How did they change the Apple ID associated with the phone if the phone was locked?
Easy. Since this phone was owned by San Bernardino County and they admitted that they changed the passcode, the phone had to have been managed by MDM software. I've asked this question multiple times and now I have the answer. What I'm waiting to hear is that San Bernardino County IT staff made regular backups of the software as part of their MDM system. The IT staff should also have an admin passcode installed that could effectively open up at least the business partition. It's unknown if the user used a separate partition in the iPhone for personal use or just used the corporate partition. The only way the San Bernardino officials could have changed the passcode is if they had the original passcode or performed the change remotely. What's surprising is that the FBI had the iPhone and let the officials make the change. This shows they are incompetent and should be fired, right after they tell the entire world what they did. As others have said, the FBI allowed the phone to be "bricked" so Apple is off the hook. Now I want to hear an apology from all those politicians, especially the idiot Donald Trump, for all the slanderous comments they've made.
The iCloud password is not managed by MDM. You also cannot force iCloud backup, you can only restrict whether or not they are allowed. If it WAS on MDM this problem would be moot because the MDM could clear any passcode as long as it's on wifi- even if the wifi is turned off you can force it on a wired network using common adapters so that it can get the MDM commands. Clearly it wasn't on an MDM or the issue wouldn't exist.
Not sure if someone pointed this out, but there has been other information which came out after this which clear up what happen.
It was stated that passcode, or password depending on your point of view was changed for the iCloud account. This is not the one on the phone, either to get into the phone or used by the phone to access the iCloud services. It sounds like the change happen on Apple's website for iCloud. Because the iCloud password no longer matches the one on the phone there s no way to have the iPhone automically back up the data to iCloud. It sounds like if the phone was forces to back up to iCloud Apple could have handed over the encrypted backup file which does not have all the safeguard of the phone so they could have hacked at the file until the got into it.
The question is who changed the iCloud password/passcode. Maybe someone in the FBI did in an attempt to the information there without realizing the down stream consequences of those actions. I doubt is employer did since everyone believe they were not using remote management software, if they were the FBI would be able to get into the phone. Also, how would his employer know is iCloud account information.
I said this before this whole iPhone and the killer in this case are red herrings, The government is trying to get public opinion behind them to force Apple and another company to create a method which allows them to spy on people as they like. Luckily Apple go ahead of this before public opinion went the other way. Cook and his team was extremely smart about how they are handling this. They got most of the public behind them and are not buy the government case they need this for national security. These were not terrorist like the brothers in Boston, these two went after people they knew, this was extremely personal not a random act. But the government want everyone to think it was much more and they are some how related to other sleeper cells or similar.
Keep in mind even with all the snooping we already know the government has been doing, they have yet to stop a single bad things from happening. If they did they would have publicized all their success They would have been sure to make sure everyone know all the bad actors they stop because of their illegal activities.
felix01 said: Petition response certainly hasn't been anything spectacular, has it?
Maybe people feel uncomfortable giving their personal information to the government in order to tell the government to stop taking their personal information.
The real intention of the US government is to use this epic and highly uncommon case to force apple to change it's policy and provide a so called "back door" to the government and their contractors. look at other Landmark Court Rulings, they are very rare cases, something like "the perfect storm", think
Row vs. Wade to Legalize Abortion, it was a Rape Case because the abortion proponents sending a happily married couple to the court saying they just weren't ready to have a baby yet would have never got the ruling they wanted. Apple has stood up for "our" right to privacy it seams most of the time almost standing alone over and over, this is why 4 years ago I left Samsung and started buying Apple Phones and Ipads. Please support Apple, they need our support in this fight against the "Police State"
The real intention of the US government is to use this epic and highly uncommon case to force apple to change it's policy and provide a so called "back door" to the government and their contractors. look at other Landmark Court Rulings, they are very rare cases, something like "the perfect storm", think
Row vs. Wade to Legalize Abortion, it was a Rape Case because the abortion proponents sending a happily married couple to the court saying they just weren't ready to have a baby yet would have never got the ruling they wanted. Apple has stood up for "our" right to privacy it seams most of the time almost standing alone over and over, this is why 4 years ago I left Samsung and started buying Apple Phones and Ipads. Please support Apple, they need our support in this fight against the "Police State"
"Prior history of the case
In June 1969, Norma L. McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third child. She returned to Dallas, Texas, where friends advised her to assert falsely that she had been raped in order to obtain a legal abortion (with the understanding that Texas law allowed abortion in cases of rape and incest). However, this scheme failed because there was no police report documenting the alleged rape. She attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but found that the unauthorized facility had been closed down by the police. Eventually, she was referred to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington.[12] (McCorvey would give birth before the case was decided.)
I'm guilty at times of misremembering details and facts; I apologize in advance for correcting some basic errors in your post. It's important for people to understand the history of Roe v. Wade.
So, if San Bernardino changed the password, didn't they need the original password in order to reset it? And, if they had the original password why don't they remember what is was? What am I missing here?
Wait a minute. Government officials changed the AppleID while the phone was in their possession? That's their fault, not Apple's. At this point it's like putting a document through a shredder, and then asking (or rather, demanding) Apple to "unshred" the document.
There is a constitutional right to privacy, screw the FBI they'll just have to work with what they have.
Apple should stand firm.
Where do you get that idea ? There is NO constitutional right to privacy in the US. For that you'd need to go live in the EU ;-)
Actually, there is, given by the 4th Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and
the persons or things to be seized.
All this for a phone the terrorists didn't even care about breaking up like they did their own personal phones and HDD which then did break up/Destroy. Why is that? Because it's not about what might be on the phone, but to change the law and force company's like Apple to have Backdoor's in the Encryption that the government can at any time gain access.
