Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Government directing Apple to hack phones.

At some point there needs to be a line drawn. What's next after this? They are not going to be satisfied and stop here. At some point enough is enough. At the rate they are pushing it won't be long before mandatory DNA Swabs on Kindergarteners in search for the "Terrorist Genome" is a Reality.

You can bet your azz that's in the works already.

Just one more indication of how little you understand that topic.

So, I'll ask again.Why the outrage now?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/apple-unlocked-70-iphones-refusal-article-1.2536178

"Apple is fighting the FBI over a court order requiring the tech giant to unlock a terrorist’s iPhone — but it appears the company had no problem breaking into at least 70 other protected smartphones.

The California-based tech giant unlocked dozens of iPhones at federal investigators’ requests between 2008 and 2015, a prosecutor argued last year.

Apple refused to unlock an iPhone that belonged to an accused New York meth dealer in October, months before CEO Tim Cook cited privacy concerns as he pushed back against a Tuesday court order to help FBI agents hack into a cellphone used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.

APPLE UNLOCK RULING EXPLAINED: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

The October refusal bewildered New York prosecutors, who claimed the iPhone maker “complied” with at least 70 other requests to unlock suspects’ phones, Motherboard reported at the time. Each request was made under the All Writs Act, a 1789 statute that grants federal courts broad power to issue "necessary or appropriate" writs.

“(Apple) had an established procedure to routinely take any of these requests, comply with them, processing them,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said in court.

While Apple lawyers did not object to the claim, they insisted the 70 figure was a government estimate and not a number vetted by the tech company.

Apple unlocked at least 70 iPhones for the feds between 2008 and 2015, prosecutors said."

No, he's not going to jail. Apple has no legal duty, on pain of incarceration, to cooperate. None whatsoever. And there is nothing the gubmint can do by way of criminal prosecution to force their hand. Kudos to Apple for taking a principled stand on this.

Jordan

Buzinga!

One could really go down the "Rabbit Hole" and say that Apple might have already looked at the data and found that it will be the CIA who ends up implicated in this. This just might make the decision a little bit tougher for them this time around.

Apples to oranges for almost all of those 70. The current encryption scheme and setup wasn't around in 2008, in fact it's only on the newest generation of phones. It's like saying your local locksmith unlocked your car, so why can't he unlock the bank vault?

That was older operating systems. Apple's new OS was made specifically to have a high level of encryption. The MARKET demanded it because no one trusts the US government. Gee, I wonder why?

99% wasn't about the government, it's about hackers and identity theft.

You can't set it up with access to one without having it be vulnerable to the other.

Right now the military is in the process of switching over from Blackberry's to Iphones for those phones it provides to its men/women...

So should these phones be so secure that even the military can't gain access to the content held in these phones that it provides?

What happens if there is a terrorist plant or sympathizer within the military with one of these phones taking pictures and data sending all to whom ever... should not the military have the ability to gain all knowledge of any information this person might have had, transferred, or who talked to when caught!

Exactly the same situation we're talking about right now, nothing more or less!

Not sure if any of the other phone manufacturers have included this lock or destroy feature on their phones, but haven't heard that any has.

Apparently they are the only ones, and just this morning said it wouldn't be hard to right the needed code into the software to bypass the feature!

Now whether any of you doom and gloomers actually believe that anything in your life today is secure. Its a new age and national security doesn't allow the privacy that we once had.


Phil

Any company or military or gov't organization can mandate that an app is installed on a phone of any flavor that they provide which can provide them with a backdoor. They don't need the manufacturer to write in a back door. Employee or service person removes or disables the app and the company gets notified immediately and the violator is brought in for whatever punishment is necessary. Policy wise it's no different than a company mandating a company credit card can't be used for personal purchases even if the employee does pay it off themselves.

This stuff is already out in the marketplace.

So if the County of San Bernardino had no knowledge of this feature when purchased and Apple didn't inform them of it... then they shouldn't be held liable to recover the information held on them?

NO, it's been common practice and law for many years that employees have no right to expect privacy on company computers and phones!

Apple has a responsibility here and it is in the best interest of national security, and to its corporate customers to follow through!

Phil

Frankly it's more likely that Apple doesn't want the Fed's to know that they are tracking everything a person does on thier devices...

Aka criminal stuff..

BTW - for some of you short bus folks...

If you think Apple couldn't figure out to make a copy of the stuff and hand it over without breaking anything .... You missed the short bus...

There's some, lets call them "technology gaps" in the new provided information.

On the 70 phones unlocked in the past, the actual number is up for debate, but not that they have done it, successfully. What's not understood, but implied above, is that these were old iPhones. The new iOS (the operating system in Apple products) doesn't work like that anymore. Apple simply can't get the data off this phone. Due to customer privacy demands recent iOS versions have more, tougher encryption, so best Apple MIGHT be able to do is grab encrypted files. Those are close to useless without the key. Now if Apple can get to the location the key is stored and read that, then bingo, but I according to the Apple techs, they can't do this any more.

The "wipe" feature is interesting. Typically when a file is deleted, it's not actually deleted. the operating system has essentially a table that says "file A is at location B", when you delete file "B" what normally happens is the table entry is removed and that piece of memory/disk is marked as "available". the data is still there until it is overwritten by something else. That is why "undelete" utilities work, they can piece it all back together.

If all the above is true, this particular phone is pretty much lost. They are not asking Apple to crack this phone, they are asking for a magical back door to bypass the unlock code protections, Given a 4 digit code, there's only 10,000 options, 6 digit code 1,000,000 options. If you disable the unlock protections, it's childs play to use brute force to try all options until you get in.

The issue is, in order to update the OS to do this, the Apple has to build this into the OS, then unlock the phone to upgrade it. See the problem now?

Additionally they want this as part of the OS, which means it's on every iPhone, iPad etc. Regardless of if you trust the government, do you trust the identity thiefs, the terrorist the hackers? Cause once out there, they all will try to crack it.

Apple said this morning that it would be easy to right the code and recover the information... they don't want to do it.

Phil

Got a link to that?

We will never retain our rights if you just abdicate our responsibility to uphold the constitution.

It would be easy to put a back door into new versions of iOS. Or Windows. Or Android. Or your car.

And of course Apple doesn't want to do it.. because their customers don't want it there.


Maybe this will mean something to the lawyers on here? Came out today.

Now there's the big threat. Every hacker in the world knows there's a back door to the OS, and they won't rest until they exploit it, putting every phone at risk.