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Comment by hahainternet | Hacker News Reader

> The best way to prevent governments from oppressing their citizens is to refuse to create tools that enable oppression.

Are search warrants oppressive? Can you distinguish this request from the FBI requesting a safe manufacturer modify the firmware on a single safe?

I doubt either of these can be reliably argued.

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What about all the conversations the terrorist had with his fellow terrorists in person? Is it an awful, terrible, no good thing that the FBI can't retrieve those conversations? Should we put in place ubiquitous video and audio surveillance in every square foot of the country just in case the FBI ever wants to review something that happened?

It's not "going dark" that is an unprecedented change, it was the brief "going light" period that preceded it. Law enforcement has apparently lost the ability to do on the ground investigation work in favor of whiz bang-ery (and intelligence has lost the ability to do humint). Well, whiz bang-ery is a two way street. Now is the time to revive those old skills and deal with a _return_ to a world where you can't just outsource your job to a wire tap.

What is it the fbi is after? What data exists only on the phone and no where else?

Phone call, texts, or data logs? Subpoena the cell company or the ISP.

Email? Subpoena the hosting provider.

Any communications used on that phone traveled over the Internet, and the logs are most likely preserved. They could get all of the logs of outgoing requests from the cell company and then go to each service provider and demand dumps of data from any accounts that Phone logged into right?

> They could get all of the logs of outgoing requests from the cell company and then go to each service provider and demand dumps of data from any accounts that Phone logged into right?

The primary service provider being Apple, who operates a fully encrypted messaging system where the cleartext only ever exists on the device.

It's a child abuser's wet dream.

OK, but sometimes when I send iMessages, they actually send as SMS if my service is poor or the receivers service is poor, someone is in the subway, on a flight, etc etc.

Chances are, this happened at least once over the lifetime of the terrorists ownership of the phone - thus we can at least see who they are communicating with, right?

Wouldn't that be a good starting point?

And call records - they must have called someone - if only to talk about the weather.

> Chances are, this happened at least once over the lifetime of the terrorists ownership of the phone - thus we can at least see who they are communicating with, right?

Is that really acceptable to you? Maybe they accidentally screwed up once so it's OK to keep the private affairs of a dead terrorist secret for no good reason?

> Wouldn't that be a good starting point?

I would have thought the best starting point was unlocking the phone, given the owner is dead and committed horrific crimes.

I would start with anything available, dig deep, and never give up. Including breaking down the doors of anyone they texted or called.

> Including breaking down the doors of anyone they texted or called.

But not the service provider intentionally denying access to this vital information? What a bizarre twist of logic!

Apple do not have the ability to unlock the phone. They have the ability to create a tool that could unlock any iPhone. That is not a starting point.

Therefore they have the ability to unlock the phone. I mean I knew people defended Apple here but I didn't think they'd demand logic no longer works to satisfy that.

You can turn off the SMS fallback in Settings.

The FBI is after a legal precedent.

Surely they have enough evidence to convict the accused. The phone likely wouldn't give them anything essential to the case. It's already a wrap.

However, the legal precedent would be invaluable for future <s>rights violations</s>legal proceedings. They have 1. Nothing to lose in this particular case. 2. A maximally effective situation for getting this ruling, complete with irrational fear-based public support ("bcuz turrists!1!").

Seriously. If your goal is to create this legal precedent, go ahead and try to imagine a better scenario under which this could rule in your favor. I'll wait.

There is no accused. They're both dead.

You have to understand the accused are dead, and destroyed their personal iPhones before the attacks. There is no criminal trial for dead people.

The only iPhone the FBI have is the work phone, which he might not have used to contact terrorists with it. If he did he'd destroy it as well.

The problem is that judges and politicians are not tech savvy enough to understand why they shouldn't force Apple to make a tool to break passcodes on iPhones. How that makes any iPhone insecure in the wrong hands.

iMessage chats are only on the phone. Same for Telegram which what FBI suspects.

> Are search warrants oppressive?

