Federal Bureau of Investigation

39 'Federal Bureau of Investigation' stories December 2011 - February 2016

Apple/FBI fight looks destined to go all the way to the Supreme Court as more background is revealed

Ben Lovejoy Feb 19 2016 - 5:00 am PT

If Tim Cook’s strongly-worded response to the court order instructing it to assist the FBI in breaking into an iPhone left any room for doubt about Apple’s determination to fight the matter all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, that doubt appears to be removed by further background emerging today.

The NY Times reports that Apple plans to press ahead with plans to increase its use of strong encryption.

Mr. Cook has told colleagues that he still stands by the company’s longstanding plans to encrypt everything stored on Apple’s myriad devices, services and in the cloud, where the bulk of data is still stored unencrypted.

“If you place any value on civil liberties, you don’t do what law enforcement is asking,” Mr. Cook has said.

The piece also reveals that Apple had asked the FBI to make its court application under seal – meaning that the legal arguments could be heard in private – but the FBI chose instead to make it a public fight …

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Civil rights groups and tech companies express support for Apple’s stand against the FBI

Ben Lovejoy Feb 18 2016 - 4:17 am PT

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Civil rights organizations have expressed strong support for Apple’s resistance to a court order instructing it to create special firmware that would allow the FBI to break into an iPhone – with tech companies doing the same, albeit in a weaker fashion.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) posted a statement in which it said that it applauded Apple for standing up for the rights of its customers, and would be making its views known to the court.

Essentially, the government is asking Apple to create a master key so that it can open a single phone. And once that master key is created, we’re certain that our government will ask for it again and again, for other phones, and turn this power against any software or device that has the audacity to offer strong security […]

EFF applauds Apple for standing up for real security and the rights of its customers. We have been fighting to protect encryption, and stop backdoors, for over 20 years. That’s why EFF plans to file an amicus brief in support of Apple’s position.

The Verge notes similar support from both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Amnesty International …

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Opinion: How likely is Apple to succeed in resisting the FBI court order?

Ben Lovejoy Feb 17 2016 - 7:49 am PT

77 Comments

I laid out the three reasons I believe Apple is right to stand firm on encryption back in November. The tl;dr version was in the summary.

So weakening encryption would mean sacrificing core principles of civilized societies in the name of security. It would provide not just our own government but foreign governments and criminals with access to our data. And it would do absolutely nothing to prevent terrorists from communicating in secret.

Gratifyingly, 93% of you agreed with me. But much as you and I both think Apple is right, the company now appears to be in an extremely tricky position. Not only does it have a court order instructing it to assist the FBI in breaking into one specific phone, but it appears very likely that it has the technical ability to comply with this order.

Tim Cook currently remains defiant, but how likely is it that Apple could succeed in fighting the order … ?

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Federal judge asks Apple to explain why decrypting iPhones would be “unduly burdensome” as tactic to open debate

Ben Lovejoy Oct 12 2015 - 4:50 am PT

17 Comments

A New York federal judge has indicated that he is likely to refuse a government request to compel Apple to unlock a customer’s iPhone, but will first ask Apple to explain why decrypting iPhones would be “unduly burdensome.” The iPhone concerned is apparently not running iOS 8 or 9, and so Apple would have the technical ability to decrypt it.

The Washington Post reports that Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York is an activist judge who is believed to be attempting to open up public debate on the issue of privacy versus law enforcement …
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Apple to hand back $4.2M to LAUSD to settle failed ‘iPad for every student’ program

Ben Lovejoy Sep 29 2015 - 6:39 am PT

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Apple has agreed to repay $4.2M to settle a claim by the L.A. Unified School District over the disastrous attempt to put an iPad into the hands of every student, reports the Los Angeles Times. It was first reported back in April that the LAUSD might take legal action against Apple to recoup the money spent on iPads for the program. Apple had initially expected to earn $30M from the first phase, a number that would have reached around a quarter of a billion dollars if the rollout had been completed as originally planned.

The first sign of trouble emerged when students managed to bypass the restrictions designed to ensure the devices could be used only for school work, but that was only the start. The LAUSD was accused of having miscalculated the cost of the program, resulting in its suspension and later abandonment.

Both the FBI and the SEC were called in to investigate allegations of corruption, and a federal review concluded that the entire project had been doomed from the start.

The Board of Education is expected to vote on whether or not to finalize Apple’s settlement offer. If so, nearly all the money repaid by Apple will be used to buy computers through a fresh program.

Image: Huffington Post

DOJ and FBI officials say Apple & other tech companies ‘winning PR battle’ over data privacy

Ben Lovejoy Sep 8 2015 - 4:25 am PT

13 Comments

Some law enforcement officials are frustrated that Apple and other tech companies appear to be winning the PR battle over data privacy, reports the NYT.

Some Justice and F.B.I. officials have been frustrated that the White House has not moved more quickly or been more outspoken in the public relations fight that the tech companies appear to be winning, the law enforcement officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private conversations.

