Manhattan DA's office says it has 423 uncracked Apple devices in evidence room

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in General Discussion
The Manhattan district attorney's office now has 423 uncrackable devices in its evidence room, all of them Apple products running iOS 8 or later, according to a new report.




Of these, the iPhone 6 is the most common by model with 166 units, Fortune said in a profile of the office's new digital crime lab, quoting official numbers. The 6 Plus ranks a distant second at 66, followed by the iPhone 6s (63). Distribution skews largely towards iPhones made in the last two years -- in fact the office has just a single uncracked iPhone 4S.

Also in storage are 30 uncracked iPads, though the DA's office didn't identify these by model.




The largest share of the devices, 36 percent, were seized in cases involving electronic crimes and/or identity theft. 24 percent are connected to drug investigations, while much smaller numbers are related to charges like assault, murder, or sex crimes.




As recently as Sept. 2015, the office had less than 100 uncrackable iOS devices. An unexplained surge appears to have taken place between November and December of that year.

iOS 8, 9, and 10 all offer full-disk encryption, making it nearly impossible for anyone -- including Apple -- to access data on a device without its owner supplying the passcode. On products with Touch ID the situation is even more complex -- while a person can potentially be compelled to supply their fingerprint, there's a limited time window in which to do so, and physical hacks may run into problems with the Secure Enclave.

DA Cyrus Vance has been an outspoken critic of Apple's encryption policies. While Apple has maintained that people have a right to privacy, and that strong encryption safeguards both against hackers and state surveillance, Vance has complained that this is really just a marketing ploy and interfering with legitimate investigations. The attorney has called on the U.S. Congress to legislate decryption on demand, though mandatory backdoors have so far been shot down in the legal arena.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 37
    Good. 
    calibdkennedy1002mike1lkrupphcrefugeer00fus1argonautbuzdotsdoozydozenelijahg
  • Reply 2 of 37
    "We don't need that pesky Constitution any more. It's preventing progress!"  /s
    mike1thewhitefalconhcrefugeejbdragonbaconstangbuzdotsdoozydozenelijahgmwhitebig
  • Reply 3 of 37
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    Good luck unlocking them! :#

    Who cares about what the DA in New York thinks? The mayor is a criminal who has vowed to keep defying and ignoring laws in order to protect countless criminals, rapists, murderers and worse. 

    Do I really give a crap that they can not unlock a few Apple devices? Nope, I do not care at all. B)

    Screw those asswipes.
    edited November 2016 calimike1lkruppthewhitefalconhcrefugeejbdragonbuzdotsdoozydozenmwhite80s_Apple_Guy
  • Reply 4 of 37
    Correction: iOS 3 and later (on the iPhone 3GS and later) offer mandatory, non-optional full-disk encryption.

    http://www.darthnull.org/2014/10/06/ios-encryption
    jony0lolliver
  • Reply 5 of 37
    Just wait for the "Waterboarder-or-Worser-in-Chief" to get into office. I think he will be likely to push or pull a bill thru Congress so fast it will make your civil rights spin.
    blastdoorargonautdoozydozen
  • Reply 6 of 37
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    Oh boo hoo! So lets make a phone that gives access to the entire world and create a massive security hole in the OS just so a couple hundred phones can be cracked open for the "maybe" that it has something for their case. Yeah...thats real good thinking! You can't have it both ways. Its either open, or closed. 

    I know "Drugs" is a generic term, but if just for marijuana cases if we'd just stop being stupid and putting people in jail for things like this you could maybe eliminate a large portion of those cases. We don't need to be filling our jails because someone is using marijuana.  
    edited November 2016 jbdragonargonautbaconstangration allolliver
  • Reply 7 of 37
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    Just wait for the "Waterboarder-or-Worser-in-Chief" to get into office. I think he will be likely to push or pull a bill thru Congress so fast it will make your civil rights spin.
    I can hardly wait! That's going to be so great and long overdue. I have always been a strong supporter of waterboarding and worse.

