A United States magistrate judge in California has today directed that Apple must help the FBI break into the cell phone of the one go the men behind the fatal attacks in San Bernardino last December, NBC News reports. Last week, FBI Director James Comey complained that the government couldn’t break the encryption on the iPhone used by one of the gunmen.
At the time, it was unclear if the gunman used an iPhone or Android device, but today it has been confirmed that it was the former of the two and is an iPhone 5c. “We still have one of those killers’ phones that we haven’t been able to open. It has been two months and we are still working on it,” Comey said at the time. “I don’t want a back door. I would like people to comply with court orders,” he added.
“Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search, but has declined to provide that assistance voluntarily,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said in a 40-page filing today.
The filing goes on to say that Apple has to provide “reasonable technical assistance” to recover the gunman’s data and that it has five days to reply if it feels that doing so would be “unreasonably burdensome.”
In the filing, the court presents several methods that could be taken to access the data on the phone and in the gunman’s iCloud account. These methods include disabling the auto-erase function and allowing the FBI to attempt an unlimited number of passcodes to unlock the phone
Despite what the California judge says, Apple still likely won’t be able to access the device’s data. Last October, Apple told a federal judge that it has no way of accessing data on an iPhone that is locked with a passcode and running iOS 8 or later. Apple’s statement at the time came as a response to a request from the U.S. Justice Department asking if the company would help authorities access data on a seized iPhone.
With that said however, the filing claims that Apple has the “exclusive technical means” to allow the FBI to access the data on the smartphone:
“Despite … a warrant authorizing the search,” said prosecutors, “the government has been unable to complete the search because it cannot access the iPhone’s encrypted content. Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search, but has declined to provide that assistance voluntarily.”
Apple has long stood firm on its stance to not to give access to user data. Tim Cook has repeatedly spoken out against software backdoors.
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I can just see the Apple technicians standing around saying “I told you there is no way to crack it.”
can’t apple just change the iCloud password and login via another iphone to see text messages, etc? tada..
dude probably has 2 step verification enabled.
2 step verification can be disabled by Apple.
It depends on how the messages are encrypted. If the original password is the encryption key then changing the password won’t decrypt the original messages. I suspect it is something along these lines if Apple says they can’t decrypt the messages.
I don’t think Apple stores iMessages on iCloud — even if they do, they are end to end encrypted, and Apple does not have the key.
All iCloud user data is also encrypted, and Apple doesn’t keep the key to that on file either.
IMHO the only possible thing that could be done here is a brute force…and that’s not Apple’s job to help the FBI brute force passwords…
Does Apple have the ability to change an iCloud password tho? I didn’t think of that — if they can do that, it should give them access to any iCloud data then, right?
I know the data is encrypted but the password should decrypt it I would think?
The man that did it was probably smart and enabled automatically delete data after 9 passcode tries.
Good.
If Apple could access the data, anyone could do the same. Does it not intrude the privacy? Can Apple be doing it without anyone’s knowledge?
i really think that they have metods to do it, you can’t see apple source code so it’s posible a backdoor in IOS, and the goverment thinks they have means to do it. They are not stupid, they are FBI, they have a group of experts in the matter and reasons for think that i guess.
If they had the methods to do it, then they would do it due to this court order. As Tim has stated multiple times, it is encrypted and and even WE (Apple) don’t even have access to your stuff. No, the FBI is trying again for like the 20th time to MAKE Apple create a back door for them for iOS. They have been trying for last year or so and this is just another attempt at that. Plain and simple. No FBI is not stupid, just butt hurt that a corp is not giving them a private back door to spy on people without due process or just cause.
“i really think that they have metods to do it,”
Based on what evidence, exactly? Seeing as no security expert believes that is the case.
“They are not stupid, they are FBI”
*Facepalm*
hmmm….. in the future we will see every criminal, warlord etc using iPhones.
Or they can just use a cheap Android phone and install 3rd party Encryption that’s not under the control of the U.S. Government. Encryption used is really just MATH. Quite frankly, if they were really worried, Why would they trust something a U.S. Corporation was doing? Most of the time anyway these terrorists aren’t encryption anything. It’s all out in the open as plain as day and still hasn’t mattered.
If I sent my terrorist buddy a Text that said GO, No encryption, no nothing. Plain as day. What threat is that? Yet with that simple command, the BOMB plain and shooting rampage gets carried out. How would you stop that? Because so far it hasn’t been stopped. Will never be stopped. Bad things happens. Making 99% of the good people in the world giving up all their rights and risk fraud at best case to have a hole in Encryption where really, anyone who wants that backdoor key including the criminals will get it, won’t stop or change anything except making things worse for most everyone except the criminals.
What it’s really about is the Government just wanting to spy on EVERYONE!!! Something Hitler and the NAZI’S could only dream about!!! Easily spy on anyone and everyone. Someone you don’t like, throw in in a camp. You know what happens at that point.
I can not begin to describe how foolish this comment is — even if it was made in jest — warlords and terrorist groups have had their own in house tools for 15+ years. They don’t use stock consumer phones or services to communicate. They’re not idiots…
I’m glad the magistrate judge has such a good understanding of encryption. Groundbreaking. Someone should send him a high school level cryptography textbook.
His sentence should be to listen to every episode of the Security Now podcast.
There’s 2 possible ways – crack the passcode (which if the FBI can’t do, then how do they expect apple to?)
Or lift fingerprints of which you can make a silicone mold — this was done on youtube when the fingerprint reader first came to the iphone.
Apart from these…with no back door it is impossible to access.
If the gunman was stupid enough to use the same password as his apple ID account, that could work…apple store that (i think)
have they tried “password” or “12345678”???
The 5C doesn’t have a fingerprint reader.
I was gonna say, heh. If it did, you can bet they would have got in already.
They should make the account unreadable. Release the AppleID and crowdsource the password that opens the account.
It’s perfectly obvious that Apple CAN get the data. They dont like using it and force the legal system to force them to give them PR cover, but it exists. If the DIrectior of the FBI says that they have ‘exclusive technical ability” that would kind of suggest it exists!
Well, the article says that they want Apple to remove the limitation for trying out an unlimited number of passcodes. To me that sounds like they’ve accepted that Apple can’t decrypt an encrypted phone. And it does not imply that they are hoping apple is showing them some hidden backdoor.
Yea, I got it wrong. The letter now published by Apple to the public makes this clear.
Though i should add – the proposed solution to build a new os is an unfortunate work around , in sense it means there is a way – the data doesn’t freeze, it’s still allowing a new OS to be loaded do disabled the password lock limitation. Hope can build future solutions to disabled a software update being applied without verified user authorisation!
OR . . .They’re fishing! They are going to try FUD and get the sheeples to cry foul on Apple. Our Government at its finest!
Kind of suggests? I’ll take Apple’s word over Comey’s — he’s a proven scumbag and liar.
“Despite … a warrant authorizing the search,” said prosecutors, “the government has been unable to complete the search because it cannot access the iPhone’s encrypted content. Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search, but has declined to provide that assistance voluntarily.”
Apple’s Top Tech spends 40 continuous hours, sweating and cursing at the iPhone and just looks up and says, “Nope – I can’t get in. Sorry!”
Did you guys read this other article? http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/17/apple-fbi-court-order-method/
This is ridiculous… “Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search, but has declined to provide that assistance voluntarily,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said in a 40-page filing today.”
No, they don’t. They have said MULTIPLE times they can’t do it — these people are so ridiculous.
Wow, so many experts on here.
If you’d like to support Apple’s stance on privacy, there is a White House petition at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/apple-privacy-petition