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[chadskin]

The Justice Department is expected to withdraw from its legal action against Apple Inc., as soon as today, as an outside method to bypass the locking function of a San Bernardino terrorist’s phone has proved successful, a federal law enforcement official said Monday.

The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said the method brought to the FBI earlier this month by an unidentified entity allows investigators to crack the security function without erasing contents of the iPhone used by Syed Farook, who with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the December mass shooting that left 14 dead.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/03/28/apple-justice-department-farook/82354040/

Update: Confirmed.

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

John McAfee saved the day!

 

[Deft Beck]

And the lock remains closed.

EDIT: Oh, they got through.

 

[captive]

1) so much for the "this is just to set a precedent" argument.
2) so much for apples phones being secure.

 

[DragonSworne]

Can we impeach all the congressmen and congresswomen that wanted to force Apple to comply?

 

[iMax]

Well that's rather worrying.

 

[Feep]

Somewhere, a hacker may have made an incredible amount of money.

 

[LiK]

yea, good. apparently some Israeli tech company is gonna open it for them from news reports.

 

[hypernima]

probably used that thing on Twitter, provided it was prepatch

 

[IdreamofHIME]

So now they have an unofficial key? Well that's much safer than Apple helping...

 

[Risette]

1) so much for the "this is just to set a precedent" argument.
2) so much for apples phones being secure.

It was an older version of iOS with known security vulnerabilities on a pre-Secure Enclave phone. Not really a surprise.

And yeah, it was just to set a precedent or they wouldn't have tried to take it to court, because it was always breakable because of the above.

 

[Deleted member 80556]

Good. I wonder if we'll get to the point where it's going to happen again.

Can we impeach all the congressmen that wanted to force Apple to comply?

Haha.

 

[Sir Abacus]

2) so much for apples phones being secure.

It's a 5C. It has a much older A6.

 

[KingBroly]

And now we wait for the impending all-encompassing legislation that will propose the exact same thing.

 

[Dan]

1) so much for the "this is just to set a precedent" argument.

Don't kid yourself, they'll try again with a better case.

 

[iMax]

CNBC reporting that the phone "remains locked".

 

[akira28]

is it over? it's never over.

i'm pretty sure they can get what they need from a bit for bit copy though.

 

[Matt]

Can we impeach all the congressmen and congresswomen that wanted to force Apple to comply?

...for what?

 

[massoluk]

Sound like all those efforts by Apple and other tech co are futile actually. The DoJ solution sounds simple enough, just make multiple dumps of the phone and brute force it if I read it right.

 

[LyleLanley]

Somewhere, a hacker may have made an incredible amount of money.

I believe the Israeli company that did this charged them $15,000.

 

[metalslimer]

This will pop up again but I'm glad they backed off

 

[wiibomb]

1) so much for the "this is just to set a precedent" argument.
2) so much for apples phones being secure.

1) this was a good precedent indeed, just that there were never a judge verdict to set it on stone.

2) this is most likely an exploit from the OS, which is never the same as making a software to get inside the phone in all OS, like a kind of perma hidden exploit.

I knew they could get inside without forcing a company to expose all of its users, so I'm happy about the outcome, but I'm sure it will not be the last of it, there will be more of this nonsense in the future

 

[iMax]

Scratch that, the phone is now officially unlocked.

https://twitter.com/MikeScarcella/status/714569996198944768

 

[Weckum]

1) so much for the "this is just to set a precedent" argument.
2) so much for apples phones being secure.

It's an older phone with an older version of iOS. This won't work on newer iPhones.

 

[Brian Griffin]

What's the chance they are just bullshitting to save face and not have the entire tech industry against them?

 

[Baron von Loathsome]

Yay?

 

[Guevara]

Betcha the FBI will claim to find something super important on the phone.

 

[SURGEdude]

1) so much for the "this is just to set a precedent" argument.
2) so much for apples phones being secure.

1. The FBI was losing this high profile PR battle. So they will wait for another chance and hope they don't get embarrassed again.

2. Nothing is totally secure. If they find a way to crack something then. Fine with me.

 

[Cipherr]

Jackasses.

You just know they are going to duck and wait to try and find another way to do this where the public won't know about it.

 

[ReAxion]

1) so much for the "this is just to set a precedent" argument.
2) so much for apples phones being secure.

It was only about precedent, when the emotional plea wasn't working, they quit.
Use a complex passcode.

Well that's rather worrying.

Vulnerabilities are always going to exist. This will be patched once Apple finds out what it was.

 

[Sir Abacus]

So now they have an unofficial key?

The only way the have a master key is if they found a hole in the bootrom.

I'm guessing it was memory mirroring since the A6 based iPhone doesn't have the key stored in a secure enclave, only a unique UID key.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Hopefully Apple is already working on the update to completely close themselves off from exploiting encryption, because this shit will pop up again.

 

[cDNA]

What's the chance they are just bullshitting to save face and not have the entire tech industry against them?

A congress committee is investigating that case and they are on record saying they don't have access to the phone, now they will have to update the congress about it.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

The government continues to show its inefficiencies. All they really should have done is threaten Apple's overseas tax havens and Apple would have surrendered the key.

 

[massoluk]

Pretty sure, they dump the images and just bruteforce it, so I don't think even Apple can patch it to deal with this workaround.

 

[Broken Joystick]

I believe the Israeli company that did this charged them $15,000.

$15,000 for typing 0000.

What a deal.

