Lynch said. "We're asking them to do is do what their customer wants. The real owner of the phone is the county, the employer of one of the terrorists who's now dead."
So here's the deal... The City of San Bernardino is the owner of the iPhone 5c issued to the dead employee/terrorist. They not only own the iPhone 5c they owned the Apple ID. The number of city employees is rather large and of that population a large portion likely receive city owned phones as it would be required for their job. That means the city should have been using an MDM (Mobile Device Management) platform. So when they stupidly reset the iCloud password they might have been able to instead, send a lock command remotely to the iPhone and change the passcode on the device. That means they would not have needed Apple's help at all if they were not completely incompetent!
That all being said, the terrorists were trained overseas. The first thing they did prior to launching their attack was to destroy all their other computers and mobile devices to the point where forensic recovery was not possible. That is standard operating procedure and the bad guys tell their operatives to do that before they start a major operation. So that begs the question, where was this city iPhone found? On their person when the SWAT team killed them, in the vehicle, on their bodies? Or was it found in their home in a drawer, turned off? The last backup made to iCloud was in October. The terrorist employee was apparently a part-time employee so maybe he hadn't used it in quite some time. So I doubt very much that he nor his wife used his city iPhone for any terrorist based communications and after all this expended effort and argument there will be zero intelligence earned even if the iPhone is hacked via brute force.
On top of all that, Snowden said they could actually copy the NAND memory chip which holds the key and that would allow them to potentially break into the iPhone. It's a lot more difficult but it's not beyond the NSA's abilities and I am sure someone in the FBI has the skills but not in the CA field office.
All this information is being spun and not clearly communicated to the American public while they do their little song and dance. Since when was Colbert considered a legit newsworthy source? I mean he's a comedian... His ratings are actually in the toilet at the moment as well. We know that since 2014 the NSA lost it's ability to easily and remotely p0wn iOS devices as that is when Apple read Snowden's leaked information and increased security on their products. So it is in the best interests of the intelligence community to regain that ability. When they could remotely control an iOS device it immediately became the most advanced and useful intelligence gathering operation of the last 200 years! I mean they can track the phone via GPS, they can record audio with the microphone, they can take pictures, they can see all communications on the device (chat & email & app data, social media), etc.
Thankfully, the FBI and the NSA really do not collaborate. Right now the NSA are building huge new data centers (public record) and they are definitely working on quantum computing. There are working quantum CPUs and I am sure they are further along then what little public info was released. A quantum computer is capable of being billions of times faster than the fastest super computers. The primary use for a quantum computer in intelligence is code breaking. It would be able to make short work of those million year uncrackable codes. The only way to combat it would be to use quantum computing to generate an encryption key that would change if intercepted. This has been done with laser beam transmission because if photons are intercepted it would be detected and the key thusly invalidated. Also this is why AI gives people like Elon Musk nightmares; they know about the coming of quantum computing and what it could mean for the future. Say hello to your new Artificially Intelligent Sentient Overlords...
^^^ FYI, quantum computing is nowhere near usable for general purpose computing or for use in consumer electronics. It's all highly experimental, plus it's simply not good at performing some tasks. IMO, optical computing will be the next practical breakthrough, but there is still plenty of life left in our current computing methods and hardware.
The government messed everything up by changing the password so that it could no longer connect with iCloud to do a backup. So, even a "customer service call" to Apple can't fix their blunder. It would be like frying your iPhone in a microwave and then asking Apple to fix it so that you could get back into it. If you stupidly fried your iPhone, there's really nothing Apple can do about it. Apple can't protect their customers from their own stupidity.
What many FBI supporters are forgetting is if Apple builds a backdoor then the FBI can easily plant evidence on your phone.
How easy would it be for a rouge FBI agent who is desperate to prosecute someone to:
1. remotely hack into your iPhone 2. download incriminating evidence on your phone 3. use your phone to send emails to know terrorist
These are serious questions.
Not easy at all. The FBI aren't asking for any remote access capability at all; they're asking for Apple to apply a modified version of iOS in a controlled environment that overrides the password attempt feature. The FBI aren't even asking for the code, or for the code to be retained by Apple. That's why they're able to say that this request only applies to this one phone.
What they're asking for is a precedent; a chink in the armor that will justify them coming back to Apple again and again, to ask for—or rather, demand—more and more access.
The lie is that the FBI court order for Apple to write new software to help with the San Bernardino case is about 1 iPhone. This is not about 1 iPhone and it is not just about letting the FBI "pick the lock".
James Comey is against encryption.
From the www.fbi.gov site, this is what Jame Comey (director, FBI) has to say: "Technology has forever changed the world we live in. We’re online, in
one way or another, all day long. Our phones and computers have become
reflections of our personalities, our interests, and our identities.
They hold much that is important to us. And with that comes a desire to protect our privacy and our data—you
want to share your lives with the people you choose. I sure do. But the
FBI has a sworn duty to keep every American safe from crime and
terrorism, and technology has become the tool of choice for some very
dangerous people.
