9.3?
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
snowwrestler|10 years ago
Well, welcome to life in a democracy. Nothing is ever settled with finality because there are plenty of ways for future generations to change the laws we cherish today--for good or ill.
We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that. That we don't do that is a reflection of our cultural values--today--which we continually discuss and reinforce.
We could abolish the EPA, or the IRS, or the NSA. We don't because these have enough supporters who value what they do, today. The 2nd Amendment remains strong today because millions of Americans work every day to keep it that way.
So, the long-term solution for strong encryption must be a cultural one. We have to be prepared to fight the crypto wars forever, like unions are still fighting the labor wars a century later. Like civil rights activists are fighting racism even today--and will be for the foreseeable future.
Is that depressing? Not to me; I find it inspiring, much better than a world in which government decisions are truly final. Beware that level of power IMO.
panarky|10 years ago
The problem is not that things change in a democracy. The problem is that the change we get does not represent the will of the people.
A majority of Americans is dissatisfied with the Patriot Act [1] yet it keeps getting renewed.
A majority of Americans thinks political spending is corrupt [2] and that the political system is rigged, yet we get Citizens United to pour even more corporate cash into the machine.
A majority of Americans voted for the Democrat in 2000, but the Republican was installed instead [3].
People overwhelmingly disapprove using public funds to bail out reckless bankers [4], but somehow it happens anyway.
There was a global uproar over SOPA and PIPA which shut down this draconian legislation. But you can't kill the zombie, and it keeps coming back, now in secret trade agreements like TPP and TTIP that citizens aren't even allowed to read.
The Total Information Awareness program was suspended in 2003 [5] after a public outcry over warrantless mass surveillance. Naturally it was all reincarnated into secret NSA programs.
We'll see the same thing with devices and personal encryption. This is only a temporary setback for the powers that be, they'll be back with another sensational, emotional case soon enough.
The current system does not represent the will of the people. It's an oligarchy supported by a security apparatus run amok.
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/5263/civil-liberties.aspx
[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-28/bloomb...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
[4] http://www.gallup.com/poll/106114/six-oppose-wall-street-bai...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness
StanislavPetrov|10 years ago
If there has ever been a time to illustrate that our country is an oligarchy and not a Democracy, this has been the year. There is a non-zero chance that even in our rigged, broken system that the candidates that are recognized in one or both parties will be ones that received less voter support and were chosen by the wealthy.
>We have to be prepared to fight the crypto wars forever, like unions are still fighting the labor wars a century later.
Just like the war against CISPA, which was lost to attrition.
>We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that
What does the Constitution matter at all? Our system of checks and balances is beyond broken - its gone. Not to be disrespectful, but anyone who thinks that the Constitution is recognized by the government is delusional or worse. The 1st, 4th, 6th, and 9th amendments have been rendered basically moot by recent government action and court inaction. The truth is that you can't have a functioning democracy without the informed consent of the governed. When the majority of the population lacks the capacity to generate informed consent and those in power work actively to suppress that capacity you end up with the authoritarian oligarchy that we have today.
syshax|10 years ago
Actually, I think this is the genius of the amendment system.
You are correct that it could happen. But unlike laws that can be passed or revoked by Congress by political whim, the barrier to creating or overturning Constitutional amendments is much higher and more difficult to pass.
nickff|10 years ago
jonpaine|10 years ago
If a well-funded superpac would systematically and indefinitely try every legal exploit to re-enact slavery you'd be grinning each attempt because "democracy"? ....
The idea that our form of government allows us the freedom to resist predatory laws is inspiring, the necessity to fight that fight... over and over again... is the best representation that true freedom is delicate.
To protect that freedom we need to hold critical thinking above all else to guard ourselves against the faux intellectualism of statements like yours.
arrrg|10 years ago
No matter which system of government, rules (in the broadest sense) can always change. Democracy is just the attempt to better align those rules with the interests of the people (in the broadest sense).
As long as the FBI keeps within the rules they can obviously try again. And that’s got very little to do with democracy and much more with the rule of law which is really central here.
Everyone – even and especially the government – has to adhere to the law, but there are mechanisms to act within the law or to settle questions or even to change the law, all through some sort of proper and defined process. That’s just what the rule of law is.
