Comment by fweespee_ch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fweespee_ch | Hacker News Reader

> “Without Apple’s assistance, the government cannot carry out the search of Farook’s iPhone authorized by the search warrant. Apple has ensured that its assistance is necessary by requiring its electronic signature to run any program on the iPhone. Even if the Court ordered Apple to provide the government with Apple’s cryptographic keys and source code, Apple itself has implied that the government could not disable the requisite features because it ‘would have insufficient knowledge of Apple’s software and design protocols to be effective’,” the motion says.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/technology/apple-and-fbi-f...

> “There was a mistake made in the 24 hours after the attack,” James B. Comey Jr., the director of the F.B.I., told lawmakers at a hearing on the government’s attempt to force Apple to help “unlock” the iPhone.

> F.B.I. personnel apparently believed that by resetting the iCloud password, they could get access to information stored on the iPhone. Instead, the change had the opposite effect — locking them out and eliminating other means of getting in.

> The iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the assailants in the Dec. 2 attack in which 14 people were killed, is at the center of a fierce legal and political fight over the balance between national security and consumer privacy. Many lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing of the House Judiciary Committee seemed torn over where to draw the line.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-fbi--terror-susp...

> Had there been no reset on the iCloud password, investigators may have been able to get a more updated backup of Farook's iPhone without any need to unlock the device itself.

They simply aren't competent and every time someone suggests they need more power to cover for their incompetence they need to be called out on it.

> F.B.I. personnel apparently believed that by resetting the iCloud password, they could get access to information stored on the iPhone. Instead, the change had the opposite effect — locking them out and eliminating other means of getting in.

I don't believe this one single bit. I believe they already have salvaged whatever they could from the iCloud account.

They have been after the backdoor for a long time. Needing info from a "terrorist's" phone is the perfect cover.

The accidental reset is just bullocks

Is the FBI themselves going to be comfortable using devices which, say, the Chinese government, has the source code & keys for? The NSA and CIA certainly won't be. This is a two way street and they damned well know it.

I'm not sure I follow, could you elaborate? Which phones are they using that the Chinese government have the keys for and how wold this matter?

I think his point is that, if the FBI gains this ability, foreign governments will ban iPhone use which will damage an American company.

That too, but also all foreign governments will have predecent for demanding the same capabilities. Apple might as well just strip out all security features if that occurs instead of wasting time catering to demands.

Thanks for clarifying everyone.

The larger point is, if "secure" devices are illegal in the US, who is going to make them and what are they going to cost? The FBI/CIA/NSA/DOJ/etc all use mobile phones, tablets, and computers. Will all of these government agencies be using special devices built only for them, perhaps by another government agency?

The FBI having the ability to break in to NSA or DOJ machines is definitely not ok and I'm not sure anyone is going to say otherwise besides the FBI. Hell, we can't even trust the FBI agents with a few bitcoins.

I believe he's suggesting that if America can demand the source+signing keys and get away with it, then so can the Chinese government.

Now the Chinese and every other country in the world can prepare and sign updates to most anyones iPhone, say the FBI directors iPhone.. Heck, if he's travelling in China it would likely even be trivial to push the update over the air to his phone...

I thought it was pretty standard operating procedure to use throwaway phones & computers if you're travelling to China and there's any concern about espionage, whether it's corporate or political.

Does anyone understand the connection between the iCloud password reset and the ability to get access to the iPhone? Also provided the owner didn't have the secure wipe after ten incorrect pin attempts, was there plan to brute force the pin?

> Does anyone understand the connection between the iCloud password reset and the ability to get access to the iPhone?

I do.

Just to be clear it NEVER would have given them access to the phone. But the FBI claims to want the data on the phone. What iCloud would have allowed them to do is to connect the iPhone to a known WiFi network and have it backup-sync up to iCloud where the FBI could obtain it.

The problem is because they changed the iCloud password that caused the phone to fall out of sync with the service until the new password is entered, and to do that you need the pin.

The speculation has been that the FBI already has most of the key information on the phone (from NSA taps & existing iCloud backups) but this whole thing was never about protecting the public or getting key intelligence, it is a pretence to gain a backdoor or more importantly to establish legal precedent with a case that will gain public support/is sympathetic.

They are this incompetent to realize the catch 22 of resetting the iCloud account? Rhetorical question.

I was curious about you points regarding obtaining key information from taps and existing iCloud backups. How would the NSA get taps on someone manually keying in a PIN code?

Also it sounds like the iPhones PIN code is included iCloud backups is that correct? I wonder why they include that rather than requiring resetting your pin on a restore?

Does using the encrypted backups option via iCloud not make a difference here? I would hope selecting this option(its iTunes) would enable the backup to be protected by AES 128. Can anyone speak to these?

> They are this incompetent to realize the catch 22 of resetting the iCloud account? Rhetorical question.

Yeah that was kind of the point of my OP. They really are that incompetent and since they won't admit it to that ... every time something goes wrong their response is "WE NEED MORE POWER" to deflect blame.

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