The comments came in the wake of a DOJ drugs and guns investigation where the agency obtained a court order to obtain iMessages between suspects, and Apple responded that it was unable to comply as end-to-end encryption is used, meaning that Apple has no way to decrypt the communications. Tim Cook said of iMessages a year ago that the content is “encrypted and we don’t have the key.”

There has long been tension between Apple and law enforcement agencies over encryption, Apple arguing that its customers right to privacy outweighs the right of law enforcement agencies to intercept communications – a stance strengthened by the Snowden revelations into large-scale electronic surveillance by governments. Law enforcement officials have become increasingly strident and hyperbolic in their statements on the subject.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder said last year that less stringent protection would still “adequately protect personal privacy,” FBI Director James Comey claimed that Apple’s encryption was “putting people beyond the law,” the DOJ suggested that iPhone encryption could eventually lead to the death of a child” and Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr, said that the iPhone would be “the terrorists’ communication device of choice.”

Apple among those asking Obama to reject calls for government access to encrypted data

Ben Lovejoy May 19 2015 - 4:04 am PT

8 Comments

Apple and Google have co-signed a letter calling on President Obama to reject any government proposal to allow the government backdoor access to encrypted data on smartphones and other devices. The Washington Post says the letter, due to be delivered today, is signed by more than 140 tech companies, prominent technologists and civil society groups.

The signatories urge Obama to follow the group’s unanimous recommendation that the government should “fully support and not undermine efforts to create encryption standards” and not “in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable” commercial software.

Apple uses end-to-end encryption for iMessages, meaning that Apple has no way to access the data even if presented with a court order. Tim Cook stated last year “it’s encrypted, and we don’t have the key.”

The FBI has been pushing increasingly hard to require tech companies to build in backdoor access to their encryption systems to allow access by law enforcement, even going so far as to say that Apple could be responsible for the death of a child. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has also cited child safety as a justification for demanding access to encrypted data.

The letter calling on Obama to reject this argument is also signed by five members of a presidential review group appointed by Obama in 2013 to assess technology policies in the wake of leaks by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Many in the tech industry have pointed out that, aside from the obvious concerns over government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens, any backdoor used by the government could potentially be discovered and exploited by hackers and foreign governments.

L.A. Unified School District may sue Apple for “millions of dollars” over failed iPad project

Ben Lovejoy Apr 16 2015 - 4:38 am PT

19 Comments

The Los Angeles Unified School District is exploring the possibility of litigation against Apple over the failed project intended to provide every student with an iPad, reports the LA Times.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is seeking to recoup millions of dollars from technology giant Apple over a problem-plagued curriculum that was provided with iPads intended to be given to every student, teacher and administrator.

The project ran into early problems when students figured out how to bypass the restrictions designed to ensure the devices could be used only for school work, shortly before the district was accused of having miscalculated the cost of the program. The program was suspended last year, and later abandoned after deciding iPads were the wrong device. This was far from the end of the story, however …
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LA Unified School District ‘iPad for every student’ plan doomed from the start, says federal review

Ben Lovejoy Jan 13 2015 - 4:08 am PT

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A federal review of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s plan to give an iPad to every one of its 640,000 students concluded that it was plagued by problems right from the start, reports the LA Times.

The report criticizes the scheme for unclear goals, use of school construction bonds to fund the scheme, failure to consider cheaper options, lack of teacher training, failure to upgrade Internet connections, poor security and poor support for lesson-planning around the iPads. So, er, pretty much everything, really.

“Among the most significant gaps we identified was the absence of district-wide instructional technology leadership,” the report stated.

The first public glitch in the program was when students figured out how to bypass the security restrictions designed to limit the devices to educational use. Next it was suggested that the school district had gotten its sums wrong on the true cost of the scheme.

A subsequent review backtracked on the plan to standardize on iPads, before the program was suspended and then permanently closed as the FBI opened an investigation into whether any laws had been broken.

Apple remains strongly committed to the education sector, last October creating a microsite to highlight its support for the ConnectED program focused on bringing Internet access and technology to schools in need. Tim Cook said in July of last year that Apple has an 85% share of the tablet market within US education.

One third of Americans have improved their online security since the iCloud hacks

Ben Lovejoy Sep 8 2014 - 5:47 am PT

27 Comments

A YouGov survey of more than 1,000 American consumers commissioned by security company Tresorit found that just over a third of them have taken steps to beef-up their online security in response to the iCloud hacks.

The most common response was to change passwords for stronger ones, with 13 percent creating different passwords for each online service and 6 percent enabling two-step verification …
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FBI investigating alleged iCloud celebrity hack as Reddit ‘suspect’ declares innocence

Ben Lovejoy Sep 2 2014 - 4:11 am PT

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The FBI is now leading the investigation into the alleged iCloud hack in which nude photographs of a number of celebrities were obtained, reports the Telegraph. FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller said:

[The FBI is] aware of the allegations concerning computer intrusions and the unlawful release of material involving high profile individuals, and is addressing the matter. Any further comment would be inappropriate at this time.