However, within the system of rule of law (and the particular implementation of that system in the US) there are certainly ways for questions to be more or less settled. Things that are easy to change (e.g. executive orders) and things that are hard to change (e.g. constitutional amendments). There are graduations to this – and graduations that exist on purpose.
Behind that is also the realization that quickly changing things – while sometimes necessary – is not really always desirable. So there is a certain sluggishness built right into the system on purpose. And achieving constitutional amendment levels of sluggishness is actually pretty hard to overcome in the US. It’s hard to get an amendment, it’s hard to remove it. Quite on purpose. It’s for settling questions for years.
(All of this is not to say that some states don’t try to have some core values enshrined for all eternity. The German constitution has such an article that explicitly forbids amendments of two other articles. No amendment can change that Germany is a democratic and social federal state, that there are elections and three branches of government, that there is rule of law, that every German has the right to resist against anyone attempting to remove that order, that human dignity is inviolable, that human rights are the basis of any human society and that the basic rights defined in the constitution bind as law all three branches of the government. Even if you agree that there is really no way to amend this in any way – something which constitutional scholars aren’t super-decided on – there could still be a revolution of some sort that just abolishes the old constitution … things can always change, also in technically illegal ways.)
lultimouomo|10 years ago
Could, but won't. Government won't ever try. People are saying - right or wrong - that they will try again to enforce backdoors.
woodman|10 years ago
That is certainly a valid point in the case of laws that expand a state's authority, but I don't think that is true where explicit restrictions on the state's authority are put in place (ex: bill of rights). I doubt anybody (outside of the Brady Campaign) will ever look over the bill of rights and think that we would have been better off without the explicit restrictions made clear.
jMyles|10 years ago
> We could revoke the 13th and 14th Amendments and have slavery again--there is no legal impediment to that.
Of course there is - the constitutional amendment process is designed precisely to be an impediment. Unlike a legal proceeding, where courts can create case law essentially at a whim by legal means alone, the constitutional amendment process is a complex and different political process, requiring quite a few procedural stars to align.
One of the problems is that the courts (and, for that matter, Congress and the POTUS) tend not to abide by the text of the constitution, preferring to usurp the political process with their own legal, legislative, or bureaucratic one, respectively.
> We could abolish the EPA, or the IRS, or the NSA. We don't because these have enough supporters who value what they do, today.
I don't think this is true, but I concede that it's not really measurable. What I mean is: the reason that these methods of control persist is not that they have made a convincing case to the public that their mission is laudable and faithfully executed (environmental protection, accurate and fair taxation, and security for US persons vis a vis international dealings). In fact, it's quite plain to see that all three of these agencies have, from time to time, failed spectacularly at these missions, with some incidents attributable to incompetence and others to misconduct.
Instead, I want to suggest that the reason they persist is that they provide convenient mechanisms for exacting power and that they are controlled by people who desire that capacity.
> The 2nd Amendment remains strong today because millions of Americans work every day to keep it that way.
While I agree with this statement, I think that it is somewhat contrary to your previous one. Here you are talking about the preservation of protections offered by the text of a document, which I agree can only be protected by political vigilance. This is fundamentally different from (and perhaps the opposite of) the assertion by entrenched agencies that they operate by political will.
> So, the long-term solution for strong encryption must be a cultural one. We have to be prepared to fight the crypto wars forever, like unions are still fighting the labor wars a century later. Like civil rights activists are fighting racism even today--and will be for the foreseeable future.
Here's where I start to agree with you. This is beautifully put.
HelloRipley|10 years ago
Your description sounds like Camus' interpretation of the myth of Sisyphus. I like it.
cryowaffle|10 years ago
stcredzero|10 years ago
Some thing seem to be permanent. High priority lobbying goals for big corporations. (Examples: Disney & copyright extensions. Corn & corn subsidies. Car dealerships.)
EdHominem|10 years ago
No. You can't roll back a human right. If you did it wouldn't be a valid law and people would be justified in armed resistance to it.
> We could abolish the EPA, or the IRS, or the NSA. We don't because these have enough supporters who value what they do, today.
Well, in the case of the NSA it's more because we suspect they'd commit treason and bring down the country if we tried.
(ie, pull out an old tape of Obama and frame him with something, etc.)
