Apple Unlocking iPhones vs US Government

Apple, FBI, and the Burden of Forensic Methodology. Is it a kind of the CSI effect when dealing with forensic tools?

I really do wish that we could stop calling this a back door. To me, back door denotes some sort of illegal hacking. I want a front door, but I know that can only come with a Search Warrant supported by probable cause.

Companies are not in business to support law enforcement investigations, but I never really thought they were in business to thwart them either.

I don't believe we need to wait for Apple to develop anything when they have everything they need right now.

I don't know the exact version of iOS when Apple stated only the end user could access a locked device, but there was a version just prior to that.

I would think they could push out an update that now allowed them to be able to access the phones, like they can't now???, and make it mandatory. They could also give everyone a set time period to download the update or their phones would be unsupported.

I dont see the general public throwing their iOS into the trash bins over this, but while the public does want mobile phone security I also believe they would think law enforcement should be able to access a device with a search warrant. They certainly don't want to hear that law enforcement cant access a terrorist's phone.

I'm somewhat surprised Apple hasn't come out and said "Ok, but we will charge $100 per phone." Who knows what the future holds….

The news about the change of i-cloud password after the device was already seized add some further spice to the issue
http//www.wired.com/2016/02/apple-says-the-government-bungled-its-chance-to-hack-that-iphone/?

Shortly after the phone in question was seized from an SUV belonging to Farook and his wife, someone changed an Apple ID that might have allowed the phone to back up data to iCloud—which would have given the government a chance to seize the data with a court order. But because that ID was changed, there is no chance the phone could have ever backed up additional data to iCloud, a senior Apple executive said on a call today with reporters.

When asked who changed that ID, the executive said that the government indicated it was someone who worked for the county, but that he didn’t know the identity of that worker. However, this presumably would have been an IT worker for the county who supplied the phone to Farook.

The government touched on this detail in a motion it filed with the court today but placed it only in a lengthy footnote at the bottom of one page. The government also didn’t acknowledge in the footnote that this was likely the best chance it had of retrieving the data it wanted from the phone.

jaclaz

I really do wish that we could stop calling this a back door.

Fully agree. It's not even a back door in technical terms, it's exploitation. They have a device which is somewhere between secure and insecure out of the factory, depending on your adversary. For the manufacturer, this iPhone is easily accessible to prepare a brute force attack.

I'm not an expert for US law, but I think, it is entirely possible to hold a third party responsible for reasonable efforts in such cases. Apple is to be compensated for these efforts. Apple refuses because of post-Snowden hysteria and related PR issues.

I really do wish that we could stop calling this a back door.

Fully agree. It's not even a back door in technical terms, it's exploitation.

Technically fair observations and I don't have a problem with those terms. It might be though others might think this is being a little bit semantically picky. It is possibly far too late in the day to only now start the conversion of institutions (ITU, ETSI, 3GPP etc. that use the term back-door, since 2000) and the media and non-technical people to start now using "front-doors" or "exploitation" with regards to Apple iPhone 5C.

Technically fair observations and I don't have a problem with those terms. It might be though others might think this is being a little bit semantically picky.

However, it's not only about a semantic nuance but the essential qualitative difference between a state enacted ex ante weakening of a reasonably secure device before it is placed on the market or used, aka back door, and the subsequent access to an originally insecure device. It is an essential difference not only technically but for the legal and civil rights implications.

While I'm not aware of ITU, ETSI or 3GPP using the term back door the wrong way, it's just my observation that media and their "advising" activism groups predictably choose those terms which make the actual, wrongly described undertaking seem the most aggressive, illegitimate or associable with actually illegitimate intents.

I don't have an issue with your term merely, however, such qualification would require you to go out and change the millions of published words at maybe hundreds of thousands of newspapers, website, new broadcasts etc. etc.

Technically fair observations and I don't have a problem with those terms. It might be though others might think this is being a little bit semantically picky.

However, it's not only about a semantic nuance but the essential qualitative difference between a state enacted ex ante weakening of a reasonably secure device before it is placed on the market or used, aka back door, and the subsequent access to an originally insecure device. It is an essential difference not only technically but for the legal and civil rights implications.

So you are in court and you give, as the technical witness in the witness box, the above definition. The Judge asks, ok so what is "aka back door" then if it is not another word being used for exploitation?