Unfortunately, the law hasn’t kept pace with technology, and this
disconnect has created a significant public safety problem. We call it
“Going Dark,”
Comey is misinformed for the following reasons: 1) Comey thinks that the FBI mandate and calling is far more important than the need of Americans to keep their data secure. This is up side down. The fact is that the FBI only exists to serve the American people, not the other way around. 2) Law should never change if Constitutionally based. However, the FBI's technical capabilities should adapt to technological changes. This is the problem. The FBI is lagging technically and instead is trying to use the courts to weaken encryption and set dangerous and unconstitutional precedents. The FBI must develop the technical know how to access the data of any electronic device. 3) There is no proof whatsoever that strong encryption has caused public safety problems. To the contrary, weakened encryption has enabled hackers to perform identity theft, intellectual theft, and credit card theft. 4) James Clapper (DNI) has indicated that Cyber threats are the No. 1 National Security issue. Terror (ISIS, Al Qaeda and ISIL) is not No. 1. The FBI makes it sound like ISIS is the No. 1 National Security problem. It is not. The only tool against cyber threats is strong encryption. Once compromised, it is compromised. It is a pandora's box that Comey is trying to open, which will ruin it for the rest of us good people
Comments
So here's the deal... The City of San Bernardino is the owner of the iPhone 5c issued to the dead employee/terrorist. They not only own the iPhone 5c they owned the Apple ID. The number of city employees is rather large and of that population a large portion likely receive city owned phones as it would be required for their job. That means the city should have been using an MDM (Mobile Device Management) platform. So when they stupidly reset the iCloud password they might have been able to instead, send a lock command remotely to the iPhone and change the passcode on the device. That means they would not have needed Apple's help at all if they were not completely incompetent!
That all being said, the terrorists were trained overseas. The first thing they did prior to launching their attack was to destroy all their other computers and mobile devices to the point where forensic recovery was not possible. That is standard operating procedure and the bad guys tell their operatives to do that before they start a major operation. So that begs the question, where was this city iPhone found? On their person when the SWAT team killed them, in the vehicle, on their bodies? Or was it found in their home in a drawer, turned off? The last backup made to iCloud was in October. The terrorist employee was apparently a part-time employee so maybe he hadn't used it in quite some time. So I doubt very much that he nor his wife used his city iPhone for any terrorist based communications and after all this expended effort and argument there will be zero intelligence earned even if the iPhone is hacked via brute force.
On top of all that, Snowden said they could actually copy the NAND memory chip which holds the key and that would allow them to potentially break into the iPhone. It's a lot more difficult but it's not beyond the NSA's abilities and I am sure someone in the FBI has the skills but not in the CA field office.
All this information is being spun and not clearly communicated to the American public while they do their little song and dance. Since when was Colbert considered a legit newsworthy source? I mean he's a comedian... His ratings are actually in the toilet at the moment as well. We know that since 2014 the NSA lost it's ability to easily and remotely p0wn iOS devices as that is when Apple read Snowden's leaked information and increased security on their products. So it is in the best interests of the intelligence community to regain that ability. When they could remotely control an iOS device it immediately became the most advanced and useful intelligence gathering operation of the last 200 years! I mean they can track the phone via GPS, they can record audio with the microphone, they can take pictures, they can see all communications on the device (chat & email & app data, social media), etc.
Thankfully, the FBI and the NSA really do not collaborate. Right now the NSA are building huge new data centers (public record) and they are definitely working on quantum computing. There are working quantum CPUs and I am sure they are further along then what little public info was released. A quantum computer is capable of being billions of times faster than the fastest super computers. The primary use for a quantum computer in intelligence is code breaking. It would be able to make short work of those million year uncrackable codes. The only way to combat it would be to use quantum computing to generate an encryption key that would change if intercepted. This has been done with laser beam transmission because if photons are intercepted it would be detected and the key thusly invalidated. Also this is why AI gives people like Elon Musk nightmares; they know about the coming of quantum computing and what it could mean for the future. Say hello to your new Artificially Intelligent Sentient Overlords...
What they're asking for is a precedent; a chink in the armor that will justify them coming back to Apple again and again, to ask for—or rather, demand—more and more access.
James Comey is against encryption.
From the www.fbi.gov site, this is what Jame Comey (director, FBI) has to say:
"Technology has forever changed the world we live in. We’re online, in one way or another, all day long. Our phones and computers have become reflections of our personalities, our interests, and our identities. They hold much that is important to us. And with that comes a desire to protect our privacy and our data—you want to share your lives with the people you choose. I sure do. But the FBI has a sworn duty to keep every American safe from crime and terrorism, and technology has become the tool of choice for some very dangerous people. Unfortunately, the law hasn’t kept pace with technology, and this disconnect has created a significant public safety problem. We call it “Going Dark,”
Comey is misinformed for the following reasons:
1) Comey thinks that the FBI mandate and calling is far more important than the need of Americans to keep their data secure. This is up side down. The fact is that the FBI only exists to serve the American people, not the other way around.
2) Law should never change if Constitutionally based. However, the FBI's technical capabilities should adapt to technological changes. This is the problem. The FBI is lagging technically and instead is trying to use the courts to weaken encryption and set dangerous and unconstitutional precedents. The FBI must develop the technical know how to access the data of any electronic device.
3) There is no proof whatsoever that strong encryption has caused public safety problems. To the contrary, weakened encryption has enabled hackers to perform identity theft, intellectual theft, and credit card theft.
4) James Clapper (DNI) has indicated that Cyber threats are the No. 1 National Security issue. Terror (ISIS, Al Qaeda and ISIL) is not No. 1. The FBI makes it sound like ISIS is the No. 1 National Security problem. It is not. The only tool against cyber threats is strong encryption. Once compromised, it is compromised. It is a pandora's box that Comey is trying to open, which will ruin it for the rest of us good people
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/apple-privacy-petition
Hurry, there are currently 23,000 signatures. 100,000 are needed by March 18 to require a Whitehouse response.
The title of the petition is:
Halt efforts that compel Apple and other device makers to create a "backdoor" for the Government to access citizens data