> Well, welcome to life in a democracy. Nothing is ever settled with finality because there are plenty of ways for future generations to change the laws we cherish today--for good or ill.
Yes, things can always be screwed up. But it should be illegal for a government worker (ie FBI) to specifically try to undermine existing decisions by, for instance, lying in court, or paying for propaganda they know to be untrue. Both things we know they do.
chii|10 years ago
What if next time, a smaller player than Apple was caught in this sort of case, and they can't fight back as easily? Then it'd be easier to setup a precedent favourable to one party. This seems like a way to legally manipulate the common laws, and I think courts should put in place measures to prevent such manipulation.
nickff|10 years ago
nostrademons|10 years ago
I suspect that Google bought YouTube in part to avoid precisely this situation. If Viacom had won their lawsuit against YouTube, it would have endangered Google's core business: they would become liable not just for copyrighted material that they know about, but any copyrighted material on their servers, which encompasses the whole web. So they pay $1.6B for a tiny startup and a big lawsuit, and then use their full legal resources to fight (and eventually win) the lawsuit.
(There is possibly an interesting get-rich-quick hack in there: do something in a legal grey area that lots of big companies are doing too, as part of their core business, and then get sued. It is then in the big company's interest to acquire you and fight your legal battles, lest they get put out of business by an unfavorable precedent. You're playing with fire in this case, though, since if the big company doesn't come to your aid you have a multi-hundred-billion dollar lawsuit hanging over you.)
new_acct|10 years ago
If a similar case occurs, then 3rd parties (Apple, ACLU, etc) may be able to submit amicus briefs to help the defendant. Apple might also be able to intervene and become an actual party in the case, if it can convince the court that the case's outcome will harm its interests (see Rule 24 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure).
panarky|10 years ago
Witness the relentless series of attacks from SOPA, PIPA, NDAA, ACTA, CISPA, TPP, etc.
Losing only delays the inevitable because they can just play again, time after time.
Eventually they'll win one and that's all it takes, game over.
anigbrowl|10 years ago
So if you made a bad decision to enter into litigation with someone, you're held to the consequences of that even after you've changed your mind? Unworkable in practice, and even in theory it's bad because you might wind up setting a precedent for someone whose case was similar to but better founded than yours.
payne92|10 years ago
At issue was an order, issued by a court at the government's request, that Apple was contesting.
If the order is moot or withdrawn, Apple no longer has anything to contest.
robg|10 years ago
thecosas|10 years ago
Pretty sure Apple doesn't want either of those things.
cmurf|10 years ago
And yes, next time with a smaller player we get to see if Apple decides to be a friend of the court, or even pony up legal help for it.
guelo|10 years ago
AnimalMuppet|10 years ago
But what if both parties mutually agree, but the courts don't agree? Then we get a precedent set where one side doesn't see any reason to bother to try to win. That's a horrible way to set precedent. And that's how horrible precedents get set.
tn13|10 years ago
URSpider94|10 years ago
pbreit|10 years ago
jaunkst|10 years ago
downandout|10 years ago
The DOJ came out on top here, whether they are lying or not.
Bluestrike2|10 years ago
The most likely reason for dropping the case would have had nothing to do about precedent and everything to do with the fact that they couldn't proceed without lying to the court. The entire basis for the case was that the government had no other choice but to compel Apple to build "GovOS." The moment they became aware of the existence of an alternative method, they had a duty to update their brief and inform the court. And at that point, with the entire basis for their case effectively gone, they were pretty much out of options.
From the FBI's perspective, that was rather unfortunate. They probably figured this was the perfect case to pursue to try and gain the sort of precedent they wanted (an instance of Islamic terrorism on American soil? It checks all of the boxes for manipulating the public into supporting the FBI). Most likely, they never expected Apple to fight back for fear of the PR consequences of impeding a terror investigation. Minor miscalculation, that.
Someone|10 years ago
“Our decision to conclude the litigation was based solely on the fact that, with the recent assistance of a third party, we are now able to unlock that iPhone without compromising any information on the phone,” Eileen Decker, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said in a statement.
at least curious. Googling "no data was compromised" gives me only links that use that in the meaning "third parties did not get access to the data".
