Judge orders Apple to access iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter [u]

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  • Reply 81 of 102
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member

    fallenjt said:
    This is utterly bullshit. Apple can by court order give law enforcement access to a customer's iPhone in special situation like this one but hand over the software for backdoor access. 

    Unless Tim is a liar there is no back door access, Apple cannot as of now, access the data.
  • Reply 82 of 102
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,275member
    Stupid judge overstepping his authority.
  • Reply 83 of 102
    komokomo Posts: 25member
    Of course Tim Cook is correct and right. Does the judge want her cell phone to be hackedinto? Look how computers are broken into banks of the government etc. 
    come on government smarten upkomo said:
    A U.S. magistrate judge on Tuesday ordered Apple to comply with FBI requests to help extract data from an iPhone owned by one of the shooters involved in December's terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.




    Judge Sheri Pym informed Apple that it must provide specialized software that will allow law enforcement officials to thwart iPhone's built-in security measures, specifically a feature that automatically erases handset data after a certain number of unsuccessful login attempts, the Associated Press reports (via ABC News).

    It is unclear whether the iPhone in question is running iOS 8 or iOS 9, both of which feature so-called "strong encryption" that even Apple can't break. The report is also vague on the level to which Apple must participate. From the AP's wording, it appears Apple could be forced to hand over a software package that might be copied and later applied to similarly locked devices, undermining the company's encryption efforts.

    Today's ruling comes less than a week after FBI director James Comey said law enforcement technicians have attempted, but so far failed, to access information stored on an iPhone owned by the county, but used by Syed Rizwan Farook. Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik fatally shot 14 people in a terrorist attack last year before being killed in an ensuing police shootout.

    "We still have one of those killers' phones that we haven't been able to open," Comey said at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. "It has been two months now and we are still working on it."

    The iPhone model in question has yet to be identified, but Apple's iOS operating system has for years provided password-based and remote data wipe options as part of its security suite. The ability to erase phone data is just one facet of a comprehensive encryption system built to secure a highly sensitive personal information, including passwords, contacts, biometric data, financial data and more. Apple took an extra step with end-to-end encryption in iOS 8, a protocol the company claims even it can't break.

    Update: The Washington Post adds detail to today's court order, saying the phone in question is running Apple's latest iOS 9 operating system. Once the auto-wipe feature is deactivated, technicians can conduct a brute force attack to unlock the code, but it is not clear that Apple is capable of such a feat.


  • Reply 84 of 102
    komo said:
    Of course Tim Cook is correct and right. Does the judge want her cell phone to be hackedinto? Look how computers are broken into banks of the government etc. 
    come on government smarten upkomo said:


    OTOH, the law is pretty straightforward and very vague (albeit 230 years old).  I'm thinking this is going to force statute changes in Judicial oversight in evidence gathering with regards to the new digital world.

    I'm hoping this is literally a test case the Obama Administration wants to get into case law

    1) will define digital privacy in the age of personal computing
    2) it's not submitted to FISA [Star Chamber] courts [which I think it could have... you don't want enemies of the state to know your asking Apple to hack their phone], and would influence future[current?  how would we know?] FISA rulings as case law
    3) Apple has strong corporate grounds to fight this (there is money to challenge it up through several courts)
    4) The case would appeal to the 9th Circuit, arguably a more liberal court than anywhere else

    and this may be too coincidental to be real
    5) After Scalia's death,  SCOTUS is at a 4-4 (and potentially a 4-5) cons/lib balance it:
         5a) if expedited, makes this appellate to stand longer [ties go to the lower court ruling].
         5b) is a lever to get a confirmation hearings going [this is pure politics... "Senator Evil, you don't want this case to go in front of a deadlocked court... back my moderate nominee and the decision will more likely be limited in scope"]

    edited February 2016
  • Reply 85 of 102
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    mike1 said:
    Stupid judge overstepping his authority.
    It is his authority. How is he overstepping it? 
  • Reply 86 of 102
    bellsbells Posts: 140member
    jimngo said:
    "provide specialized software" sure sounds like demanding a back door. I don't see how a local judge even has the authority to make such a demand. 
    A federal appointed judge? You bet they have such authority. This is why it's a lifetime appointment.
    It was a federal magistrate. They have an eight year appointment. They are not appointed for life. 
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 87 of 102
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    This is setting up a potential Supreme Court showdown: privacy vs. security.  Unfortunately it puts Apple in an awkward P.R. position: take a stand on privacy and risk being painted as blocking the investigation of obviously ruthless murderers.

    you mean Apple will be painted as a pedophiles best friend, remember it all about saving the kids
  • Reply 88 of 102
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    zebra said:
    It's somehow comforting to know that nether the federal government nor Apple can hack into my phone. That's the way it should be. We just need to find other ways to fight terrorism that do not jeopardize the privacy of millions of Americans. Apple is taking the correct stance on this issue in my opinion.

