FBI Forensic Examiner Stephen Flatley Calls Apple 'Jerks' and 'Evil Geniuses' for Encrypting iPhones

[wigby]

How does Apple deal with this issue in countries like China or Russia? I can't imagine those governments haven't demanded back doors as well and are generally much more aggressive at getting their way.

I don't agree with creating a back door into any mobile device -- but all it will take is another highly publicized case of a mobile device involved in a terrorist attack or crime and the FBI will get what it wants.

Unfortunately, Apple caved into China and it's frontpage news today:

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/11/chinese-icloud-data-migration-controversy/

It's not exactly a backdoor but it will directly lead to China spying on its citizens even more than currently do.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

So sad to see that these guys need to go back to doing real investigations like they did prior to cell phones providing a potential treasure trove of data. I appreciate that my computing device is secure; it makes me trust doing things like banking on the device.

 

[CrystalQuest76]

So, would it be okay for the FBI to have the key to your house as long as you can be sure a criminal can't either crack the lock or copy the key?

I don't have anything illegal in my house so i am not concerned if they saw what was lying around. i agree with others that i would not like the key to be acquired by criminals that would steal things from the house.
I do not live in a constant state of fear, nor do i have my home surrounded by cameras and visible alarm systems. Having lots of cameras and security around my house is just a signal to the criminals that there is something worth stealing. I grew up with neighbors on either side of my house that had fancy visible alarm systems and status symbol cars and they were constantly robbed. Our house was never touched.

 

[wigby]

So if they have a warrant, as it explains in the link you provided, they can search.

Yes, and Apple complies with all search warrants issued. Apple does not comply with backdoors and crippling their own OS and encryption in the process.

 

[nt5672]

So people, now we have it. Having strong encryption or a strong password is „thwarting law enforcement“.

Nope. The FBI has proven they will break any law to get what they want. They have also proven along with the IRS that they will target political dissenters with lies, investigations, and harassment.

This approach by the FBI is just simply a power grab because they want to move towards Stasi/KGB style law enforcement. You know where they stand at the buss terminal and ask for your papers, then tell you they are fake, and arrest you because you have the wrong political views.

Note that the Stasi has been described as the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to have ever existed.

Privacy laws and their enforcement is the only way to protect against government abuse.

 

[Darth.Titan]

How does Apple deal with this issue in countries like China or Russia? I can't imagine those governments haven't demanded back doors as well and are generally much more aggressive at getting their way.

I don't agree with creating a back door into any mobile device -- but all it will take is another highly publicized case of a mobile device involved in a terrorist attack or crime and the FBI will get what it wants.

That's a good question that I believe needs an answer. I always felt reassured that iOS's encryption was true one-way encryption, and that Apple can't "unlock" an iOS device or read our data even if they want to. As a resident of the US I've never seen any proof of it being otherwise.

However my company's CEO just went on a business trip to China, and their state "tour guide" went on about how Apple complies with EVERY government request for iOS data without exception.

So are they running a modified version of iOS in China, or is Apple not telling us everything? Who's lying to whom here?

 

[dannyyankou]

Yes, and Apple complies with all search warrants issued. Apple does not comply with backdoors and crippling their own OS and encryption in the process.

Right and I agree with that. It's just that Amendment is misunderstood sometimes.

 

[CrystalQuest76]

So sad to see that these guys need to go back to doing real investigations like they did prior to cell phones providing a potential treasure trove of data. I appreciate that my computing device is secure; it makes me trust doing things like banking on the device.

Prior to cell phones, criminals used traditional mail (that could be intercepted at the post office with a warrant) and landline phones that could be tapped. The criminals then knew that when they communicated, to do so face-to-face. Law enforcement at the time required snitches (or people like Donnie Brasco) that were in the rooms.
If we want law enforcement to protect us from the organized criminals and organized terrorists we must expect them to be able to keep up with what those bad people are doing. Otherwise, don't complain when you and your children are victimized.

 

[wigby]

I don't keep anything on my electronic devices that are criminal in nature. Nor do i keep anything on my electronic devices that most people would consider immoral. I do know that criminals are using their electronic devices to commit crimes. I really would like it to be easier for law enforcement to catch these criminals. I do not have a problem with law enforcement being able to access my phone. I do have a problem with unethical law enforcement employees getting a hold of my financial information and stealing from my accounts. At the end of the day, law enforcement does not care about what you are doing unless you are breaking the law and endangering others.
Yes I want an encryption that will ensure that criminals do not get a hold of my information.

