Chickens. I would have loved it for Apple to overturn the court decision and set a precedence the other way. Well, lessons learned. Never back down to government pressure when you know you are right.
$10 says in a few weeks the FBI will lie/announce they cracked the password and found nothing of importance.
I'm considering taking that bet. My thinking is that we'll never hear anything worthwhile about whether the FBI ever managed to break in or what they may or may not find. For one thing, they're playing the lobbying game to get a law passed that will still have dubious constitutionality. For another, there's no upside from either a PR or an investigative standpoint for them say whether or not they were successful, or whether they found any useful intelligence. They have always hidden behind a policy that they don't comment on investigations in progress - a policy they willfully forsake when it suits their interests.
To me what is really happening is clear and others have said the same here : they know they are not going to win and don't want a court to rule that All Writs can't be used here or that CALEA applies to Apple. They'll try again next time with better arguments, and they'll use this same technique over and over until they obtain what they want. Congress has to rule now and make CALEA more precise.
$10 says in a few weeks the FBI will lie/announce they cracked the password and found nothing of importance.
If they are going to lie that wouldn't think twice about saying they found valuable information that stopped an attack.
Actually, I don't think they will lie and claim such nonsense otherwise the director of the FBI could find himself being asked at a later date, by Congress or the Senate, what they found. That could get sticky.
They have really done themselves no favour with this. Now that they have claimed they have an alternative method they no longer have grounds to seek any further court orders compelling Apple to assist..
My take is that the FBI finally realized they had a poor hand going into tomorrow's court appearance, and they would rather have no decision than have a loss. ...
Agree. The FBI probably realized that they would be risking way too much on a coin flip. Lose this one and they establish legal precedent against any further incompetent meddling.
"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to yadda yadda yadda." - Kenny Rogers, "The Gambler"
and this isn't the most obvious sham ever? Like the FBI didn't have this "other" method available the entire time?
And of course also has nothing to do with the proposed draconian bill to let courts force access to encrypted data... Which is basically exactly this same debate but without that pesky public knowledge thing...
I agree. The court should not allow the FBI to just postpone this hearing until they think the wind is just right.
My guess is they drop it all together in the courts and try to get congress to pass a legislative solution. All the rhetoric and heart string tugging in the media is more geared towards that than getting the court to rule on the legality of the warrant.
I agree. The court should not allow the FBI to just postpone this hearing until they think the wind is just right.
My guess is they drop it all together in the courts and try to get congress to pass a legislative solution. All the rhetoric and heart string tugging in the media is more geared towards that than getting the court to rule on the legality of the warrant.
But LindsayGraham is against the FBI's position. I don't think it is such a sure thing
I agree. The court should not allow the FBI to just postpone this hearing until they think the wind is just right.
My guess is they drop it all together in the courts and try to get congress to pass a legislative solution. All the rhetoric and heart string tugging in the media is more geared towards that than getting the court to rule on the legality of the warrant.
Yes what they really want is a court ruling in their favor for future Apple secure phones.
They may well have broken into this iPhone; regardless Apple is sure to improve the iPhone security even more
Depending on how badly the FBI wants to "get back" at Apple, they may announce that they found something pretty valuable in the phone which helped them to stop a terrorist attack conveniently after they managed to hack the phone.
Then they can start phase 2 of their Apple smear campaign.
When Tim Cook spoke about privacy yesterday, it received the most applause - more than anything else announced yesterday.
The DOJ is clueless. The case should go forward if only prevent it from ever occurring again.
That is exactly why the FBI doesn't want it to go forward. They will wait for another "perfect" case and try again. If they went forward with this case, the "necessary" part can't be applied and they will lose the case. What happens next is that they will have a higher bar next time.
So the best thing for the FBI is for the the case to just die till they come to another such case where there is no way to get the keys or to be able to disable the password entry counter.
Considering how bizarre the FBI has been, who is this third party? I feel like the department needs an intervention to keep them from making bad decisions.