    Yeah it is called keeping the bad guys out, they need to do a better job of screening people. However, we all know the police do not stop anything only clean up the mess afterwards. The Government is trying to make people think they are proactively catching the bad guys before they can do harm. If they were they would have been parading them all over the news of all the bad guys they caught before they did something bad.
  • Reply 89 of 102
    dipdog3 said:
    The more the US Government sues Apple in order to break into an iPhone, the better I feel about my privacy.
    Yeah, because even terrorists need to keep their private data secure! It's totally ok for Google and Facebook to exploit your personal data for financial gain, but man do terrorists need their data confidential! And if Cook, Ive, or Eddy Cue's families were brutally murdered by terrorists I'm sure they'd continue to champion privacy and refuse to unlock a dead mass murderer's phone, right?
  • Reply 90 of 102
    jfc1138jfc1138 Posts: 3,090member
    The murderers crushed their two private phones where the REAL information was located, this is a pointless fishing expedition out of desperation and fear on the part of the FBI since they missed these people. 
  • Reply 91 of 102
    jfc1138jfc1138 Posts: 3,090member
    apple ][ said:
    jfc1138 said:
    Plus one alive who helped them. So why couldn't there be others? Answer: there easily could be. 
    Millions.
    Well, more likely the few their phone records, already turned over to the authorities, show they were in contact with.
  • Reply 92 of 102
    apple ][ said:
    IanMC2 said:
    First, waterboard doesnt work and that was proven many years ago. 
    That's going slightly off topic, but I disagree. I haven't seen any scientific evidence or an overwhelming consensus of evidence proving that it doesn't work. I believe that it works and it can be very effective, and it will actually be reinstated soon, just you wait and see.

    What you believe and what the military and security services around the world believe as consensus are not one in the same.  Waterboarding is torture and tortured people usually will sell out their grandparents and admit to fellating unicorn horns to make it stop.  

    Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't there: https://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interrogation.pdf

    Is Torture an Effective Interrogation Device?

    As early as the third century A.D., the great Roman Jurist Ulpian noted that information obtained through torture was not to be trusted because some people are “so susceptible to pain that they will tell any lie rather than suffer it” (Peters, 1996). This warning about the unreliability of information extracted through the use of torture has echoed across the centuries. As one CIA operative who participated in torture during the Vietnam War put it, “We had people who were willing to confess to anything if we would just stop torturing them” (Andersen, 2004, p. 3). Indeed, the Army Field Manual explains that strategically useful information is best obtained from prisoners who are treated humanely, and that information obtained through torture has produced faulty intelligence (Leahy, 2005).

    It is important to acknowledge that torture may sometimes lead to the dis- closure of accurate information. That is, confronted with excruciating pain, some

    Torture and Interrogation 183

    people tell what they know. However, many survivors of torture report that the truthful information they revealed was intentionally incomplete or mixed with false information (Harbury, 2005). The goal was to appease the torturer, not to reveal the truth. And, because the interrogators were not omniscient, they could not discern which bits of information were true and which were false. Misreading their victims, torturers often failed to recognize the truth and continued to inflict pain. Victims continued to disclose, often fabricating information to in an effort to stop the pain (Conroy, 2000; Haritos-Fatouros, 2003). Many survivors of tor- ture report that they would have said anything to “make the torture stop” (Mayer, 2005; McCoy, 2006). And, even in cases where torture may have preceded the disclosure of useful information, it is impossible to know whether less coercive forms of interrogation might have yielded the same or even better results.

    False Confessions in the Criminal Justice System

    Because torture-based interrogations are generally conducted in secret, there is no direct research on the relationship between torture and false confessions. However, there is irrefutable evidence from the civilian criminal justice system that techniques much less coercive than torture have produced verifiably false confessions in a surprising number of cases. An analysis of DNA exonerations of innocent but wrongly convicted criminal defendants revealed that false confes- sions are a major cause of wrongful convictions, accounting for 24% of the total (see www.innocenceproject.org). In a large-scale study, Drizin and Leo (2004) identified 125 proven false confessions over a 30-year period. Two characteristics of these known false confessions are notable. First, they tended to occur in the most serious cases—80% confessed to the crime of murder, and another 9% confessed to the crime of rape. Second, because only proven false confessions were included in the study (e.g., cases in which the confessor was later exonerated by DNA evidence, or cases where the defendant was in another country when the crime occurred); the actual number of false confessions over that period is far higher. The fundamental finding from this and other studies of false confessions is that as the coerciveness of the interrogation increases, so does the probability of eliciting a false confession (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004; Leo, 2008; Leo, Costanzo, & Shaked, 2009). Because the amount of coercion in torture-based interrogations is exponentially greater than that in criminal interrogations torture is likely to elicit a substantially higher portion of false confessions. 

    macwise
  • Reply 93 of 102
    Fuck the police. They can seek Apple's help via legal channels, but this is nothing more than an appeal to mass hysteria to get what they want, which is access to every facet of our lives, without warrant, without reason. This is nothing more than big-government bullying. I pray they've met their match with Apple. If Apple backs down, I'll definitely be reconsidering my position on doing business with them.
    edited February 2016
  • Reply 94 of 102
    apple ][ said:
    Does this mean that the terrorist did not use Touch ID?

