FBI Says Laptop Wasn't Hacked; Never Possessed File of Apple Device IDs
wired.com
wired.com
If the Antisec account is accurate (that they popped this agent's computer), then they most likely possess further evidence that they could release to corroborate their claim (The .csv file may have been the only interesting file, but presumably they copied off lots of uninteresting ones as well).
So if the FBI is lying, they have to assume that Antisec's next move would be to release more corroborating evidence (because who wouldn't be upset over being called a liar), which would then make the FBI look incredibly foolish (as well as now on record as having given false statements).
This leads me to believe that the FBI is telling the truth, and that Antisec obtained the list from somewhere else, and is just having a laugh at the FBI's expense.
Sadly, I don't think either of these groups have built up an immunity to Iocane powder.
The '#FuckFBIFriday' releases have shown the incompetence of the FBI in this realm. So I wouldn't be so quick to side with the FBI...
The question is, are these UDIDs real? If so, then where did AntiSec get them from if not a compromised FBI laptop? If they'd hacked Apple or a carrier, surely they'd be quite as happy to crow about that as anything else.
I can understand the idea of pinning the leak on the FBI, I'm just unsure as to how plausible that is. They and their contractors have shown themselves leaky enough to not need any fabrication of evidence in the pursuit of lulz.
However, the story as to how they got released and from where is anyone's guess at this point.
I had to remove the words: iphone, ipad, ipod and DE as they overwhelmed the display.
Additionally, "van" and "von" are possessive pronouns in Dutch and German respectively, which might explain why they are used (e.g. "iPod van Mike" means "Mike's iPod" — the owner may still be Dutch but "van" is not part of his name). Again I think this is relatively less common in German, where the genitive case could be used instead.
Would you mind sharing the library used to generate that cloud? It looks awesomeI used the java IBM word cloud generator:
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/IBM-Word-Cloud-Generat...
I couldn't find the exact project page. I used this as there were too many words to upload to wordle.
My first suspicion was that they're faked with generic names attached just to get some press coverage.
It's almost exactly what I would pick if I were making up a filename to incriminate the FBI/NCFTA. However, it seem's much too long for a usual filename. Especially the "intel" part: if you work for the FBI, everything about your job is intel. Why would you put it in the filename?
People have different naming conventions. Maybe Christopher likes his filenames to be precise. Who knows.
If you were disgruntled and made off with that kind of data from a carrier or Apple or perhaps even an app vendor, how would you put it out to screw them?
Clearly the data is real. It leaked out from somewhere. I think some other aspects around it are just window dressing though.
One other comment has me thinking, though. If it's fake, can you go to jail for just pretending to hack the FBI if they never really did it?
There's just too much wiggle room in that statement for it to inspire any confidence.
Or they targeted him because he was publicly known.
Yes, there is. It's on pastebin.
They need to say why the evidence is false.
The connection between a given explanation and any evidence is a probabilistic inference (Bayes Rule actually). You always have to weigh the likelihood of the evidence occurring due to other reasons, be it accident or fraud.
Considering that a number of folks with large UDID lists have stated they've found intersections, it seems the data itself is the real deal.
The only thing that's left is to debate the likelyhood of how they got it.
At the moment the burden is on the FBI. It'll take time to find the truth. Even if the FBI release was written in good faith, they're a large organization, and it takes time to figure out what's going on.
According to this blog, several organizations aggregate said information[1] so it's possible that one of them was hacked. I wouldn't expect AntiSec to frame the FBI, but then again they're not exactly buddy-buddy.
[1]http://corte.si/posts/security/apple-udid-survey/index.html
Though, of course, it wouldn't be the first time in recent memory that the FBI flatly denied a damaging fact.
That takes some hubris. And that's a trait that has gotten more than one organization owned by Anonymous/*sec in the past.
They don't deny it. They say that "At this time there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised". That's different. The evidence is just not here at this time.
"We never had info in question. Bottom Line: TOTALLY FALSE"
That would require acknowledging them as a real threat. I don't think the government is really there yet. They seem to perpetuate the opinion of the parent post:
> the kids who posted the file.
Note the usage of 'kids'.
That's probably true. The whole thing smacks of grasping for straws. It's just spreading FUD. UDID data has been flying around WiFi hotspots and in plaintext over networks for years. Harvesting them is like harvesting names and addresses from postcards. I wouldn't put it past people to aggregate a bunch of them, then pin it on some well known government agency to pull a publicity stunt like this.
The first people to fail to protect the privacy of app users: iOS app developers and the folks at Apple who wrote that part of the SDK. (Who should've known the result of counting on hordes of hobbyist devs to "do the right thing" with the UDID.)
If their security really is as bad as AntiSec claims, this would make perfect sense.
And far more ways that they couldn't be sure.
What is left to do is find out the original source. was it apple (can 12 million devices really be all devices from date X?), a carrier (is 12 million apple customers reasonable), or is it from an app?
“The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed. At this time there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.”
it doesn't actually deny that the laptop was compromised, or that the FBI asked for and received the data - it just say "at this time there is no evidence" of that.
The twitter statement "Statement soon on reports that one of our laptops with personal info was hacked. We never had info in question. Bottom Line: TOTALLY FALSE" is a lot clearer.
I wonder why they had to move from "TOTALLY FALSE" to "at this time we have no evidence."
There's also a lot of wiggle room there for them to say that the laptop was not an FBI laptop (perhaps it belonged to the NCFTA), or that the NCFTA requested/received the information from Apple, not the FBI.
The FBI may not be lying, but they're awfully good at telling the truth very carefully.
Isn't this the same as when in the aftermath of massive password leaks, people set up websites where you can "check and see if your password was leaked"? What am I missing here?
Isn't the whole point is not to share the device ID or password with anyone? Why should someone send their device ID to thenextweb? What will they do with it?
Q: "Here's my password/device ID. Can you tell me if it's leaked?" A: "It is now."
Therefore, there's no reason to believe the FBI even knows if they had that data, if they had stored that data on a particular laptop, or if their laptop had been compromised.
What else are we expecting them to say? That the data belongs to people being investigated for X or Y? The phone of the special agent? The bar where he was drinking when the laptop got compromised? "Oops, we messed up"?
While there is no evidence that they did get hacked, they are incompetent enough that I find it very plausible.
list is only 1/12th of the original file,
But don't worry, more than 200 million iOS devices are out there. 12 million is only 6% of the key-space so, you're probably not in the original dump that's in the hands of "anonymous".