    We're going to make it legal, and it's going to be wonderful. :#
    georgie01
  • Reply 8 of 37
    fracfrac Posts: 480member
    Which begs the question, how many unlockable Android phones are they holding?
    None?
    lkruppjbdragonr00fus1argonautbaconstangdoozydozenbigjony0
  • Reply 9 of 37
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Sounds like a very good advertisement for choosing iOS over Android.
    jbdragonargonautbaconstangjony0lolliver
  • Reply 10 of 37
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    frac said:
    Which begs the question, how many unlockable Android phones are they holding?
    None?
    I would like to see that data set too.
    r00fus1argonautjony0
  • Reply 11 of 37
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member
    Meanwhile, over a trillion dollars of on-line transactions have been kept safe for 100's of millions of people due to secure and encrypted data.
    baconstangration al
  • Reply 12 of 37
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    lkrupp said:
    Sounds like a very good advertisement for choosing iOS over Android.
    Indeed it is.

    I use my phone for all sorts of financial transactions, and I have tons of sensitive info stored on it.

    Never in a million years would I ever trust my information and my money on an Android device.


    redraider11Deelronargonautbaconstang
  • Reply 13 of 37
    Perhaps they should return the peoples property then.....
  • Reply 14 of 37
    Your right to remain silent (in the USA) should include the devices one communicates with, as the Miranda warning makes it clear that "anything you say CAN AND WILL be used against you."  In fact, it starts out with, "You have the right to remain silent."  That Constitutional right means that you cannot be forced to reveal evidence of any type, whether or not that could lead to your successful prosecution.  If the prosecutor can find a reliable witness who will testify against you about what you allegedly said, they have done their work correctly, one assumes.  But they cannot force you to tell them whom you might have told something incriminating, because the point is that they cannot force anyone to contribute to their own prosecution.  If that were the case, waterboarding might be a lot more common at the cop shops around this country.  They are allowed to trick you, they can lie to you, they can try to trop you, but they are not allowed to forcefully compel you to reveal information that may be used against you.  Just never tell them your password, and don't rely on your thumbprint alone.  They can get that, legally.
    baconstanggeorgie01lolliver
  • Reply 15 of 37
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    obsrvr said:
    Your right to remain silent (in the USA) should include the devices one communicates with, as the Miranda warning makes it clear that "anything you say CAN AND WILL be used against you."  In fact, it starts out with, "You have the right to remain silent."  That Constitutional right means that you cannot be forced to reveal evidence of any type, whether or not that could lead to your successful prosecution.  If the prosecutor can find a reliable witness who will testify against you about what you allegedly said, they have done their work correctly, one assumes.  But they cannot force you to tell them whom you might have told something incriminating, because the point is that they cannot force anyone to contribute to their own prosecution.  If that were the case, waterboarding might be a lot more common at the cop shops around this country.  They are allowed to trick you, they can lie to you, they can try to trop you, but they are not allowed to forcefully compel you to reveal information that may be used against you.  Just never tell them your password, and don't rely on your thumbprint alone.  They can get that, legally.
    Don't rely on your thumbprint at all if your issue is avoiding access to your smartphone by law enforcement. You can be compelled to use your fingerprint to unlock it, legally and lawfully. 
  • Reply 16 of 37
    williamhwilliamh Posts: 1,032member
    I don't see why the number of uncracked devices is relevant to anything.  Be strong Apple.  There is so much information on the phone that law enforcement can get from other sources such as text messages and call logs from the carrier, etc.

    I do some work in this area - I have a couple of uncracked phones in my lab right now.  I have the Cellebrite kit and it didn't help with those phones.  That's how it goes.
    baconstang
  • Reply 17 of 37
    ceek74ceek74 Posts: 324member
    apple ][ said:
    Good luck unlocking them! :#

    Who cares about what the DA in New York thinks? The mayor is a criminal who has vowed to keep defying and ignoring laws in order to protect countless criminals, rapists, murderers and worse. 

    Do I really give a crap that they can not unlock a few Apple devices? Nope, I do not care at all. B)

    Screw those asswipes.
    Wait. There's worse?
  • Reply 18 of 37
    As I once saw on a T-shirt: When encryption is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl

    SpamSandwichlolliver
  • Reply 19 of 37
    boredumbboredumb Posts: 1,418member
    shamino said:
    As I once saw on a T-shirt: When encryption is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl

    pbby
  • Reply 20 of 37
    "Vance has complained that this is really just a marketing ploy and interfering with legitimate investigations."

    Where does the USA Constitution say that I must make it easy on the LEOs to investigate anyone/anything?
    Where does it force my participation?
    If the LEOs steal my phone, what right do they have to my information?
    Where does it says that I should "roll over and play dead" at the illegal requests from LEOs?

    Who died and left Vance a founding father of the USA?
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