While I'm not aware of ITU, ETSI or 3GPP using the term back door the wrong way

1 Introduction

With appropriate equipment it may be possible to perform hijacking attacks on a not-ciphered GPRS radio link. Appropriate equipment consists of a combination of a modified base station and a modified mobile station. Hijacking attacks are attacks whereby an intruder inserts his packets on radio resource allocated to a genuine user.

As an effective countermeasure, SMG10 (Oct. '97, and again in Jan. '00) have proposed to make encryption mandatory for GPRS. Mandatory encryption however would prevent world-wide deployment of GPRS (without any non-standard additions), as some countries restrict the use of encryption and to other countries the export of network equipment with the appropriate algorithms is restricted, or – which is more likely due to the importance of the market that is involved – it would make vendors build in there equipment a "back-door" which would result in the fact that encryption is only mandatory "in the specification" but not in reality.

The statement above was made by Siemens a world leader in wireless networks and devices. No mention of the word exploitation. The act Siemens mentions could appear an aggressive, illegitimate etc "intention" to subvert for a vendor's own gain (perhaps) whilst deployed in the field by creating a back door to overcome encryption possibly designated by laws?

If you cannot prevent wrong-doing of words created and used by common people in millions, the only way may is to extend the term to make it more precise.

A 'device-customized' backdoor would sound better but in fact is untrue because Apple can do this again and again. The creator knows all about his creature. But people in general simplify words in areas they feel not familiar with. How many people still speak about 'Antivirus'? The majority for a long time are trojans and worms as part of malware, no more viruses.

And to complete The Islamic State called itself ISIS and the U.S. tried to implement the term 'dash'. Did not work, too late. So either starting immediately to pull of another term or to control the media globally.

If something new calls itself X and stays alive! then it always can say 'My name is X'? The more a term is multiplied in media and simpler to understand, the more people adapt it. Back is clear and door too, so backdoor is most simple for everyone.

No wisdom, just my view

So you are in court and you give, as the technical witness in the witness box, the above definition. The Judge asks, ok so what is "aka back door" then if it is not another word being used for exploitation?

Highly unlikely that a judge will ask this, since I gave him this broad hint in my wording, and jurists have so much joy in distinguishing ex ante and ex post perspectives, which is the entire point here.

The statement above was made by Siemens a world leader in wireless networks and devices. No mention of the word exploitation.

This is because they are talking about a back door that vendors - on request by a government - generally and preemptively to any tangible government access put into their products on an entire market to render the mobile network encryption ineffective for every single user. It doesn't make more sense to call such a back door exploitation than vice versa.

By far not only technical statements use "back door" correctly. In most cases, media and laymen, such as those concerned teenagers who populate IT forums and need to be NSA-safe nowadays, are spot on when talking about back doors in the fear of some kind of Clipper Chip or manipulated proprietary encryption software. Some politicians bring up the idea of "back doors" when they really mean back doors, which both isn't helpful at all. Media are right in criticising such proposals, since they represent a massive governmental intervention to the disadvantage of ordinary citizens and economy.
In this case, there is no such intervention. The authorities just want to take advantage of the given weak security implementation that enables Apple to switch off security functions and that Apple put into their iPhones without any government interference.
Of course, Apple's assistance also affects the entire market, since it can be devolved to any already sold iPhone in past and future cases. But the root cause for this is not government interference, no back door, but Apple's design choice and consumer preference for the intrinsically weak product. The Apple statement in this context is ridiculous, effectively saying "As long as we don't program the exploitation tool, there is no vulnerability."

The news about the change of i-cloud password after the device was already seized add some further spice to the issue
http//www.wired.com/2016/02/apple-says-the-government-bungled-its-chance-to-hack-that-iphone/?

Quoting myself, just to say "as expected"
http//www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=5695

In a letter emailed from FBI Press Relations in the Los Angeles Field Office, the FBI admitted to performing a reckless and forensically unsound password change that they acknowledge interfered with Apple’s attempts to re-connect Farook’s iCloud backup service.
…
Either the FBI has recklessly interfered with the processing of evidence OR FBI has mislead the courts on the amount and the nature of assistance required by Apple under the All Writs Act.

jaclaz