So, if that really is what Eileen Decker said, what exactly did she mean?
mcphage|10 years ago
snarkyturtle|10 years ago
enraged_camel|10 years ago
And? What makes you think most consumers will care that the government cracked an iPhone?
unknown|10 years ago
[deleted]
p01926|10 years ago
FBI director Comey's "Going Dark" narrative no longer holds water with anyone who's paying attention. He cried wolf so loud he's been heard on every continent. If and when he tries this again, he'll get a ton more blowback.
Similarly, Obama's jibes about security "absolutism" now appear ridiculous. As are his criticism of impenetrable black boxes protecting child molesters. What he really wants is for the Emmental-like extensions of our brains to have even more holes. That's an obviously un-winnable argument.
Also, the bar for proving you've tried all possible alternatives for gaining access just got a lot higher in applying the All Writs Act. It took three months plus a month of major international news stories specifically about this court case to gain entry — something that might really be impossible to achieve next time. But now everyone knows when they swore under oath many times in multiple public venues that they couldn't gain access, what they really meant was "not yet" and not "it's impossible".
Finally, Apple should now be motivated to remove themselves as the weak link in their security ecosystem. System updates shouldn't be possible without first wiping the information needed to derive the encryption key or first supplying that key. I can also dream about them open sourcing their code to allow security researchers to bug hunt (an impossible dream). And maybe they'll change their minds on bug bounties. Whatever happens, it's now beyond doubt that foreign entities are exploiting vulnerabilities in the iPhone and we all expect Apple to beef up their security accordingly — regardless of how this may hinder law enforcement.
matt_wulfeck|10 years ago
You might also say they dropped it because going to court and losing would greatly narrow the scope of the All Writs act. Then the "maybe illegal" spying coersion becomes "actually illegal"
mtgx|10 years ago
anigbrowl|10 years ago
sremani|10 years ago
jameshart|10 years ago
Now, the FBI has just announced to the world that any information locked up in the San Bernardino iPhone is now in their hands. Presumably any co-conspirators who thought their contact details might be in that phone are now aware of that.
Now, on the other hand, for the past month or so, the FBI has on the contrary been doing a very good job of informing the world, with to some extent Apple's help, that they did not have access to the information in that phone. That may have served to reassure those same conspirators that the FBI was not onto them.. When perhaps they had actually cracked the phone some time ago, and were in fact in the process of employing that intelligence.
Too charitable to suspect the FBI of having pulled that off?
TazeTSchnitzel|10 years ago
Johnny555|10 years ago
Apple should be able to recover their legal costs.
GraemeLion|10 years ago
FWIW, I agree that privacy is ignored and should be respected, but apple chose this fight. I'm glad they did, but they knew it would cost them.
eric_h|10 years ago
cmurf|10 years ago
The next bet is whether they find anything relevant? My bet is no. Next bet after that is whether they admit it? My bet is they won't.
But the more important one is if they tell Apple or open a CVE for the exploit they used if it's not a flash and guess technique they used? Is it ethical for FBI to sit on an exploit?
r0m4n0|10 years ago
exodust|10 years ago
Sounds reasonable. No trivial task I bet, but with the world's attention on the case a lot of kids would be having a crack at the trendiest break-in job going right now.
The guys who cracked the iPhone probably earned the equivalent of signing a record label deal. At the very least, the FBI liked and subscribed.
airza|10 years ago
jamescun|10 years ago
breck|10 years ago
I think this is a great outcome.
mikestew|10 years ago
nodesocket|10 years ago
"The Justice Department said Monday it has accessed data on the iPhone used by a shooter in last year's San Bernardino, California, attacks and no longer needs Apple's help in cracking it."
Apparently a 3rd party from Israel (http://www.cellebrite.com/) helped the FBI which begs the question, how did they do it? Do they have universal access to all iOS devices or just this particular device? This really makes me start to think there is a backdoor.
TazeTSchnitzel|10 years ago
nobodyshere|10 years ago
nobodyshere|10 years ago
[deleted]
shalmanese|10 years ago
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog
karmacondon|10 years ago
It seems like there are at least certain iphones that can be opened using this method and similar hardware based approaches. Are the feds going to move forward with that? It seems like accessing this particular phone wasn't trivial or cheap. So I'd imagine that it will come down to whether or not it's "worth" the cost of flashing individual chips for each of the other devices.