A search warrant doesn't require me to create a new capability that did not exist before.

From the FAQ:

  The digital world is very different from the physical world. In
  the physical world you can destroy something and it’s gone.
  But in the digital world, the technique, once created, could
  be used over and over again, on any number of devices...

  The only way to guarantee that such a powerful tool isn’t abused
  and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands is to never create it.

> A search warrant doesn't require me to create a new capability that did not exist before.

I don't see how that's relevant. If I invent a new kind of lock you've never seen before, you'll have to come up with a way to break it.

I'm asking for why a search warrant would be oppressive, even if it involved creating new firmware for a safe.

> If I invent a new kind of lock you've never seen before, you'll have to come up with a way to break it.

Why?

> A search warrant doesn't require me to create a new capability that did not exist before.

It might, depending on the analytical outcome of the three-factor test introduced in the _New York Telephone_ case. (This case was decided before compelled pen register assistance was prescribed by Congressional legislation.)

The case itself is illustrative and enlightening: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/434/159/case.htm...

"The power conferred by the [All Writs] Act extends, under appropriate circumstances, to persons who, though not parties to the original action or engaged in wrongdoing, are in a position to frustrate the implementation of a court order or the proper administration of justice..."

The factors are:

(1) whether the third party is "so far removed as a third party from the underlying controversy that its assistance could not permissibly be compelled by the order of the court"

(2) Whether the burden placed on the third party is "unreasonable"

(3) Whether the assistance is "essential to the fulfillment of the purpose" of the warrant

It's unfortunate that Hacker News isn't commented upon by more attorneys, and that most news articles don't link directly to the legal filings in these cases; much confusion and false assumptions about the law could be clarified.

Orin Kerr has written about the implications of that case specifically:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

A potentially important factor is that the phone companies used pen registers themselves all the time, whereas Apple has no desire at all to write the software that the FBI wants.

It's worth noting that despite the outcome of that case, Congress still had to pass CALEA, which seems to imply there are limits to what can be compelled under All Writs.

There are very few limits to the power of the All Writs Act -- the act, passed the same week as the fourth amendment, grants the courts (not the FBI) the authority to "issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law".

However, you actually have to get to the courts before the All Writs Act can be applied.

CALEA was passed to create a preemptive requirement for standardized wiretap interfaces/equipment, processes, etc, prior to any actual judicial warrant or writ being written.

The fourth amendment grants us protection against "unreasonable" search and seizure, but doesn't grant the government an affirmative right to require that future "reasonable" searches be easy, or possible.

It also (unfortunately, in my view) doesn't prevent the government from requiring preemptive action to support future searches, and that's what CALEA does.

Put * on each side of text you want italicized. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

Edited accordingly, thanks!

I think the FBI is acting like there was a pre-emptive requirement for Apple to build a system to permit access.

The reason I say that, is that now that it has been proven the phone does not permit access, the FBI is trying to use a warrant to force Apple to break into the phone. But if providing access was never a legal requirement in the first place, why is it Apple's problem now?

Yes, only Apple can do what the FBI wants to do. In my mind, that should not be sufficient, in the absense of a legislative requirement, to force Apple to break a software system against their will--even their own software system.

I mean, let's say the FBI wants to run a sting operation against a gangster. Can a court use All Writs to force some random person to participate in the sting? I would think not.

Let's say law enforcement needs to pull a hard drive from a 30th floor apartment, without alerting the doorman. Can a court use All Writs to force a rock climber to climb up the building and go in the window to get it? Again, I would think not. Even if there was only one rock climber in the entire U.S. who could do what the FBI needed, it doesn't seem likely to me that an All Writs warrant would succeed against that person.

So why should it succeed against Apple? I mean, Apple is the only company that can do what the FBI wants--true. And they did build the phone to prevent access. But there was no requirement to build it any other way, so why would that be relevant?

This is straightforward: Apple already has a backdoor into the key derivation firmware (technically, the OS).

If they didn't have it, they couldn't be required to use it.

