FBI paid professional hackers one-time fee to crack San Bernardino iPhone

[Sgent]

Source: Washington Post

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Some hackers, known as “white hats,” disclose the vulnerabilities to the firms responsible for the software or to the public so they can be fixed and are generally regarded as ethical. Others, called “black hats,” use the information to hack networks and steal people’s personal information.

At least one of the people who helped the FBI in the San Bernardino case falls into a third category, often considered ethically murky: researchers who sell flaws — for instance, to governments or to companies that make surveillance tools.

This last group, dubbed “gray hats,” can be controversial. Critics say they might be helping governments spy on their own citizens. Their tools, however, might also be used to track terrorists or hack an adversary spying on the United States. These researchers do not disclose the flaws to the companies responsible for the software, as the exploits’ value depends on the software remaining vulnerable.

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FBI Director James B. Comey has said that the solution works only on iPhone 5Cs running the iOS 9 operating system — what he calls a “narrow slice” of phones.



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-paid-professional-hackers-one-time-fee-to-crack-san-bernardino-iphone/2016/04/12/5397814a-00de-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html

[angrychair]

1. Their "solution" only proves Apple's point

Now hackers have a known working method to hack iPhones that is now, for all intent and purposes, in the wild. Hackers, no matter their hat, have a method. Great job asshats.

[FailureToCommunicate]

2. Whew! "The solution works only on iPhone 5Cs running iOS 9" "A narrow slice of phones"

Good. That "narrow slice" is only, like, a gazillion of the iPhones out there.

But I'm confident that the government won't snoop beyond that one phone, nor will the "gray hat" that they paid for the hack...