Snowden: FBI's claim it can't unlock the San Bernardino iPhone is 'bulls***'

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower whose NSA revelations sparked a debate on mass surveillance, has waded into the arguments over the FBI’s attempt to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The FBI says that only Apple can deactivate certain passcode protections on the iPhone, which will allow law enforcement to guess the passcode by using brute-force.

Talking via video link from Moscow to the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, Snowden said: “The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that’s bull#.”

Snowden: FBI's claim it can't unlock the San Bernardino iPhone is 'bull#'

The Woz had this to add:

“Verizon turned over all the phone records and SMS messages. So they want to take this other phone that the two didn’t destroy, which was a work phone. It’s so lame and worthless to expect there’s something on it and to get Apple to expose it.”

You had to suspect the FBI was not being honest over their public statement of needing Apple to create a software backdoor for their smart phones, when it was revealed the police had changed the password on the suspects phone (changing the password prevented the phone from backing up to the cloud.) To reset a password you need the password, which clearly they did have.

The head of the NSA said that they're one terrorist attack away from getting Congress finally onboard with this level of surveillance. The San Bernadino shooting looks much more like a false flag every day.

WORKING LINK:
Snowden: FBI's claim it can't unlock the San Bernardino iPhone is 'bullsht'


ATS is blocking the link. All I can suggest is go to www.theguardian.com... and search the headline above.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

That's super interesting.

Your link is dead though, I think they changed the url:

Linky

More comments once I read it.



So yeah, I dunno there's not much as to why he thinks that, so maybe another statement for Snowden to stay relevant in the news, but I'd like to see more data on why he thinks that's not true.

~Tenth

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I used Tinyurl to reupload the link, it contained the "s" word and ATS filtered it out.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

I wish I'd have saved it, but I recently saw a video of a hacker on FB about how easy it is to hack iphones and get into text messages and contact details.

So, yeah, I for one do not 1 second think the FBI can't crack that.
They're just playing it safe and writing about how they need help from apple etc, while they probably already have that iphone cracked and open. (legal reason probably)

I always suspected the whole thing was a PR campaign.

The broken links prove it all

The shortened url doesn't work either. Anyone interested in reading the link can just open the original link and change the "bull#" portion of the URL to the actual word.

LOL nope. tried the embed code.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer
I can't argue with your thinking in the OP.
I wondered when I heard that the police had reset the password.... how do you do that without having the original password to begin with?
S&F.

Snowdens full of snip.

The FBI’s demand that Apple help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers has outraged Silicon Valley, a significant source of political support for President Obama and Democrats.

thehill.com...

The FBI isn't the NSA.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

I don't want to burst anyone's bubbles and this isn't commentary about Snowden's status or whether or not he was right to do what he did — but he's not what I would personally consider an expert. How to put this? Snowden is a computer user and not an engineer, not a developer, etc.

Woz on the other hand wasn't remarking about whether or not the federal government had the capacity to decrypt the flash disk on the phone but was offering his opinion that it was useless.

I don't think people really understand the technology enough to have well formed opinions and earlier today I attempted to offer a brief primer in another thread which I will repost with slight revisions here:


The encryption scheme employed by Apple in iOS is AES. AES is a symmetric key scheme — meaning there is a single key that is used to encrypt/decrypt data.

The encrypted data that the FBI wants help accessing is on a flash disk that is encrypted/decrypted with a single key. That storage key is in turn stored in a special sort of flash memory called "effaceable storage" which differs from other flash memory in that it doesn't use wear leveling so it's easier to delete/overwrite specific files (and thereby rendering anything deleted from it irretrievable).

The storage key is itself encrypted using a different key.

The key that is used to encrypt/decrypt the storage key is generated on demand by what is know as the Secure Enclave. The SE is essentially a separate device inside of the phone which hosts a cryptographic engine. It has its own processor, OS and encrypted memory. When the SE's processor is manufactured, there is a UID that is manufactured into it (as in, physically part of the processor) that cannot be extracted. To generate the keys that secure the other keys (such as the storage key), the user's PIN is tangled with this UID by some function (the details of which, I do not know) to generate a 256-bit AES key. According to Apple, they do not record/associate the UID with the phone in any way.

The SE is the crux of the problem. What's important to understand here is that the FBI cannot extract the UID from the SE. The SE is essentially a black box where data like the PIN goes in and as if by magic (no, not really) out comes a key.

Essentially, they were looking to overcome the impediments to brute forcing the PIN. Brute forcing for those unfamiliar, is the process of attempting to "guess" a password (or in this case PIN) by iterating through all the possible values, trying each one in turn, until the correct password/PIN is found.

If I'm not mistaken, there is a delay between attempts imposed by the SE itself (which lengthens which subsequent failed attempts) so what they really need is something like this:

- A hacked up version of the SE's OS (which will need to be cryptographically signed by Apple) that neuters certain features of the SE including an internal (and increasing) delay imposed between attempts by the SE itself.

- A hacked up version of iOS that won't attempt to erase the effaceable memory and won't impose any other delays between attempts at the OS level or any other restrictions.

a reply to: theantediluvian

but he's not what I would personally consider an expert.

He sure the hell isn't.

Because the Burr-Feinstein Bill. A bipartisan effort between left wingers, and right wingers. That's coming up for a vote.

Seeks to give law enforcement agencies like the FBI this capability.

he chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says a bill to give law enforcement access to encrypted data could come as early as next week.

Senate Intel encryption bill could come next week

Here's the video, It should also be noted that Reuters have also made comment about this some time ago, seems the FBI is trying for the extra ingredient of scaremongering.


A proxy link to the Guardian story.
uk.businessinsider.com...

It's been a while since I've done ant black hat type stuff, but I don't believe for one second that they can't get in.

I do, however, believe that it would take time and money, and they don't really care about getting in. They care about getting a back door to ALL phones, not that one.

Of course, that's the FBI, not the NSA.
The NSA is laughing behind their backs, as they already have said access.

originally posted by: lordcomac
It's been a while since I've done ant black hat type stuff, but I don't believe for one second that they can't get in.

I do, however, believe that it would take time and money, and they don't really care about getting in. They care about getting a back door to ALL phones, not that one.

Of course, that's the FBI, not the NSA.
The NSA is laughing behind their backs, as they already have said access.

Yes, and of course, they have had much technological access to all sorts of analogue/digital information not just today, but for a long, long time. Interestingly, The Guardian link used by the OP that refuses to work includes NSA in the text.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

LOL

If not apple then your provider
My mother was better then FBI when she was being cheated on
If she can heck phone line and get all the phone calls I remember her even reading me the actual conversation (but that can't be) that was 15y ago

originally posted by: neo96
Snowdens full of snip.

The FBI’s demand that Apple help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers has outraged Silicon Valley, a significant source of political support for President Obama and Democrats.

thehill.com...

The FBI isn't the NSA.

You really believe there to be a difference between the government gestapo agencies?

I am sure the shadow government bought apple long ago.

Nice trackers they have for us!

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

I had it done twice

My phone fried under this sun and I dropped one in drink

Have all the info on my new phone didn't know any codes meh blah yah sure

a reply to: elementalgrove

Yeah there is a DIFFERENCE.

FBI is a law enforcement agency.

The NSA was create to spy on people via signals intelligence.

They are two entirely different animals.

The NSA can not testify in court due to the fact most if not all there tricks to break codes are classified under above top secret Special access programs (SAPs) and Exceptionally Controlled Information
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

So if the FBI uses NSA there are major chain of custody problems.

this means even if the NSA has broke the encryption (i believe that NSA broke the encryption long before this case)the FBI has to have a non NSA source to use in court.