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Comment by user2459 | Hacker News Reader

The FBI Forensics Lab mis-entered the pattern lock too many times? The FBI uses the same tactic as my little brother to get into peoples phones? At a forensics lab? And the stuff they want from google kind of blows my mind. "The times and duration of every webpage visited"... As far is I can see that's completely undeliverable by anyone but possibly the carrier. Who do they have working down there?

This is also super interesting: "His parole conditions prevented him from doing anything to hide or lock digital files."

So if convicted of a crime they can require you to not use basic personal and identity safety measures.

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Not even the network carrier should be able to tell the duration of a web page visit. Only the browser (or tracking javascript) could record this, but that's still dubious. I've had some browser tabs open on my phone for months... but that doesn't mean I've been constantly looking at them for months. I doubt Android keeps a big database of every page you visit and how long it takes you to close the page or navigate away. I guess Google Analytics might have some of that data, but only for sites that use GA.

> So if convicted of a crime they can require you to not use basic personal and identity safety measures.

Not really a new concept, it's fairly similar to banning a paedophile from going near schools, banning someone on parole from leaving the country (or state), or enforcing a curfew, etc. Similar in that it's restricting what would normally be anybody's right.

I know that is not a new concept, but it seems troubling because of its scope. It would be like saying "You may not shred credit card statements."

But more to the point, so man computers now expect password-protection. I don't see how this amounts to something other than a ban on general computing and for reasons that are not distinctly related to the offence.

Completely agree with you. How amateurish! Lock pattern is saved on the device, not in the cloud. I am not a hacker myself but FBI not having one that downloads entire OS out of it and either cracks the pattern or disable "wait X seconds to retry" and run a cracking app on it makes me wonder. Especially this is not some rocket science we talking about -- his lock pattern most likely is max 5 pins.

I cannot speak for the FBI as I know little about them. But I have worked closely its equivalent in my country (Brazil). And one notorious fact that I learned is that the technical expertise of these guys is way behind what the public expects of them. People expect federal police and government investigation to be up to date with the newest technologies and hacker practices. They picture hollywoodian CIA command centrals with magical hackers that can do anything they want by typing a few matrix-like code on a command shell.

But in reality, technical government agents have very little incentive to do their job well done. They just wanna get over it and go back home. As a result you have highly untrained personnel, who doesn't keep up with latest technology and will do the bare minimum to just not get fired. Their methods are always amateurish and easy to avoid if you're actually trying.

I'd imagine the US is a bit better than my country in this regard. But I'd doubt that by much. I'm still sure that their technical skills are light years behind what the public perception is.

the technical expertise of these guys is way behind what the public expects of them.

And thank God, or we would be even more deeply fucked.

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