Laws change. Millions of immigrants are now being treated as suspects and rounded up. They were granted rights of U.S. citizens in the past and now some of those rights are being taken away. So their phones could be used against them. What's next, citizens being charged with crimes based on their religion or sexual orientation? It's also happening. I'm not taking a side. I'm just saying that even though we have the constitutional right to privacy, the right to other things that privacy protects can change.

 

[jonnysods]

Are we supposed to feel sorry for this guy? I do when its a criminal act, but they could call any of us criminals and rip through our stuff.

 

[TheTruth101]

I do not believe this guy. Actually I do not believe in anybody.
If Tim Cook "lover" gets murdered and the information is in an iPhone, I am sure Apple will be able to read it in no time. This is just a circus.

 

[nt5672]

. . . . . At the end of the day, law enforcement does not care about what you are doing unless you are breaking the law and endangering others.

This is so false it is hard to believe people don't realize it. Right now you apparently have the same political views as the law enforcement agency you want to give everything to you. But what happens if someone with opposing views gets control of the government and then starts to target you because of your political views.

That is what is going on right now. Regardless if you support Obama or Trump, the Obama administration used law enforcement to target his enemies, with the IRS, the secret warrant system, and the FBI. This is now fact. Once Trump has been in office for 5 to 7 years and got all of his people in place he will be in a position to targeting his enemies.

We need to stop this right now, regardless of your political views. Law enforcement should NOT have anything to do with politics, but they do and they always will. The laws are passed by Congress and they should be followed regardless of your political views. If you want to change the laws, then go for it, and get Congress to change the laws. That is how America works.

But we need to stop law enforcement and rogue judges from targeting people they do not agree with. This is more important than your support of Obama or Trump. It starts by keeping political views from law enforcement and this requires strong encryption.
[doublepost=1515693647][/doublepost]

Some of those crime fighting techniques included getting warrants to open mail and tap traditional phone lines to listen in on the criminal conspiracies that were taking place. Since people have moved over to encrypted text messages those old techniques no longer work. Those law enforcement employees are asking for tools that will keep up with the changes in techniques that criminals are using.

Yep, they, for example, need to go back to using bugs (listening devices). The old ways still work, but the investigators just don't want to put in the effort.

 

[MrGimper]

Reminds me of a constant struggle I have as an IT Consultant. "I'm an administrator of the server and I can't access the HR files" .... that's right, you can't .... You're an admin of the server, not an admin of the data stored on the server.

Sometimes you just don't have the right to be a snowflake and get what you want.

 

[kyleh22]

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks he just saying this so we feel overly secure with what we do on our phones....

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Then why did they have to pay Cellebrite to crack a 3 year old iPhone? That's precisely why he called Apple "good at evil genius stuff". The FBI has to go to real hackers when it comes to the genius part of evil genius. What does that make the FBI?

It makes them like everyone else. They use the best tools available. Your company IT guys don't make their own firewalls or design their own networking equipment. Instead they go with someone that's far far better than they are at creating those things.
[doublepost=1515694413][/doublepost]

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks he just saying this so we feel overly secure with what we do on our phones....

He is.

Source: worked in computer forensics for over 10 years and have worked with a lot of government agencies around the world, selling them many of the tools they use.

 

[Westside guy]

Stephen Flatley - isn’t that the dude from “Riverdance”? Man, he’s really let himself go...

 

[Rigby]

I'm sick and tired of the whining by members of the "law enforcement community". The pervasive use of electronic communication, mobile devices and the cloud have opened a golden age for government snoops (as well as criminals) like never before (not to mention all the constitutionally dubious ways of accessing people's information without proper judicial oversight that they now have). When it comes to surveillance, we are far beyond what even George Orwell imagined in "1984". And yet they complain when people desperately try to secure their information.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

If you were the FBI and had easy access to iOS data, would it make more sense to tell people you could do so, or would it be better to lead them to believe that you couldn't access such data?

If you tell them you can access such data, they'll take every step they can to make it more difficult for you.
If you tell them you can't access such data, they'll think they're secure and do nothing to make it harder for you.

What does the FBI gain by publicly stating that iOS is preventing them from accessing data? It only serves to make them look incapable. That'd be a very dumb PR move. But if making that statement makes more stick with iOS and not bother increasing the security of their information, then the tradeoff of appearing incapable is well worth it.

 

[Will.O.Bie]

Way back when, you folks at the FBI used to use real crime fighting techniques to solve crimes. If all you have is whining about cell phone encryption, it shows how political, weak and ineffectual you have become in the face of fight crime. Never mind how corrupt some of you already are.