    The FBI could obviously just use the dead terrorist's finger, couldn't they?

    Does this mean that a code is actually more secure than Touch ID?
    The phone in this case is the iPhone 5c. It has no Touch ID hardware.
    And even if it had Touch ID, you need a passcode after 24 hours. 
  • Reply 95 of 102
    fmalloy said:
    dipdog3 said:
    The more the US Government sues Apple in order to break into an iPhone, the better I feel about my privacy.
    Yeah, because even terrorists need to keep their private data secure! It's totally ok for Google and Facebook to exploit your personal data for financial gain, but man do terrorists need their data confidential! And if Cook, Ive, or Eddy Cue's families were brutally murdered by terrorists I'm sure they'd continue to champion privacy and refuse to unlock a dead mass murderer's phone, right?

    You've said it yourself: a DEAD mass murderer's phone. The killers have been caught and killed. The case is closed. Justice happened already. The families have had their revenge. So, yeah, Cook, Ive, and Eddy Cue would continue to champion privacy, as the phone wasn't useful to achieve the desired end result. Any further exploration is nothing but an excuse to spy on the innocent as it would not provide any useful information. Installing a backdoor would allow anyone, FBI or criminals, to access any private information (your bank account access, credit cards, your private thoughts, your identity) for whatever purpose they desire. Terrorists have plenty of tools for security and encryption against government's eyes beyond the U.S. and Apple (most anyone can encrypt communications without an iPhone beyond the U.S.), and in this case, Apple is the only company worried about protecting citizens from both criminals and an irresponsible government. Every terrorist has been caught (and most of them killed) without this, so endangering everyone with a backdoor isn't justifiable.

    Again, as said by the founding fathers of our country:
    Benjamin Franklin: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
    Thomas Jefferson: "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." (
    Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.)

    Just pondering...
    bloodshotrollin'red
  • Reply 96 of 102
    enufenuf Posts: 19member
    Here is the full document, only three pages and an easy read:
    https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2714001/SB-Shooter-Order-Compelling-Apple-Asst-iPhone.pdf

    Apple's refusal to help with a terror investigation where 14 people were butchered has erased my sympathy and appreciation for them. At this point I am ready to see Tim Cook perp walked into a jail cell and am now annoyed it has not yet been done.

    What has been asked of them is easy for Apple to do and would cost them nothing. The court has directed that Apple be paid for its work. The court allowed that Apple could contain the work to their own facility. The court order makes it clear that the hack should be keyed to the phone's unique identity and that it must not work on any other phone. If Apple has further concerns over containing their modified OS they should propose additional security safeguards. Be a part of the solution, haggle this thing out. Not pull a Public Relations stunt, which is all this is truly about.

    For example Apple could have proposed:

    1. No network connectivity. Do the work on isolated, stand-alone computers.

    2. Isolation from cell tower and wi-fi signals. This can be done with commercially available jammers or a Faraday cage room. Or both.

    3. No viewing of the OS source code by non-Apple employees.

    4. The phone leaves Apple facility only with the original OS and content restored, not with the altered OS.

    5. Apple makes it clear they will destroy the work when finished. They should not do that, but they are behaving like spoiled brats so I expect them to do this anyway.

    The only reason Cook is not making such a counter offer is because he does not want to be involved in solving crimes. Not even if he is paid to do so. Because the world's troubles are not Apple's concern, only PROFIT is Apple's concern.


  • Reply 97 of 102
    SAME HERE!
  • Reply 98 of 102
    This is setting up a potential Supreme Court showdown: privacy vs. security.  Unfortunately it puts Apple in an awkward P.R. position: take a stand on privacy and risk being painted as blocking the investigation of obviously ruthless murderers.
    They are dead. No more harm can be inflicted by them. However, the US courts could inflict damage to every user of encryption technology. I dare you to remove the requirement of a password to open any regularly used i-device you may own for a period of no less than six months.

    The iPhone possessed by the FBI was one of three iPhone's owned by the offenders two of which they utterly destroyed, along with an iPad or two. The iPhone they didn't destroy was probably their day-day device used for innocent domestic activities. If it were other than that odds are they would also have destroyed that iPhone before going Postal.

    Apple must resist all attempts by government agencies to compromise their technology. What's the worst the government or courts can do? The only thing holding the USA's feeble democracy together is the constitution. Wreck that at your own risk... the world will laugh harder at your stupidity.
  • Reply 99 of 102
    Can anyone imagine the FBI compelling any one of the top 10 Banks to create a backdoor to their systems so that International bad guys could be tracked and not freely allowed to pay a few Billion to the House and no corporate humans damaged or bonuses confiscated?
    Scientists and Silicon Valley are government mules to be beaten into compliance and be conscripted their own hook for daring to protect individual and First Amendment rights and not Corporate rights which are on a whole 'nother level of self-protection. Like the broken Criminal Justice system? Watch it in action right here in the Valley.
  • Reply 100 of 102
    While she's already ordering computer companies to create software for her, can she also order Apple to rewrite iTunes?  ;-)
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