FBI serves warrant on Apple to access Senator's iCloud data | Hacker News Reader

FBI serves warrant on Apple to access Senator's iCloud data

appleinsider.com

137 pointsclairity45 comments

> “Four years after he co-wrote a bill meant to make companies like Apple provide confidential data about customers under investigation, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) has become the subject of an investigation.”

Oh, the delicious irony!

Is this the key? Will lawmakers start realising that anti-privacy laws will eventually be used against them? Will they start supporting privacy laws?

One can only hope...

Probably they'll start carving out bespoke protections for themselves

This whole situation started from bespoke protections wherein Congress members weren't subject to insider trading rules.

Yes. Like with the Patriot act. They are attempting now to add additional oversight if used to investigate an elected official or candidate.

“(G) if the target of the electronic surveillance is an elected Federal official or a candidate in a Federal election, that the Attorney General has approved in writing of the investigation;“

Exactly.

Which exceptions for US senators were written into the patriot act?

> attempting now

Like with the Gates Procedures.

nope. They passed an amendment exempting Senators from the FBI's no-warrant-needed web browsing snooping this week.

One law for the law-makers and one law for everyone else.

This serves as an important reminder: Apple's terrible decisions about security and encryption in iCloud (for backups (which contain your messages) and photos and notes) means that Apple can always access your messages via iCloud backup, and thus can always decrypt them for the government (whether the government has probable cause and a warrant, like with a court order, or when they don't and are just fishing, like FISA/702's illegal spying). They use 702 often enough that there's the PRISM program that permits them direct download access to Apple's (and others') servers.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

You should not be trusting iMessage or iCloud encryption to keep your data safe or private.

Always use Signal! (And also tell your friends, associates, and relatives; Apple's marketing hype around privacy is a lot louder than these reminders can ever be.)

AFAIK, Apple claims that iMessage is E2E encrypted. Meaning as long as you don’t use iCloud backups you are “safe”

Yes, but other important parts of iCloud are not, like all your Photos (which almost always includes EXIF GPS data, which can approximate a track log), Notes, Safari history and bookmarks, Contacts, Find My (locations for both devices and people), iCloud Drive files, reminders, voice memos, and wallet passes (which can include flight or ticket information, and loyalty cards, et c). If you don't have 2FA turned on (most people), your Health data (such as timestamped heart rate history) is available to Apple (and by extension the FBI/military/et c) as well.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

If you're using iCloud (which happens automatically), they can see your nudes and read your private notes.

That is why I have been calling for iOS Time Capsule for years.

I would much rather my back up stays at home. And I can have my offsite backup stored in B2 or something.

It's my understanding that iCloud data will be handed over, because it's not encrypted. Is that correct?

Yep. That's the compromise. If you want full encryption don't use iCloud backups (instead using wifi backups).

Or if you use Linux, you can use libimobiledevice! I use it to back up my iPhone to a ZFS drive with snapshots.

iCloud data is "encrypted" but Apple has the keys and can decrypt it. Apple has been wishy-washy and has actually backed away from announced plans to implement E2E encryption for iCloud with the DOJ whining about wanting backdoors every couple of years.

Burr's previous support of encryption bans is ironic here; maybe now he wishes he hadn't made it politically impossible for Apple to protect his own data: https://www.wired.com/2016/04/senates-draft-encryption-bill-...

I don’t think this is accurate at all.

Edit: You can find details here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

Here's the breakdown of iCloud's security: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

Some features are E2E encrypted, but iCloud file storage is not.

That's pretty accurate. Some stuff is encrypted with the device passcode like Health data and Keychain data. Around iOS 9 [1], Apple implemented some functionality to encrypt backups through a similar mechanism. This never panned out.

1) https://wccftech.com/ios-93-prompt-passcode-restoring-encryp...

Edit: as others have pointed out, looks like this never happened because the FBI said no.

An alternate explanation is that this never occurred because if people lose their passwords they would be completely out of luck.

The link you posted supports the point you're claiming is not accurate. Only a few categories of iCloud data are end-to-end encrypted so that Apple cannot access them.

With an unencrypted backup would investigators still need to compel the subject to reveal a credential in order to gain access to all the data, or is having the file enough?

If so, would this also include information that Apple specifically calls out as end-to-end encrypted, such as iMessages?

yes, apple had plans to encrypt it all (edit: without having access), but the FBI objected: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2020/01/21/appl...

Not everyone is willing to take Forbes speculation at face value:

https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/reuters_report_on_apple_d...

>because it's not encrypted. Is that correct?

You know what's so great about that!?!?!

Senator Burr had a hand in forcing apple to not encrypt icloud backups!

I'm sorry for my open Schadenfreude here, but I can't help feeling a little glee. I never realized how petty I am. But this is better than a tall, cold, delicious parfait on a hot summer day.

Finally a FBI warrant for Apple data that we can get behind.

That's the thin end of the wedge happening. Once you're ok with this, then they scope creep.

Yep, except when it's for some politics own privacy. No stronger motivation than that to pass privacy-conscious bills next time.

Wait what? I wish people would make up their minds on this. They have gotten a warrant. That's how law enforcement is supposed to work.

Being against warrantless tapping is not the same thing.

There are a lot of mixed up discussions going on here. Some people are generally anti-law enforcement, some are against warrantless wiretapping, others are concerned about backdoors from a technical perspective. I'm with you though I'm not sure being against warrants is a sensible position.

most folks are ok with warrants if used judiciously and sparingly when the evidence is compelling and the potential (societal) good overwhelmingly outweighs the (individual) harms. but we've been sliding down that slippery slope for decades now, and it's unclear that many (most?) warrants meet any sensible criteria, instead treading into paranoid, corrupt, and vindictive territories.

like most things, it's not a black & white issue.

I think we need to remember the fact that the FISA court was a thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...

I think you can support a search with a warrant, and support privacy.

Why wouldn't someone be okay with this? If he's committed the crime you want the evidence...

Is this technically considered insider trading? It's not like he found out a specific company was about to be acquired or something. He's probably going to argue it was publicly available information.

...[Burr claimed] that he "relied solely on public news reports" when making a decision on the trades.

quote of him from another article:

https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-apple-warrant-richard-burr-iclo...

There's a specific law on insider trading that applies just to members of Congress. He may still argue that, but just pointing out that there may be legal differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act

How about Loefflers as well.

She isn't the chair of the Intelligence Committee who was about to release a fourth report affirming the findings of the Mueller report but can now be replaced by Mitch McConnell with a Trump loyalist.

100% this. Loeffler is team Trump. According to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/ she is the only sitting senator that 100% voted in line with Trump's positions

FWIW, while your assertion is still true, it's most likely due primarily to the fact that she only assumed office in January.

It's not that. She didn't sell enough of her portfolio to even show up on the radar. Burr sold a very significant portion of his.

She (through her investment advisor) sold 0.6% of her portfolio. So the case against her is much weaker, if any at all.

If you were insider trading on highly sensitive information, would you sell just 0.6%?

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