Once again the FBI cannot open an iPhone, this makes me wonder what happens when it’s an Android as we never hear of them not being able to open and Android, it’s seems iPhone security truly stumps them.
Move ahead to 2020 and the FBI once again is asking Apple to unlock a pair of iPhones. NBC reports that these handsets are thought to belong to Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the man considered responsible for the death of three men at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida last month. On Monday, FBI General Counsel Dana Boente sent a letter to Apple's general counsel that said in part, "Investigators are actively engaging in efforts to 'guess' the relevant passcodes but so far have been unsuccessful." Boente says that the FBI has asked for help from other federal agencies, experts from foreign countries and "familiar contacts in the third-party vendor community." That latter comment could refer to Cellebrite. Apple has been trying to stay one step ahead of that company and rival Grayshift.
The FBI's difficulties in opening Alshamrani's iPhones seem to contradict a claim made last summer by Cellebrite on its website. The company said that it can "perform a full file system extraction on any iOS device, or a physical extraction or full file system (File-Based Encryption) extraction on many high-end Android devices." Machines like those made by Cellebrite connect to the iPhone's Lightning port in order to bypass limits on passcode attempts. Once the limits are no longer an issue, the machines use a brute force attack (trying every combination possible) to unlock an iPhone.
Apple thought that it had put these companies on the sidelines by adding USB Restricted Mode in iOS 12. This feature prevented the Lightning port from communicating with other devices if it had not been unlocked within the previous hour. But Cellebrite, which sells its devices to law enforcement as Grayshift does, crowed that it could open any iOS device from iOS 7 to iOS 12.3. Assuming that Alshamrani's iPhones were updated before the attack on the naval base, Cellebrite might have met its match with iOS 13 or else the FBI would have already unlocked the handsets.
Once again the FBI cannot open an iPhone, this makes me wonder what happens when it’s an Android as we never hear of them not being able to open and Android, it’s seems iPhone security truly stumps them.
GrayKey at one time could do a six-digit passcode in 11 hours, and only charged about $30K to do it. But iOS 13 isn't as easy to break, and with the way iPhone users tend to stay updated, it make it tough. Which this would seem to confirm.
I could be wrong here, but if they really wanted to get into the device, I would think organizations like the NSA and CIA would have the capability to crack any device out there.
I could be wrong here, but if they really wanted to get into the device, I would think organizations like the NSA and CIA would have the capability to crack any device out there.
Data in transit is one things. Breaking into a physical device is another.
Once again the FBI cannot open an iPhone, this makes me wonder what happens when it’s an Android as we never hear of them not being able to open and Android, it’s seems iPhone security truly stumps them.
It appears Android Pie and above have equal protections.
It's likely that they can access the devices already, but they want to win the legal right to force Apple and other companies to do it for them, in preparation for the time when they can no longer do it technically.
I'm sympathetic to law enforcement's perspective that, with a proper warrant, they should be able to search a physical object, but forcing companies to leave back doors open is a catastrophically bad idea which threatens everyone's privacy and security. LE is going to have to do old-fashioned gum show investigative work instead of looking for a silver bullet.
Does a dead terrorist, that was not a US citizen, have constitutional rights?
I remember back in the Clinton era when there was a push to have Clipper Chips "law".
It has nothing to do with the rights of the dead suspect. No one is disputing law enforcement's right to possess and investigate the phone.
The issue is that they want Apple to intentionally decrease the security of ALL their phones by creating a version of their OS that includes a "back door." If Apple complies, no iPhone will ever be secure once it's in someone else's possession. It's impossible to secure such a tool from getting out into the wild.