The FBI was just trying to set a legal precedence. Probably ( my guess only) the third party went to the FBI and said: we can unlock it for you. and if the FBI said we don't care because what we are trying to do is get a backdoor, the third-party would say that they would go public with the information.
That would mean there would be a mad scramble by phone thieves, hackers, government agencies from all countries to use this technology on one hand and a mad scramble by Apple engineers to fix the problem on the other hand.
I doubt the NSA can't get in. They would have been screaming a lot if they couldn't have broken in. Reminds me of the early days of PGP when Phil Zimmerman was really excited that the NSA guys couldn't break his crypto. Turned out that an Israeli scientist showed him exactly how it could be broken and that was why the NSA guys did not bother him. To his credit he went ahead and fixed the issues.
The fact that the NSA is not complaining and DoD is also not complaining must mean that they have ways to get in that mere mortals don't know anything about.
I was in a conference once and one of the security guys in a security company explained in general terms how they could get into the iPhone. Granted that it was for a fully booted phone but, given the fact that no one writes perfect code, and counters are hard to protect completely (not impossible), I think this third party need not be NSA. I wonder if the attack requires rolling back the clock too in case there are time stamps.
Comments
This FBI is just embarrassing.
They'll try again next time with better arguments, and they'll use this same technique over and over until they obtain what they want. Congress has to rule now and make CALEA more precise.
But I have to agree with you. However, what are the chances of another Snowden style leak?
They have really done themselves no favour with this. Now that they have claimed they have an alternative method they no longer have grounds to seek any further court orders compelling Apple to assist..
Agree. The FBI probably realized that they would be risking way too much on a coin flip.
Lose this one and they establish legal precedent against any further incompetent meddling.
"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to yadda yadda yadda."
- Kenny Rogers, "The Gambler"
and this isn't the most obvious sham ever? Like the FBI didn't have this "other" method available the entire time?
And of course also has nothing to do with the proposed draconian bill to let courts force access to encrypted data... Which is basically exactly this same debate but without that pesky public knowledge thing...
Already happening. Check ai page.
Pretty obvious.
The he shamelessness is unbelievable.
They may well have broken into this iPhone; regardless Apple is sure to improve the iPhone security even more
Writs Act case.
What?
Depending on how badly the FBI wants to "get back" at Apple, they may announce that they found something pretty valuable in the phone which helped them to stop a terrorist attack conveniently after they managed to hack the phone.
Then they can start phase 2 of their Apple smear campaign.
When Tim Cook spoke about privacy yesterday, it received the most applause - more than anything else announced yesterday.
So the best thing for the FBI is for the the case to just die till they come to another such case where there is no way to get the keys or to be able to disable the password entry counter.
The FBI was just trying to set a legal precedence. Probably ( my guess only) the third party went to the FBI and said: we can unlock it for you. and if the FBI said we don't care because what we are trying to do is get a backdoor, the third-party would say that they would go public with the information.
That would mean there would be a mad scramble by phone thieves, hackers, government agencies from all countries to use this technology on one hand and a mad scramble by Apple engineers to fix the problem on the other hand.
I doubt the NSA can't get in. They would have been screaming a lot if they couldn't have broken in. Reminds me of the early days of PGP when Phil Zimmerman was really excited that the NSA guys couldn't break his crypto. Turned out that an Israeli scientist showed him exactly how it could be broken and that was why the NSA guys did not bother him. To his credit he went ahead and fixed the issues.
The fact that the NSA is not complaining and DoD is also not complaining must mean that they have ways to get in that mere mortals don't know anything about.
I was in a conference once and one of the security guys in a security company explained in general terms how they could get into the iPhone. Granted that it was for a fully booted phone but, given the fact that no one writes perfect code, and counters are hard to protect completely (not impossible), I think this third party need not be NSA. I wonder if the attack requires rolling back the clock too in case there are time stamps.