Any terrorist that wanted to protect their data could just buy a cheap Android phone and throw on any number of 3rd party encryption that the U.S. Government has zero control of forcing a backdoor into. That in the end would do far, far more damage to our economy.
The FBI can say all they want that it's only THIS PHONE, until it's the next phone!!! Apple did break the encryption on 70 iPhones in the past. That was on iOS7 and older when Apple had the keys. On iOS8 and newer, the keys are on your phone instead. Apple no longer wanted anything to do with that. Better security. It's not so easy for Apple to break into a iPhone let alone anyone else.
There is nothing stopping the FBI or the police in handing a court issued warrant to a person in a criminal investigation making them Unlock their Smartphone. Like like a Desktop computer or anything else for that matter. If they refuse to do so, thrown in jail. This is already done.
Your article is using two terms, 'passcode' and 'password' interchangeably and incorrectly. They are NOT the same thing. The phone (the actual device) has a passcode. That's what's entered when the phone is powered on or when it wakes from sleep. Apple ID has a password, NOT a passcode. This is an extremely important distinction, ESPECIALLY with this case. The FBI wants to perform a brute force attach on the device's passcode. Today, we find out that they also changed the password to the Apple ID. The FBI wants Apple to disable the feature with the passcode that automatically deletes all the data on the phone after 10 attempts of entering the passcode (this is turned on by default in the settings. A user has to go into settings and deliberately turn it off, if they don't want the phone's data deleted after 10 failed attempts). Also, whenever an iPhone is erased and restored, the Apple ID password needs to be entered at the beginning of the setup process. This is the activation lock (a.k.a. 'Find My Phone). This is NOT the same thing as the passcode.
IMO they bricked the phone intentionally, they don't need it to prove their case, but it's a traumatic event where they hope to use public opinion to pressure Apple into a precedent: the key thing most iPhones are not MDM managed, so the avenues that would have been open to them had they not bricked the phone would usually not be open, so they need to set a precedent with a case like this such that they can then rinse-repeat the procedure with cases that would not give them the kind of public support like locking up a dope dealer or a prostitue. Once Apple wrote software like they want them to force to write, there's no stopping them requesting Apple to do the same for whatever "bad guy" they are after at the moment. Nobody in their right mind has sympathy for real terrorists, but opening up Pandora's box is dangerous: In the future you might have brain implants, is the government going to hack those, too? What about injecting people with "truth serum"? We spend trillions of dollars and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people to "defend freedom", but a few dead people in a domestic terrorism case, and we're willing to dispense with the liberties we supposedly defend at such great expense? Anyone cares to put these things together in their minds?
Comments
It was stated that passcode, or password depending on your point of view was changed for the iCloud account. This is not the one on the phone, either to get into the phone or used by the phone to access the iCloud services. It sounds like the change happen on Apple's website for iCloud. Because the iCloud password no longer matches the one on the phone there s no way to have the iPhone automically back up the data to iCloud. It sounds like if the phone was forces to back up to iCloud Apple could have handed over the encrypted backup file which does not have all the safeguard of the phone so they could have hacked at the file until the got into it.
The question is who changed the iCloud password/passcode. Maybe someone in the FBI did in an attempt to the information there without realizing the down stream consequences of those actions. I doubt is employer did since everyone believe they were not using remote management software, if they were the FBI would be able to get into the phone. Also, how would his employer know is iCloud account information.
I said this before this whole iPhone and the killer in this case are red herrings, The government is trying to get public opinion behind them to force Apple and another company to create a method which allows them to spy on people as they like. Luckily Apple go ahead of this before public opinion went the other way. Cook and his team was extremely smart about how they are handling this. They got most of the public behind them and are not buy the government case they need this for national security. These were not terrorist like the brothers in Boston, these two went after people they knew, this was extremely personal not a random act. But the government want everyone to think it was much more and they are some how related to other sleeper cells or similar.
Keep in mind even with all the snooping we already know the government has been doing, they have yet to stop a single bad things from happening. If they did they would have publicized all their success They would have been sure to make sure everyone know all the bad actors they stop because of their illegal activities.
Apple should stand firm.
"Prior history of the case
In June 1969, Norma L. McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third child. She returned to Dallas, Texas, where friends advised her to assert falsely that she had been raped in order to obtain a legal abortion (with the understanding that Texas law allowed abortion in cases of rape and incest). However, this scheme failed because there was no police report documenting the alleged rape. She attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but found that the unauthorized facility had been closed down by the police. Eventually, she was referred to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington.[12] (McCorvey would give birth before the case was decided.)
In 1970, Coffee and Weddington filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of McCorvey (under the alias Jane Roe). The defendant in the case was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, who represented the State of Texas. McCorvey was no longer claiming her pregnancy was a result of rape, and later acknowledged that she had lied about having been raped.[13][14] "Rape" is not mentioned in the judicial opinions in the case.[15]" from wikipedia
I'm guilty at times of misremembering details and facts; I apologize in advance for correcting some basic errors in your post. It's important for people to understand the history of Roe v. Wade.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Once Apple wrote software like they want them to force to write, there's no stopping them requesting Apple to do the same for whatever "bad guy" they are after at the moment.
Nobody in their right mind has sympathy for real terrorists, but opening up Pandora's box is dangerous: In the future you might have brain implants, is the government going to hack those, too? What about injecting people with "truth serum"?
We spend trillions of dollars and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people to "defend freedom", but a few dead people in a domestic terrorism case, and we're willing to dispense with the liberties we supposedly defend at such great expense?
Anyone cares to put these things together in their minds?