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

The government continues to show its inefficiencies. All they really should have done is threaten Apple's overseas tax havens and Apple would have surrendered the key.

"surrender the key" isn't even close to what was going on in this case.

 

[Sir Abacus]

Pretty sure, they dump the images and just bruteforce it, so I don't think I patch can deal with this workaround.

You can't brute force a 256-bit AES key. Straight out. We're talking more computational time than available in the universe.

The A6 keeps a lot of the passcode state information on the NAND because it doesn't have a secure enclave like A7 and later CPUs. You take the NAND, duplicate it, try your 10 tries, let it erase itself, replace the NAND with a duplicate copy, try again with your next 10 tries. Repeat until you have the passcode.

This doesn't work on an A7 because the keys and passcode state is hardware enforced by the secure enclave and not by the OS.

 

[captive]

It was an older version of iOS with known security vulnerabilities on a pre-Secure Enclave phone. Not really a surprise.

And yeah, it was just to set a precedent or they wouldn't have tried to take it to court, because it was always breakable because of the above.

It's a 5C. It has a much older A6.

Don't kid yourself, they'll try again with a better case.

1) this was a good precedent indeed, just that there were never a judge verdict to set it on stone.

2) this is most likely an exploit from the OS, which is never the same as making a software to get inside the phone in all OS, like a kind of perma hidden exploit.

I knew they could get inside without forcing a company to expose all of its users, so I'm happy about the outcome, but I'm sure it will not be the last of it, there will be more of this nonsense in the future

It's an older phone with an older version of iOS. This won't work on newer iPhones.

1. The FBI was losing this high profile PR battle. So they will wait for another chance and hope they don't get embarrassed again.

2. Nothing is totally secure. If they find a way to crack something then. Fine with me.

It was only about precedent, when the emotional plea wasn't working, they quit.
Use a complex passcode.



Vulnerabilities are always going to exist. This will be patched once Apple finds out what it was.

That's all well and good, if it was for precedent why not keep the case going.

Also it doesn't matter of its am old phone that's not what apple and Tim cook's pr was saying about how apple views their phones and software.

 

[akira28]

Pretty sure, they dump the images and just bruteforce it, so I don't think even Apple can patch it to deal with this workaround.

encrypted pingback server. or basically a routine that asks "am i real? am i real?" and if it determines its a copy it fucks its encryption irretrievably.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

"surrender the key" isn't even close to what was going on in this case.

It was a euphemism for they would have jumped through every hoop imaginable to help the government if it was to protect their billions overseas. And it was tongue-in-cheek anyway.

 

[ReAxion]

Pretty sure, they dump the images and just bruteforce it, so I don't think even Apple can patch it to deal with this workaround.

They patch whatever vulnerability allowed the disabling of wiping the data after 10 wrong guesses.

That's all well and good, if it was for precedent why not keep the case going.

Also it doesn't matter of its am old phone that's not what apple and Tim cook's pr was saying about how apple views their phones and software.

They can't keep the case going. The fundamental reason to coerce Apple into writing a special OS for the government was the government's claim that they can't do it by themselves, that only Apple can help. It wasn't true then and it's certainly not true now.

 

[Jezbollah]

Hopefully Apple is already working on the update to completely close themselves off from exploiting encryption, because this shit will pop up again.

You are assuming whoever that unlocked the phone and the FBI are going to help apple by disclosing how they did it and the vulnerability they used.

.. And do you think the unlockers or the FBI are going to help Apple, when Apple refused to help them?

We had better hope this was an old vulnerability/exposure fixed in a later IOS version and not something new that hasn't been addressed..

 

[Maxim726X]

Betcha the FBI will claim to find something super important on the phone.

... Would that be so hard to believe?

 

[Lord Error]

Sound like all those efforts by Apple and other tech co are futile actually. The DoJ solution sounds simple enough, just make multiple dumps of the phone and brute force it if I read it right.

Something like that yeah. I've read about the NAND mirroring that can be used for a thing like that which might be the same thing. I'm not even sure a more contemporary hardware would be resistant to that kind of attack.

 

[Antiwhippy]

This is important though. Security can be improved, but it's very hard to take back precedent of being forced to comply with the Justice department.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

You are assuming whoever that unlocked the phone and the FBI are going to help apple by disclosing how they did it and the vulnerability they used.

.. And do you think the unlockers or the FBI are going to help Apple, when Apple refused to help them?

We had better hope this was an old vulnerability/exposure fixed in a later IOS version and not something new that hasn't been addressed..

I'm not talking about this exploit, I'm talking about removing the ability to apply an OS build without the input limit to a locked phone. That's what the FBI was asking Apple to produce.

 

[Dishwalla]

Yay! Good for Cupertino for standing their ground!

 

[Sir Abacus]

Something like that yeah. I've read about the NAND mirroring that can be used for a thing like that which might be the same thing. I'm not even sure a more contemporary hardware would be resistant to that kind of attack.

It is more resistant. All of the encryption and passcode enforcement is moved over to the Secure Enclave in the A7 and later. It makes a memory mirroring attack impossible. As soon as the 10 tries are up the SE nukes the class keys (which can't even be read by the CPU) and the NAND is unrecoverable.

 

[ReAxion]

You are assuming whoever that unlocked the phone and the FBI are going to help apple by disclosing how they did it and the vulnerability they used.

.. And do you think the unlockers or the FBI are going to help Apple, when Apple refused to help them?

Why would Apple help them with any other cases then? FBI is gonna have to play ball if they want help anywhere else.