Associated Press, Gannett, Vice sue FBI for San Bernardino iPhone hack details

Posted on by Jules Wang

The highest-profile battle over privacy and technology has not ended. In fact, it may have only just begun with a lawsuit filed by three news organizations against the FBI.You may recall that the agency wanted Apple to decrypt an iPhone 5c in the possession of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the perpetrators of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, that killed 14 people and wounded 24 others. Farook and co-perpetrator, wife Tashfeen Malik, were killed shortly after their attack. The FBI claimed it ...

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Can India crack an iPhone? It thinks so

Posted on by Jules Wang

Who knows more than the FBI when it comes to breaking into iPhones? Police from Los Angeles. Maybe even India.Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad responded to a question about encryption by saying that “a tool for mobile forensics has been developed, which handles smart phones including Apple phones.”It is not known to what degree the tool works or if it ...

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FBI paid less than previously reported for iPhone hack (but still probably way, waaaay too much)

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

The story of the FBI’s efforts to access the iPhone 5c in its San Bernardino terrorism investigation may seem like it’s over – and has been over for weeks, following the agency dropping its efforts to force Apple to help break into the phone – but the story keeps going strong. And why wouldn’t it? This one has it all: technology, civil liberties, national security – we could go on. And even with the meat of the story wrapped up, we’re continuing to learn more and more about how this all went down. Last ...

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Cracking an iPhone ain’t cheap: FBI reveals the big bucks it paid for iPhone 5c access

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

The FBI would have loved to get Apple’s help in breaking into the iPhone 5c from its San Bernardino terrorism investigation, but Apple wasn’t playing ball. And before the courts could sort out just how much assistance the government could legally demand from the iPhone maker, the FBI backed out of the proceedings, claiming that it had managed to get into the smartphone without Apple at all. The agency’s been keeping tight-lipped about exactly who helped it access the phone in question, but ...

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FBI reportedly finds nothing of ‘real significance’ on decrypted iPhone 5c

Posted on by Adrian Diaconescu

In addition to setting a dangerous precedent, compromising decades of diligent work in the service of user privacy protection, and possibly building a master key for all of the world’s iPhones that could always fall into the wrong hands, Apple’s supporters in its FBI ...

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New report claims gray hat hackers, not Cellebrite, helped crack San Bernardino iPhone

Posted on by Adrian Diaconescu

Apple might never get to find out exactly how law enforcement managed to elude its “impenetrable” iOS encryption on an iPhone 5c owned by a San Bernardino shooter at the time of the heinous 2015 attack, but another important piece of the unlocking puzzle may have just been uncovered.Forget everything you thought you knew about the nature and authors of ...

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FBI’s “outside party” suspected to be cracking iPhone 6

Posted on by Jules Wang

Leonardo Fabbretti lost his adopted son, Dama, to bone cancer late last year. The grieving father wanted to see what was on his son’s iPhone 6, but he wasn’t able to access the contents of it. Even though Dama registered his dad’s fingerprint for Touch ID, a restart occurred and required passcode entry — a passcode Fabbretti didn’t know. After months of conversations with Apple support and

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Recently unsealed court docs reveal more Apple resistance to unlock orders

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

The conflicts that exist between tech companies and government forces over encryption and access to user data aren’t going away anytime soon, and even as we sort through the aftermath of the FBI and DOJ’s run-in with Apple over the San Bernardino iPhone, more and more news of similar showdowns in courtrooms across the nation are coming to light. Today we’re learning of another recent ...

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Apple can rest easy: FBI hack won’t work on modern iPhones

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

When the government announced late last month that it no longer needed Apple’s help to break into a locked iPhone 5c handset, we found ourselves left with more questions than answers. Would Apple face similar legal pressure in the future, the next time an encrypted device found itself tied to a terrorism investigation? Was there actually anything worth finding on the iPhone central to this case? And how exactly did the FBI ultimately crack its way in? It may be some time before ...

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Apple can rest easy: FBI hack won’t work on modern iPhones

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

When the government announced late last month that it no longer needed Apple’s help to break into a locked iPhone 5c handset, we found ourselves left with more questions than answers. Would Apple face similar legal pressure in the future, the next time an encrypted device found itself tied to a terrorism investigation? Was there actually anything worth finding on the iPhone central to this case? And how exactly did the FBI ultimately crack its way in? It may be some time before ...

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FBI iPhone hack update: not saying if it found anything, while senators learn attack details

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Late last month, the saga of the FBI and its locked iPhone 5c reached what seemed like an uneventful end, as the government backed down from its demands that Apple help break its own product in an effort to discover what, if any useful information might be stored on a handset once owned by terrorists. After Apple’s big legal showdown fizzled out, where are we left? In the time since the feds told Apple they wouldn’t be needing its help after all, we’ve continued to follow this story and its ...

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Apple to publicize fix to FBI decryption method that is likely to leak

Posted on by Jules Wang

An Arkansas prosecutor’s office was the first local law enforcement agency to request the FBI’s help to decrypt a case-critical iPhone. It’s expected to be the first of many — we know of quite a few requests for Apple to decrypt iPhones that may be retracted and sent instead to the FBI.“As has been our longstanding policy, the FBI will of course consider any tool that ...

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ACLU: at least 76 All Writs Act Orders taken on iPhones, Android phones since 2008

Posted on by Jules Wang

The FBI may be done asking Apple to crack into an iPhone 5c from San Bernardino for it. Apple wants the agency to give up getting its engineers to decrypt an iPhone in Brooklyn.But it’s not just the FBI that has asked help with accessing data from case-critical iPhones. And ...

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Apple still doesn’t know how the FBI cracked its iPhone 5c, and it may never find out

Posted on by Adrian Diaconescu

Oh, how it must sting that Apple needs law enforcement cooperation now, after so many adamant refusals of its own assistance in a very delicate and complex terrorist attack investigation! But hands down the most ironic thing about this point of ...

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Justice Department lets Apple off the hook: feds unlock iPhone without Apple’s help

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

The past month and a half have been a wild one for Apple, the FBI, digital security pundits, and users concerned with their privacy, as we followed the government’s efforts to break into an encrypted iPhone 5c handset involved in a terrorism case. Apple was initially ordered to produce software that would enable the FBI to easily brute force its way into the phone, but Apple fought back, preparing for a legal showdown with broad consequences. We were all ready to see Apple get its day in court last ...

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