FBI Agrees to Help Arkansas Prosecutor Unlock iPhone and iPod in Homicide Case

[gnasher729]

I have no problem with this. The FBI needs to access the phones of bad guys.

They're not gonna invade your wifi. Take off your tin foil hats.

Well, tin foil hat. Ad hominem attack against anyone not agreeing with you.

Here in the UK, newspapers asked loudly why Facebook isn't reading all the messages sent by terrorists and send them to the police. So my wive asked my, why indeed doesn't Facebook do that? And I told her: How do they know they are terrorist messages? If they want to send terrorist messages to the police, they have to read _all_ messages. Including yours. She didn't like that.

(I myself thought: If Facebook _did_ send all terrorist messages to the police, it would be absolutely stupid to tell anyone about it, right? Because then terrorists would stop using Facebook. Just as all terrorists have switched from 4 digit to a longer passcode now, thanks, FBI. Idiots. )
[doublepost=1459412571][/doublepost]

Why? So you can get away with murder?

Oh, that's right, you think that your right to privacy is absolute, becuase you think the government wants to read your emails to grandma.

Fitting with your username, there is a non-zero chance that the next US president will be a total nut job, who has already voiced his opinion that he wants people disagreeing with him to be carried away on a stretcher, so if that guy can have someone read what's on your phone, he quite possibly will.

 

[nutjob]

Well, tin foil hat. Ad hominem attack against anyone not agreeing with you.

Here in the UK, newspapers asked loudly why Facebook isn't reading all the messages sent by terrorists and send them to the police. So my wive asked my, why indeed doesn't Facebook do that? And I told her: How do they know they are terrorist messages? If they want to send terrorist messages to the police, they have to read _all_ messages. Including yours. She didn't like that.

(I myself thought: If Facebook _did_ send all terrorist messages to the police, it would be absolutely stupid to tell anyone about it, right? Because then terrorists would stop using Facebook. Just as all terrorists have switched from 4 digit to a longer passcode now, thanks, FBI. Idiots. )
[doublepost=1459412571][/doublepost]
Fitting with your username, there is a non-zero chance that the next US president will be a total nut job, who has already voiced his opinion that he wants people disagreeing with him to be carried away on a stretcher, so if that guy can have someone read what's on your phone, he quite possibly will.

If you think Trump will be the next US president, then you have some real problems with logic and reason.
Another example is you thinking Facebook needs to "read every message" to stop terrorist communication. Do you think they pay people to read billions of messages? LOL! Have you ever heard of computers? Facebook computers already read all your messages. How do you think Facebook works?

The other guy was right, take off your tinfoil hat and start approaching this issue with logic instead of emotion and/or paranoia, and it will make much more sense to you.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

As long as the tomorrow is way down the road. 20 characters of numerals, letters upper and lower case, and a few symbols sprinkled in should do the trick. Brute force that. Eventually you will come upon the right combination, but I will have long since departed this existence.

Just to play devil's advocate, there is always the possibility that even a long, complex code is cracked quickly. If a computer can be set to start examining long codes first in a random order, then it could alight on the correct one after a few seconds by chance. Extremely low probability, I know, but possible.

A password always has an inherent weakness. More of a fail safe would be customisable safeguards. What I mean by that is different procedures that have to be gone through in order to unlock access. So, for instance, you may have to type a password twice; you may have to type a password correctly once, incorrectly once, then correctly once; you may have to type it incorrectly at first, then correctly after, the computer says it's the incorrect password, but if you press R\:6€¥¡, it unlocks. If it were possible to devise your own methods of entry, then this would increase the difficulty of breaking in even if you tried to brute force the password.

 

[Edd.Dantes]

What about some kind of micro physical key?

Something you could swallow or smash with a hammer

https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/fido-u2f-security-key/

 

[Ghost31]

Not trying to be a downer but I have 0 to hide. Let them eat cake if I become a murderer. Until then they have no reason to, nor would it benefit them in any way to look at my phone. In fact, I'd unlock it right now fr them if they asked.

Oh that's awesome! We should all give up our right to privacy because you value yours less

 

[lazydog]

I am sure an anonymous female blogger in Saudi Arabia that feels women should have the same Rights as men would feel differently about your statement.