The question isn't whether Apple has a capability, the question is why can they be forced to use that capability on a phone owned by a 3rd party?

Apple has many capabilities--they're a $500 billion dollar technology company. Which capabilities are not available to the FBI via an All Writs warrant?

You're conflating very different scopes of "capability" and responsibility.

I'll quote the DoJ's legal brief on how Apple is not "far removed" from this phone owned by a 3rd party:

"... the government is seeking to use capabilities that Apple has purposefully retained in a situation where the former user of the phone is dead ..."

"... iPhones will only run software cryptographically signed by Apple ... Just because Apple has sold the phone to a customer and that customer has created a passcode does not mean that the close software connection ceases to exist; Apple has designed the phone and software updates so that Apple's continued involvement and connection is required."

"More generally, the burden associated with compliance with legal process is measured based on the direct costs of compliance, not on other more general considerations about reputations or the ramifications of compliance".

The DoJ is just re-iterating what everyone knows, which is that Apple can push software updates to a phone.

That does not in any way explain why Apple should be compelled to write new software, that they would not otherwise choose to write, before pushing it as an update.

Apple retained the ability to push updates to improve the performance and security of products, not to make it easier to hack them. There is a difference!

Apple can push software updates to a locked phone without the owner's permission.

Nobody else can.

That's a big difference.

Thanks for that link. Always worthwhile to read Kerr's analysis.

ISTM the right outcome is for Congress to weigh in with specific legislation that can supersede AWA in cases like this.

The FBI or other agencies require things that cost money all the time. In this case, they offered to compensate Apple for they work. And it's disingenuous for Apple to say "create a whole new operating system". That's so absurd as to be pretty much a lie. What the FBI wants is not much more work than unlocking a door, just for more highly paid people.

And calling it "creating new technology" (not your words, but others'), is silly too. Doing almost anything with software is creating new software, but calling it new technology makes it sound like they have to go out and do a bunch of R&D and make some significant breakthroughs or something. In reality, it's a trivial thing.

To address the quote you posted, it sounds like Apple is probably lying there too. Especially given the vast exaggerations in other parts. I highly doubt they would have a hard time making a modified OS that was device locked.

But if it's really true that they can't make a device locked firmware, well, then of course I hope they win this fight.

That's the whole issue, isn't it? You can't create software that operates only on a single instance of a computer. It'll run on all of them.

Apple could write code that checks the hardware ID supplied and sign only that version. It's been sufficient to prevent hacking so far and is the major protection relied upon until the latest generation, so I don't think this is an issue at all.

...and they give it to the FBI who then changes that ID as they please? Remove signing altogether? Its the fear of a blank check that drives this issue.

No – iOS is signed, and changing the ID would invalidate the signature.

And can Apple guarantee that the ID can't be changed inside the device? If they can't it makes a lot of sense for Apple to refuse creating such a tool.

That guarantee until the latest generation was the only thing protecting the hardware. It has never been altered or hacked that I am aware of. Doing so would require modifying the physical construction of the chips on the device.

Possible? Maybe, but if it was that simple the FBI could simply change the signing key. It's not, and they can't.

Pretty much, as far as I'm aware; the device ID cannot be changed. Bear in mind that this entire discussion is applicable only to older iPhones, in any case.

The ID can be easily changed. A quick Google search will easily confirm this.

The question is can you change one devices ID to exactly match another. This might require hacking the BPP or finding a SHA1 hash collision, both of which are absolutely possible but not necessarily trivial.

Taking the private key from Apple with a warrant, national security letter, subpoena, or other methods is much easier than creating a custom version of iOS.

It is foolish to assume that the FBI would stop at this special version of iOS, especially given how they have been arguing and fighting to break encryption for over two decades.

edit, on icebraining's interpretation:

That's exactly right - once the difficult part about targeting an individual phone is finished, it's easy to take the iOS signing key and target any device you want.

> Taking the private key from Apple with a warrant, national security letter, subpoena, or other methods is much easier than creating a custom version of iOS.