I'm not defending the FBI at all but way back when, they didn't have cellphones and encryption to speak of. They just need to come up with better solutions to solve crimes instead of crying to Apple about encryption. One of the main reasons I use Apple products is their hard stance on privacy and encryption. I'm not doing anything illegal nor do I plan to, but I don't want any government to be spying on me just because I mentioned "bomb", "terrorism", or "Allah". These words must be a trigger for them to start spying on you, no basis whatsoever.

 

[Naraxus]

So if they have a warrant, as it explains in the link you provided, they can search.

I have no problem with that.

 

[Will.O.Bie]

If you were the FBI and had easy access to iOS data, would it make more sense to tell people you could do so, or would it be better to lead them to believe that you couldn't access such data?

If you tell them you can access such data, they'll take every step they can to make it more difficult for you.
If you tell them you can't access such data, they'll think they're secure and do nothing to make it harder for you.

What does the FBI gain by publicly stating that iOS is preventing them from accessing data? It only serves to make them look incapable. That'd be a very dumb PR move. But if making that statement makes more stick with iOS and not bother increasing the security of their information, then the tradeoff of appearing incapable is well worth it.

Well said. By him saying this statement, he's telling terrorists and criminals to use iOS because we have our thumbs up where the sun don't shine. Now, all of the criminal and terrorist organizations know what to use.

 

[walnuts]

All of these arguments apply to private conversations just as much as they do phones. Should we outlaw those too?

All of your private conversations are making it really hard for the FBI to catch criminals. All the FBI wants is just to listen in on everything you say...they promise not to do anything bad with all that information...only catch criminals.

The only thing different here is that a smartphone serves as a tempting vessel for your private info. Privacy and security have always had tradeoffs. We can't afford to budge here because our privacy takes a different form.

As an aside, as creepy as the private conversations example is, how long before the FBI insists that it be able to access "Hey Siri/ Alexa / etc. " data...

 

[techwhiz]

Unfortunately, Apple caved into China and it's frontpage news today:

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/11/chinese-icloud-data-migration-controversy/

It's not exactly a backdoor but it will directly lead to China spying on its citizens even more than currently do.

This isn't what's on your phone.
It's what's in the cloud.
Don't store sensitive data on any cloud servers.

 

[BarracksSi]

To say you're completely ignorant to the work the FBI does would be the understatement of the year. You seem to believe that though technology has changed the entire world, the FBI should still be operating as they did 30 years ago.

Here's a case they worked in which the use of technology to crack an iPhone was the key to saving a child and putting a very bad person in jail.

Some years ago, a 6 year old went missing in the southern United States. There was little in the way of evidence in the case and things went cold after a month or two. It likely would have gone unsolved if it wasn't for the FBI and their continued investigation on another case. They came across pictures of another child, which lead them to the suspect in question.

Most of the evidence in this case was digital. In your mind, they shouldn't even be bothering with it and would have left things as that, moved on to something else but thankfully they kept pushing. They secured a warrant and were able to gain access to the suspect's iOS device. What they found were hours of recordings. This guy didn't get off on the rape of the missing child but rather on listening to the recordings he made of those rapes.

With this evidence and more contained on that phone, along with further digital records obtained elsewhere, they were able to make an arrest, locate the child and return him to his parents 2 years after his abdication, and put this guy away for a very long time.

So when you say that they should go back to using "real crime fighting techniques" you're completely missing the fact that the entire world has gone digital and they're out there doing hard work that no other law enforcement agency is doing. They're putting away very bad people and helping to fix broken families.

In this case, the technology that was used to crack the iPhone was a warrant.

 

[78Bandit]

Some of those crime fighting techniques included getting warrants to open mail and tap traditional phone lines to listen in on the criminal conspiracies that were taking place. Since people have moved over to encrypted text messages those old techniques no longer work. Those law enforcement employees are asking for tools that will keep up with the changes in techniques that criminals are using.

There has been nothing to prevent people from using codes in written or spoken messages in the past. It may not have been convenient, but sophisticated criminals have used ciphers, code names, and other methods of obfuscation to prevent law enforcement from knowing what they were talking about. Having the encryption built into our devices makes the use much easier (and therefore more common), but the basic techniques have been around for hundreds of years.

What law enforcement is asking for is the equivalent of requiring anyone using a cipher or code to register that key with the authorities just in case they later get a warrant to access the encrypted information. I don't agree with that at all. Law enforcement has no right to cripple my privacy now because they fear that I may do something bad in the future.