If Apple were standing firm against unlocking the Phone of such a person then I would be proud of Apple's stance defending human rights in a country of repression and great wealth and power. Unfortunately for Apple though they've picked a dodgy case to make an ill thought out (in my opinion) public case for unbreakable encryption.

b e n

 

[apolloa]

So I take it now, because of all the ridiculously overblown hyperbole on unlocking iOS devices, every time a request is made to access an iOS device in a criminal investigation it's going to be front page news? Will this be national to America only or international? Ignoring the fact it's been the case for years and no one paid any attention before.

 

[John Mcgregor]

I have six digits, and there are no 10 billion phones, so it's less than 99.99999999%. Basic maths.

Indeed.

 

[diipii]

The FBI has agreed to help an Arkansas prosecutor unlock an iPhone and iPod that belong to two teenagers accused of killing a couple, reports the Associated Press. The move comes days after the FBI announced that it had unlocked the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone.

Hiland said the FBI agreed to help less than a day after the initial request was made. "We always appreciate their cooperation and willingness to help their local law enforcement partners," Hiland said. Patrick Benca, Drexler's attorney, said he was notified the FBI agreed to help and that he was "not concerned about anything on that phone."

The prosecuting attorney said that they had heard the FBI had been able to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone and wanted to see if they could help, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Drexler, along with 15-year-old Justin Staton, are accused of killing Robert and Patricia Cogdell last July. The couple raised Staton as their grandson. After the two teens were arrested in Texas and brought to Arkansas shortly after the shootings, prosecutors gained possession of Drexler's iPhone. Last week, Staton's defense attorney was ordered to hand over his iPod, which was in the defense attorney's evidence locker.

Prosecutors argue that Staton had indicated on phone calls that he had used his iPod to communicate about the murders and that further evidence might be on the device. It's unclear which iPhone and iPod the suspects used and which iOS version they're running.

An FBI official told the LA Times that the FBI is unlikely use the tool that was used to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone for criminal prosecutions because the method could be discovered during a trial. Furthermore, the method used to unlock that phone might not work with other phones, according to the official.

"In a criminal case, if the FBI uses a technique, there's going to be questions about divulging that technique or chain of custody to the defense," Eric Crocker, Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney, told the LA Times. "So my instinct is this might be something different."

Last week, shortly after the Department of Justice said that it discovered a "possible method" for unlocking the San Bernardino shooter's device, it was reported that the FBI enlisted Israeli firm Cellebrite to unlock it.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: FBI Agrees to Help Arkansas Prosecutor Unlock iPhone and iPod in Homicide Case

The FBI got what it should have had all along.
It didn't cost them a stupidly expensive court case.
Apple and all other phone makers remained in their proper place as a bystanders.

America should ask the people of Paris and Brussles what they think of secret phones
and realise their proper role in countering terrorism.

 

[AFDoc]

So did Apple really win? They won't need to create the back door the FBI was asking for but on the other hand the FBI now has a way to get in (older phones/iOS versions only??) without Apple knowing what it is.

Would it be better to have full control or no control at all? Apple will probably look better to the consumer not having control but then do we feel better knowing the FBI can bypass them?

Of course they did..... making a skeleton key that opens all iPhones is way different than the FBI being able to get into old iPhone's with old iOS on them. Wake up ffs..... the FBI and Government is NOT your friend.

 

[thasan]

Then it will be an inconvenient pain to reinstall the entire thing.

Luckily, I don't give my phone to anyone, ever.

My niece, just to piss me off, just typed random codes in my phone a few months ago. lol

 

[Sedulous]

I'm not so worried about what FBI is doing. I am more worried about the exploit being used by criminals.

 

[bushido]

I have no problem with this. The FBI needs to access the phones of bad guys.

They're not gonna invade your wifi. Take off your tin foil hats.

what and who defines a "bad guy".

worst case: years from now all u need is an Erdogan as a leader and boom saying anything against him or his party makes you a terrorist. might be a reporter storing something against him on his iDevice? poof the information and case against him is gone and so may be you

 

[Shirasaki]

Yeah? Do you know which iPhone model did they unlock? What iOS it was running? That's right, you don't and they don't tell you. There are older versions of iPhone and iOS that can easily be hacked and there are newer ones not so easy.