Clearly it is not, otherwise they would have done this. They did not.

I think it's meant taking the key used to signed that custom version of iOS. That is, if the FBI can force Apple to write the custom version, they can also coerce the key from them to sign their own copies, preventing your suggested blocking mechanism.

This is what I understood, at least, from the parent's post.

The issue is the precedent that is made. Once they create the special firmware, even if it is locked to one device, they have stated that law enforcement have already told them they have hundreds more devices they want unlocked. They would have a much easier time going to court and compelling Apple to resign the existing special firmware they made to work on these other hundreds of devices. Apple could no longer argue they had to create something to fulfill the warrant, since it was already created.

From what I can tell the UDID lock is not actually secure enough and is not designed to be a critical path around the encryption algorithm.

An earlier comment with more technical detail: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11141499

UDID lock is good enough for tying development builds to specific devices but is not an unbreakable guarantee the software cannot be run on another device.

This comment simply makes claims like altering data in transit inside the architecture of the CPU.

Yes, if you can do that, then you can flash anything to the phone. When someone shows me that happening, then I'll believe in this technology.

No, I proposed 3 different ways of hacking the UDID in that comment. 1) disrupting the read of ECID in transit, 2) re-writing ECID by hacking the BPP, 3) a SHA1 hash collision. Any one of the 3 will do.

Even then you cannot "flash anything" to the phone. But you can flash a build signed by Apple which hard-codes a UDID check.

Wouldn't these mechanisms apply to key verification? How exactly can you argue that you can modify data in realtime inside the phone's architecture, but couldn't possibly modify data in realtime inside the phone's architecture?

Only certain parts of the hardware responsible for key storage and verification are architected to be resilient against physical and electronic attack, but the entire phone is not.

For example changing the WiFi or Bluetooth MAC is not locked down and effects the UDID. Because the UDID was never intended to be a way to bypass the device encryption it was not designed with anywhere near the same level of care and sophistication as handling the encryption key itself.

> For example changing the WiFi or Bluetooth MAC is not locked down and effects the UDID. Because the UDID was never intended to be a way to bypass the device encryption it was not designed with anywhere near the same level of care and sophistication as handling the encryption key itself.

I never suggested the UDID. Please don't ascribe a claim to me that was never made. SHA512 the serial and macs independently. Job done.

That's not the case – if Apple produce a signed iOS version that allows the passcode retry limit to be bypassed on a single device, then in what meaningful sense does it operate on another device?

I guess when the FBI compels them again. Or once they have a foot in the door, compels them to remove the signing requirement, or wants their own ability to sign.

This is not mysterious. Can the FBI require a software company to subvert their own security guarantees? Should they? Do bank vaults have back doors for the FBI?

I guess when the FBI compels them again

That's a bit of a specious argument though – of course, if they produce different software in the future, it could be used again!

If the FBI want their own ability to sign Apple updates, then that's obviously a different situation. But the point you were making – that it's not possible to write software that will run on only one device – is not true in this case.

This is not mysterious. Can the FBI require a software company to subvert their own security guarantees? Should they? Do bank vaults have back doors for the FBI?

I don't really know the right answer.

> if Apple produce a signed iOS version that allows the passcode retry limit to be bypassed on a single device, then in what meaningful sense does it operate on another device?

What prevents the iOS image from being loaded onto another device?

Apple isn't magic; the code they write to verify device identity isn't going to be the first perfect, unbuggy, unexploitable code written in human history. if(device_udid == terrorist_id) {...} might seem infallible, to you, but the reality is that the device_udid is just SHA1(Wifi MAC + Bluetooth MAC + ECID + Serial). All of those are writable, some via the Baseband and some via physical access. Generating SHA1 collisions is completely feasible for ~$1,000,000 of computing time, which is chump change to nation states.

There is no infallible way for Apple to make an iOS version for one single device.

Edit: And stories like http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/york-da-access-175-iphones-... make it absolutely clear that this is not stoping at a single device.

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