And what happens if there is potentially exonerating evidence on one of those phones? Does the defense team have to come up with the money to pay for a lab or outside company to open the phone? And also, is an encrypted phone going to be the new 'dna evidence'? Like, will a brand new iphone that's linked to a major crime be held away for years until the security community can hack it, potentially setting people free or sending them to jail?
Sorry for all the interrogatives. Even though this particular case has been settled, there are still a lot of questions surrounding default device level encryption.
johnhattan|10 years ago
Even though the feds found an exploit that allows 'em to decrypt the current iOS, Apple's response is undoubtedly gonna be much-improved security in the next version.
So in a few years when the feds demand that an iOS 10.x device be decrypted, this whole pageant will start over again.
mcphage|10 years ago
Yes, but who knows when they'll ever get this good a case again?
fucking_tragedy|10 years ago
They chose this case and not any of the dozens of similar investigations mentioned in articles that have come out since.
It's a disgrace to the victims, their families and friends.
It's also a disgrace to the public, trying to scare us into complacency.
cmurf|10 years ago
I think this whole thing is every bit as much a trial balloon to see how the public accepts the various arguments. And I think that's still unclear. The polls suggest a scant majority supported the FBI, but not enough to get Congress to change the law make it clear companies can be rolled over by the government.
That means there will be a next time.
GuiA|10 years ago
malchow|10 years ago
"The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook's iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc. mandated by Court's Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016."
The government also gets to use the same logic regarding the power of the court to compel at some time in the future, when this assuredly comes up again.
unknown|10 years ago
[deleted]
drallison|10 years ago
thesimon|10 years ago
partiallypro|10 years ago
I just wonder what methods they used, I think it'd be pretty interesting to learn just the general strategy, as I assume they would never tell how exactly they did it.
jrbapna|10 years ago
billhendricksjr|10 years ago
Gratsby|10 years ago
What's good about the case is that it brought forth a discussion about privacy. This case coupled with the Clinton email scandal should move a few ideas forward developing solutions that wouldn't otherwise have been profitable ventures. Where Lavabit had a very niche market a few years ago, companies thinking along those lines will have success moving forward.
pavornyoh|10 years ago
GraemeLion|10 years ago
nkurz|10 years ago
Regardless of the legal requirement, others (and likely Crocker) don't think that this is that likely to happen, though.
stephensurh|10 years ago
terminado|10 years ago
Which broader Right is this specific activity a representation of?
What does the act of fabricating a secret keeper mean, and does a company gain rights, or are the rights of some set of individuals collectively conferred upon the company by default?
Would making a different object, such as a gun, alter said rights? Pretty sure the constitution says Apple can proceed without interference, but these are questions worth contemplating.
scarmig|10 years ago
Particularly, how isn't this some violation of section a2 ("intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access," the same thing that got Aaron Swartz indicted)? Is it basically, since the feds had a warrant, they can do whatever they want? (And if they don't have a warrant, is it still legal?)
GCA10|10 years ago
But in this case, Farook is dead. He never owned the phone. The organization that did own the phone wants the FBI to crack it, for easily understandable reasons. On ownership, at least, the facts are unusually friendly to the FBI.
dgacmu|10 years ago
There are really a few sub-questions: Is it legal, and are the results admissible as evidence?
Whether or not it's legal depends on the circumstances. There are many cases in which the police can search something, e.g., if they believe it's critical to prevent an immediate threat. Whether or not it's admissible is more thorny, and something that's still being fought out in the courts. (google: warrantless cell phone search admissible)
ASinclair|10 years ago
GraemeLion|10 years ago
pfg|10 years ago
fooey|10 years ago
mzarate06|10 years ago
From here, what's stopping the FBI from claiming they found X, Y, and Z on the phone, and further claiming they were all important pieces of evidence, that could possibly have prevented the attack, etc., etc., when they really didn't? Then, use that to bolster their arguments against encryption and privacy?