At least I hope my iPhone 6s Plus would not be that easy to be cracked. I don't want my data to be extracted by someone in the wild, or even government, unnoticed.
And yeah, I know that one is an iPhone 5c, easier to be cracked than iPhone 5s or above.
[doublepost=1459421486][/doublepost]

So, do you guys turn on the option to erase the phone after so many failed tries?

I turn it on long before this case, and I have a long alphanumeric passcode. So even my previous iPhone 6 Plus was stolen, I don't worry about my data at all. They will surely be destroyed anyway.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Fine if they help within their own community ... I would even expect that under colleagues.

 

[doelcm82]

So, do you guys turn on the option to erase the phone after so many failed tries?

No. I have four kids under four years old. The three-year-old and the 11-month-old reach for any unattended phone or remote control as soon as my back is turned. I don't doubt the 5-month-olds will do the same in a few months. Restoring my phone from backup would be too much of a hassle for me. I will probably switch to an alphanumeric passcode, though.

 

[Shirasaki]

So, for instance, you may have to type a password twice; you may have to type a password correctly once, incorrectly once, then correctly once; you may have to type it incorrectly at first, then correctly after, the computer says it's the incorrect password, but if you press R\:6€¥¡, it unlocks.

This would surely make unlock process far more interesting than now, as we are supposed to enter wrong password in order to complete unlock process.

 

[blackfox]

I believe Benjamin Franklin had something to say about all off this...

 

[Ed217]

So, the FBI said:

1. Just this one phone
2. We have exhausted all other avenues to unlock
3. Only Apple can do this

And...

1. FALSE
2. FALSE
3. FALSE

And then there is this:

"An FBI official told the LA Times that the FBI is unlikely use the tool that was used to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone for criminal prosecutions because the method could be discovered during a trial. "

So if Apple had unlocked, and a case went to court from the data results, the method would be out in the open.

 

[asiga]

I must have missed some Law change that states that crime is forbidden except if done with a smartphone, in which case the criminal has the right to keep the phone contents away from police. This of course has another exception: if the crime is against LGBT lobbies, Apple will fight the criminal. Otherwise, Apple will be on the criminals side.

 

[Tycho24]

Sooooo.....
If we know it costs the FBI $15k to do it. I wonder how much THEY are charging??

 

[Ed217]

I must have missed some Law change that states that crime is forbidden except if done with a smartphone, in which case the criminal has the right to keep the phone contents away from police. This of course has another exception: if the crime is against LGBT lobbies, Apple will fight the criminal. Otherwise, Apple will be on the criminals side.

1. Apple was on the side of their customers. They did not take a position on the case.
2. People in a case are the accused. They are not criminals...yet, unless convicted.
3. People in such cases have rights...at least in the USA. They can decide not to testify and also not to answer specific questions.

Those pesky laws are around for a reason.

 

[SvP]

Not trying to be a downer but I have 0 to hide. Let them eat cake if I become a murderer. Until then they have no reason to, nor would it benefit them in any way to look at my phone. In fact, I'd unlock it right now fr them if they asked.

Kindly post a photo of your genitals with your photo ID alongside it, and, if you have a sister, all photo's depicting her. Post them on 4chan for easy access.

 

[Nuvi]

Not trying to be a downer but I have 0 to hide. Let them eat cake if I become a murderer. Until then they have no reason to, nor would it benefit them in any way to look at my phone. In fact, I'd unlock it right now fr them if they asked.

There is a difference between hiding info in criminal investigation and having a need for privacy. I believe vast majority of people want and need strong privacy. Many have credit card and other financial information which could ruin them if used by malicious party. Many carry work related information on their private mobile device. Misuse of this information could lead to considerable loss. Therefore, vast majority have something to hide and it has nothing to do with criminal investigation.

 

[DoctorTech]

There's no such thing as a 100% secure platform. The FBI is only ever 1 OS upgrade away from losing their easy access, and only ever one unforeseen vulnerability away from getting it back.

I don't know that the FBI has "easy access" today. I strongly suspect they had to open the phone and decap the chip to get to the point where they could start extracting data. That is a whole lot of time (which = money) and effort to get the data. It also means they had to have physical possession of the phone. Assuming that is the case, the FBI is not in any position to do bulk / stealth data collection of unsuspecting users.