It has been suggested that a vulnerability in the Find My Phone service may have allowed attackers to brute-force passwords in order to access the iCloud accounts of celebrities …
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Apple says it didn’t give FBI UDIDs, soon replacing and banning the use of UDIDs

Jordan Kahn Sep 5 2012 - 9:52 am PT

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After a denial from the FBI, Apple finally confirmed in a statement to AllThingsD that it did not give any UDIDs to the FBI, nor did the FBI request the information from Apple. Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris also confirmed iOS 6 would introduce a new set of APIs that both replace and ban UDIDs:

“The FBI has not requested this information from Apple, nor have we provided it to the FBI or any organization. Additionally, with iOS 6 we introduced a new set of APIs meant to replace the use of the UDID and will soon be banning the use of UDID,” said Apple spokesperson, Natalie Kerris.

Why is the FBI carrying around a file with 12M Apple user UDIDs? (and is yours one of them?)

Élyse Betters Sep 4 2012 - 6:11 am PT

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Update: The FBI has issued a denial

HackerNews linked last night to a Pastbin file, which is a long-rambling diatribe by hacker group AntiSec, that eventually said the group infiltrated an FBI laptop in March and was able to download files off the machine. One of those files, NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv, contained more than 1 million Apple UDIDs, but the group claimed to have over 12 million UDIDs and other personal information, which it apparently gathered after breaching the Dell Vostro of an FBI operative.

During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of “NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv” turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc.

“NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv” looks like it stands for the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, which “functions as a conduit between private industry and law enforcement.” (http://www.ncfta.net/)

Apple previously said it would limit developer access to UDIDs, but the Pastebin post asserted AntiSec published the identifiers, after first leaving out full names, cell numbers and addresses, to warn folks about the FBI tracking U.S. citizens with the mobile data.

Fun Fact: 166 devices in the data set are named “Titanic” or “The Titanic” because of the “Titanic is syncing” joke.

Cydia creater Saurik took to Hacker News to note that it is unlikely that the source was from jailbreaking:

I run Cydia, and have determined only 16.7% of the UDIDs in that file are from jailbroken devices: I thereby do not believe that whatever managed to get this data is anywhere in our ecosystem.

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Steve Jobs’ FBI file reveals he’d been considered for a Bush 1 White House ‘sensitive position’ in 1991

9to5 Staff Feb 9 2012 - 7:05 am PT

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Federal Bureau of Investigation has posted on its website an interesting and exhaustive file on Apple’s Cofounder and late CEO Steve Jobs. According to Gawker, which first spotted the file, the 191-page document reveals that Jobs was considered for a “sensitive position” in the Bush I White House back in 1991. It also contains results of an investigation into a 1985 bomb threat against Jobs.

How did Jobs do in High School? 2.65 GPA – hallmark of all geniuses.

An excerpt also includes comments from several people who noted Jobs’ reality distortion field, included right below.

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CarrierIQ comes clean how a “bug” caused unintentional collection of text messages, while FBI rejects requests for transparency

9to5 Staff Dec 13 2011 - 6:32 am PT

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In a matter of less than two weeks, the Carrier IQ controversy blew up and became the mainstream topic in national newspapers and evening newscast. The idea that over a hundred million cell phone owners weren’t aware of an app that secretly collect personal information without their consent has had privacy advocates cry foul.

Making the privacy scare even more scary, The Federal Bureau of Investigation refused to release information about its own use of Carrier IQ in response to the request under the Freedom of Information Act filed December 1 by Michael Morisy. David Hardy, who’s with the Bureau, replied:

The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure. I have determined that the records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; that there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records.

That the agency wasn’t forthcoming to Morisy’s request to release any manuals and documents outlining their use of data gathered by Carrier IQ only serves to underscore the lack of transparency on their part, if not a waste of taxpayers’ money. That’s not to say that Big Brother is monitoring your calls or eavesdropping on your messaging all the time, but the Bureau clearly has had this capability for a long time and could be working with Carrier IQ to downplay the media outrage.

UPDATE: Carrier IQ reacted to the FBI statement, telling VentureBeat it doesn’t don’t give your data to the FBI or any other law enforcement for that matter. “Just to clarify all of the media frenzy around the FBI, Carrier IQ has never provided any data to the FBI”, a company spokesperson said.

As we repeatedly stressed, Carrier IQ is the mobile industry’s worst kept secret. Carrier IQ CEO Larry Lenhart and vice president of marketing Andrew Coward sat down with AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski to discuss the controversial data mining software. In damage control mode, the two executives pretty much admitted to Carrier IQ’s keylogger-like capabilities and sucking your SMS messages into the cloud…

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