APPLE LAMBASTS THE FBI FOR NOT ASKING THE NSA TO HELP HACK THAT iPhone

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Kim Zetter Security Date of Publication: 03.15.16. Time of Publication: 8:40 pm.

In the showdown between Apple and the Justice Department over an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooting suspects, one question has loomed large. Why hasn’t the FBI sought assistance from the National Security Agency—which employs some of the nation’s top hackers—to crack into the iPhone? Apple has touched on that question lightly in other briefs filed in the case, but today it focused on it more extensively in its latest brief submitted to the court.

“The government does not deny that there may be other agencies in the government that could assist it in unlocking the phone and accessing its data; rather, it claims, without support, that it has no obligation to consult other agencies,” Apple wrote, noting that FBI Director James Comey danced around the question of NSA assistance when asked about it during a recent congressional hearing.

The government has cited US v New York Telephone Company as one of the primary precedent-setting cases that give it authority under the All Writs Act. In that case, the government required New York Telephone company to provide technical assistance to record numbers dialed from a phone in what is known as a pen-register. New York Telephone objected, saying the pen-register statute didn’t require companies to provide technical assistance. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the phone company could be compelled to assist because it was already collecting this information as a matter of course for its own business purposes, in order to bill customers, detect fraud and conduct troubleshooting. As long as the assistance being sought was not unduly burdensome to the company, it could be compelled to assist.

Apple says the All Writs Act doesn’t grant the different authority the government is seeking in this case, and that the government is attempting “to rewrite history by portraying the Act as an all-powerful magic wand rather than the limited procedural tool it is.”

Aren't FBI lawyers demanding that Apple develop software to eavesdrop on the US Public? This sounds unduly burdensome doesn't it?
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/apple-lambasts-fbi-not-asking-nsa-help-hack-iphone/

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Just another Departmental Power Struggle.

You know darn well the Spooks have broken these phones.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. The spooky thing is that the FBI is trying to set a legal precedent

[Wellstone ruled]

4. The Feds have a contract with a company by the name of

Kroll,these are people who retrieve data from crushed and damaged electronic devices as well as black boxes.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. The FBI have plenty of technology...

this precedent will allow all sorts of hackers to access our information. A few months ago, some woman accidentally put MY phone number online, while requesting information on insurance. Since then dozens of insurance companies took me off their lists, after calling me; but some company kept selling my number. Recently, I got a phone cal from an IRS impersonator, planning to obtain more personal information from me and commit identity theft. Forcing companies like Apple to install easy to hack software is stupid and serves only lazy FBI agents violating our rights and other criminals.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Yup lazy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. The issue for the FBI is about power. The phone is the excuse. n/t

[randome]

6. It really is this simple: the phone is evidence in a criminal investigation.

So long as it's subject to the same checks and balances as every other piece of property, it's searchable with a warrant.

The FBI has not asked for the ability to eavesdrop on the public. They've asked Apple to disable the password reset option on one phone. That's all.

And since Apple has cooperated numerous times with the FBI in the past, they should cooperate this time, as well. The only reason they're dragging their feet is because they chose a marketing strategy of making phones impregnable and they're afraid of the bad PR when they break their own phone.

This is shaping up to be a disaster for Tim Cook's reign.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[Chan790]

8. No, they asked for the creation of utilities that will unlock iPhones and disable security features.

That's not the same thing as asking to have one phone unlocked.

If Apple loses this, it'll be a boon for companies like RiM (owns Blackberry and more importantly, its messaging application BBM) and WhatsApp...they have no fear of the FBI asking them to do something they wrote their software to be impossible to do, even for them. It'll also be a boon for ID thieves and hackers as it will necessitate creating a backdoor in iOS. Apple loses, the best advice to everybody is take a hammer to your iPhone immediately and drop the remains in a bucket of Gatorade. (The electrolytes short out the connections and the salt degrades the circuit-boards beyond recovery.) Destroyed phone is uncrackable phone.

Apple will be wise to rewrite their code for the next release along the same lines...then they can do what RiM did when the Bush administration asked the same of them. Nope, sorry, can't be done...we wrote it that way intentionally. Not even we can access that information without first erasing all the information you're after. Have a nice day and fuck off.

[randome]

9. There have been conflicting claims of what the FBI is asking.

The sources I've seen state they simply want the phone unlocked. Period. Apple can load additional software onto the phone. This would have nothing to do with other phones. Apple can keep its software for doing this to themselves.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[hughee99]

10. What the FBI is asking for is for THIS one phone to be unlocked,

but what the FBI wants is to set a precedent that they can take a warrant to Apple and Apple will have to unlock the phone. Any phone. What that will require is for Apple to build something into their software that allows them to circumvent their security features, and Apple can't create some one-time fix and destroy it after because there's law enforcement agencies all over the country waiting to see how this case turns out so they can send dozens of requests to unlock other phones. The FBI is pretending like this is a one-time thing, but it absolutely is not. I'm sure they have hundreds of phones they can't crack right now, they picked THIS case to make it an issue so they could try to make Apple look like the bad guy for protecting the SB shooter.

If the FBI gets the ruling they want, the ink won't be dry on it before Google gets a call and is told they need to provide the same "service" as apple.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. because the FBI wants to start solving non-terrorist crimes with this backdoor

the NSA is not allowed to intervene in these crimes and their findings are suspect in regular courts

that would be my best guess.

[IDemo]

12. NYPD Admits the Battle Over Apple Will Set a Crucial Precedent

Apple is still fighting with the government over whether it should create a special software to help the DOJ unlock an iPhone connected to the suspect in the San Bernardino shooting. But government officials and Apple execs agree about one key point: It’s not about one phone. This is about the future of security.

In an op-ed for the New York Times today, New York Police Department Commissioner William Bratton and NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Deputy Commissioner James J. Miller admitted that what Apple has been asked to do will drive how the government demands tech companies provide access to secured devices in the future.

“The ramifications of this fight extend beyond San Bernardino,” Bratton and Miller write. The NYPD bosses say that the government’s demand boils down to restoring “a key that was available until 2014.” This is a reference to the change Apple made in 2014, when it upgraded its encryption.

While it’s easy to imagine that most government officials wish that they could time travel and convince Apple not to upgrade its security, or that Apple could somehow remotely downgrade all of its phones to iOS 7 and other software versions with weaker encryption, that’s a misrepresentation of what the DOJ is asking. It is asking that Apple create a software to work around security measures in place to protect encrypted data—and it is asking this in order to set a precedent for cooperation, not just for this one wild and rare incident.

http://gizmodo.com/nypd-chief-admits-the-battle-over-apple-will-set-a-cruc-1760775671