A few more details re: the FBI vs. Apple case
A conspiracy minded person might wonder how much the FBI and NSA knew about the planned attack before it happened. Maybe James Comey decided a little collateral damage was a fair price to pay?
As the fight between federal officials and tech companies over encryption has intensified in recent years, talks between the two sides have produced few results, while Congress has struggled to craft legislation on the issue.
FBI leaders had been scanning for a case that would make a compelling argument about the dangers of encryption. In the San Bernardino phone, they found what some law-enforcement officials privately describe as a nearly perfect test case.
(click here to continue reading U.S. and Apple Dig In for Court Fight Over Encryption – WSJ.)
Again, having 9 Justices on the SCOTUS is extremely important, for many reasons, including this case:
Apple has a few more days to file its formal response to the court, which can be summed up as: “No.”
After a series of briefings at this local level, if neither side is happy, the case will be passed on to the District Court. Still no solution? The case would then be escalated to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the court which handles these sorts of issues on the US West Coast.
If that court backs the FBI, and Apple again refuses, it could eventually reach the US Supreme Court, whose decision will ultimately be final, and in this utterly fascinating case, precedent setting.
(click here to continue reading Apple vs the FBI – a plain English guide – BBC News.)
Cell Phone Evolution
Is it even possible to do what the government is requesting? Yes, it does seem so, per the analysis of Dan Guido.
Again in plain English, the FBI wants Apple to create a special version of iOS that only works on the one iPhone they have recovered. This customized version of iOS (*ahem* FBiOS) will ignore passcode entry delays, will not erase the device after any number of incorrect attempts, and will allow the FBI to hook up an external device to facilitate guessing the passcode. The FBI will send Apple the recovered iPhone so that this customized version of iOS never physically leaves the Apple campus. As many jailbreakers are familiar, firmware can be loaded via Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) Mode. Once an iPhone enters DFU mode, it will accept a new firmware image over a USB cable. Before any firmware image is loaded by an iPhone, the device first checks whether the firmware has a valid signature from Apple. This signature check is why the FBI cannot load new software onto an iPhone on their own — the FBI does not have the secret keys that Apple uses to sign firmware.
(click here to continue reading Apple can comply with the FBI court order – Trail of Bits Blog.)
Would You Believe
and finally, some other tech companies spoke up in support of Apple’s stance:
On Wednesday, Apple’s peers in the technology industry – also eager to keep reputations over security intact – gave their backing to the iPhone maker.
Jan Koum, the creator of Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook, wrote: “We must not allow this dangerous precedent to be set. Today our freedom and our liberty is at stake.”
The Information Technology Industry Council, a lobbying group that represents Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Samsung, Blackberry and a host of others, put out this statement: “Our fight against terrorism is actually strengthened by the security tools and technologies created by the technology sector, so we must tread carefully given our shared goals of improving security, instead of creating insecurity.”
Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said: “Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users’ privacy.”
Edward Snowden, whose revelations about US government spying provoked Apple’s stance on passcode-protected data, said the FBI was “creating a world where citizens rely on Apple to defend their rights, rather than the other way around”.
(click here to continue reading Apple vs the FBI – a plain English guide – BBC News.)