What means will keep them honest about what they did or did not find?
sjreese|10 years ago
So true .. and it up to you to continue our peoples struggle. - I've seen this time and time again .. WTC7 was one of those don't believe your eyes. and Now the Gov. lackeys need your info to sell as so-called information brokers to get you special offers. Based on any and all of your actions. ( think supper cookies ) but moved to a mobile platform you! And you if don't want special offers - then you are a terrorist! - and YOU become the focus. Not WTC7 - Waco or that poor man in the US house who forgot he was 2nd admin C&C denied. But did not get a chance to explain - before the cover up started. I support APPLE & Mr. Snowden vs. the FBI/INFORMATION BROKERS on this hope you do as well.
bradhe|10 years ago
r00fus|10 years ago
Then again, why can't Apple sue Cellebrite under the DMCA for bypassing their security?
molecule|10 years ago
Wouldn't that be perjury?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2778264-Apple-Status...
GraemeLion|10 years ago
Unless they're in on it too, of course.
anigbrowl|10 years ago
sinak|10 years ago
"There are 6 other cases where Apple is still fighting the DOJ re: unlocking phones"
https://twitter.com/matthewkeyslive/status/71458323211775590...
^ Link includes an image with 7 other cases where Apple has either objected to warrants, 2 that are still in process.
The most interesting one is the last, which involves an iPhone 6+ running iOS 9.1. It's not yet clear whether the zero day that allowed the government to access the San Bernardino phone also works on the iPhone 6, which has a secure enclave (unlike the San Bernardino phone). There are some other iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S devices in the list too running older versions of iOS.
mtgx|10 years ago
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/28/news/companies/fbi-apple-iph...
free2rhyme214|10 years ago
fabulist|10 years ago
adriancooney|10 years ago
JustSomeNobody|10 years ago
cwills|10 years ago
RichieAHB|10 years ago
frabbit|10 years ago
Meanwhile Joe Public comes away with the idea Apple==SafeEncryption.
If this were some new encrypted messaging service we'd all be ripping the shit out of it just on this basis.
girkyturkey|10 years ago
ctdonath|10 years ago
Apparently there is a law (enacted under the Obama) requiring the disclosure of the cracking technique, at least to the manufacturer, precisely to facilitate improvements in security.
davesque|10 years ago
known|10 years ago
squozzer|10 years ago
imron|10 years ago
Surely that should be latest hardware upgrades. The latest software upgrades are no good if not backed up by the secure enclave.
dustinpkane|10 years ago
Probably copied phone's memory and implemented a way to restore the state of the phone, then brute force try passcodes? I guess that could take only a week if they had only a 4 digit passcode.
Grue3|10 years ago
spdustin|10 years ago
pasbesoin|10 years ago
Meh
vinhboy|10 years ago
remarkEon|10 years ago
BackPropagate|10 years ago
[deleted]
personjerry|10 years ago
This has an additional benefit: rather than having the "boundaries" here be defined by a ruling, now in theory they have more time to work in a "gray area".
omonra|10 years ago
My take is that HN crowd is completely unrepresentative vis-a-vis the opinion of majority on this issue.
Alex3917|10 years ago
awqrre|10 years ago
thegayngler|10 years ago
a3n|10 years ago
nacs|10 years ago
The tech that FBI is claiming to have cracked is the iPhone 5C which does not have the Secure Enclave hardware that all later iPhones do and which are far more of an actual challenge to crack.
cmurf|10 years ago
But it also requires knowing how they did it. I think most likely they copied the flash, started iterating passcodes, and then reflashed the phone everytime they ran out of attempts. That's sufficiently obvious (to me anyway) that it's not much of an exploit worth documenting and also there's no software fix for such a thing. You'd need to put the passcode attempt counter on some separate piece of hardware that either can't be externally read or reflashed.
GraemeLion|10 years ago
f_allwein|10 years ago
xufi|10 years ago
Negative1|10 years ago
philovivero|10 years ago
But I suspect if Apple attempted this, the FBI would just say they're not allowed to sue.
fucking_tragedy|10 years ago
jgalt212|10 years ago
joering2|10 years ago
dschiptsov|10 years ago
JustSomeNobody|10 years ago
sandra_saltlake|10 years ago
lisper|10 years ago
free2rhyme214|10 years ago
[deleted]
HoppedUpMenace|10 years ago
HoppedUpMenace|10 years ago
JustSomeNobody|10 years ago