Justice Department Seeks to Force Apple to Extract Data From About 12 Other

NASDAQ ^ | February 22, 2016, 11:48:00 PM EDT

[Swordmaker]

The Justice Department is pursuing court orders to force Apple Inc. to help investigators extract data from iPhones in about a dozen undisclosed cases around the country, in disputes similar to the current battle over a terrorist's locked phone, according to people familiar with the matter.

The other phones are at issue in cases where prosecutors have sought, as in the San Bernardino, Calif. terror case, to use an 18th-century law called the All Writs Act to compel the company to help them bypass the passcode security feature of phones that may hold evidence, these people said.

Privacy advocates are likely to seize on the cases' existence as proof the government aims to go far beyond what prosecutors have called the limited scope of the current public court fight over a locked iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

Law enforcement leaders, however, may cite the existence of the other cases as evidence that the encryption of personal devices has become a serious problem for criminal investigators in a variety of cases and settings.

[Swordmaker]

Make statements of fact and hold the insults.

Don't make dense statements, then. Challenging whether a white paper on iOS 9 covering iOS 9.2 counts as a dense statement especially when you are on here challenging technical statements from others as if you know something.

[Ray76]

You truly are an ass.

[CA Conservative]

Thanks for the chuckle!

[Swordmaker]

What would happen if someone in China, or NK, or ISIS had invented cell phones now in common use in the USA? How would we ever begin to enforce such an order on such a presumably antagonistic party in a foreign jurisdiction? I think we would put some geeks on it to reverse engineer it and build a replica, and then run the code on it. But if we could not do it in the USA, then I imagine that we would outsource it to Moscow or somewhere with inexpensive but very well educated labor. Whatever it takes. If we still could not do it, then own up to it as being too difficult. and live with it. I am probably missing a lot.

You cannot reverse engineer something that is impervious to seeing inside. All you get out of it is a go, no go and then the ability to decrypt the data. If you cannot see how that is done, you cannot reverse engineer it.

Imagining you could "outsource it to Moscow" is a flight of fantasy. If it were possible for them or anyone to do it, it would have been done by now. There are, after all, Billions of dollars at stake in doing it.

Apple is stating in their own answer to this Court Order that even for them to do it would take a team of six to ten from two to four weeks before they could begin testing it.

"The compromised operating system that the government demands would require significant resources and effort to develop. Although it is difficult to estimate, because it has never been done before, the design, creation, validation, and deployment of the software likely would necessitate six to ten Apple engineers and employees dedicating a very substantial portion of their time for a minimum of two weeks, and likely as many as four weeks. Neuenschwander Decl. ¶ 22. Members of the team would include engineers from Apple's core operating system group, a quality assurance engineer, a project manager, and either a document writer or a tool writer. Id.

No operating system currently exists that can accomplish what the government wants, and any effort to create one will require that Apple write new code, not just disable existing code functionality. Id. ¶¶ 24-25. Rather, Apple will need to design and implement untested functionality in order to allow the capability to enter passcodes into the device electronically in the manner that the government describes. Id. ¶ 24. In addition, Apple would need to either develop and prepare detailed documentation for the above protocol to enable the FBI to build a brute-force tool that is able to interface with the device to input passcode attempts, or design, develop and prepare documentation for such a tool itself. Id. ¶ 25. Further, if the tool is utilized remotely (rather than at a secure Apple facility), Apple will also have to develop procedures to encrypt, validate, and input into the device communications from the FBI. Id. This entire development process would need to be logged and recorded in case Apple's methodology is ever questioned, for example in court by a defense lawyer for anyone charged in relation to the crime.

These are the EXACT SAME things i've been telling people on here for a couple of weeks and being told I was wrong about by our two ignorant characters who claim it was a simple 15 minute job.

Outsourcing it is the same as putting out in the wild. The very thing that would compromise the security of all iOS devices.

[CA Conservative]

The retry counter could be incremented by 0 instead of by 1.

The retry delay code could be removed or branched around.

And you are so intimately familiar with the base code of the iOS and the firmware that you know for a fact that none of what you are suggesting relies on any code or commands already burned into the ROM, making it difficult to devise a software-only workaround?

[Swordmaker]

OK that is really confusing to come into and try to understand from the outside. I suggest employing precision in discussion. If we mention Secure Enclave, perhaps it would be best if we adhere to the formal technical definition of it in the sense that it runs in its own little processor component on the A7 and possibly beyond, but not the A6 which the iphone 5C in question uses. It sounds to me as if the iphone 5c from the snippets of definition I have seen floating around, by contrast, use some kind of EEPROM boot rom library security related routines that provide conceptually similar (though less secure in the absolute sense) security at some higher functional level. Does that make any sense? If not, I wonder where I might have strayed. If something like this is spelled out in each response (I know it is somewhat more lengthy) then perhaps folks will be less likely to go down semantic rabbit holes in discussions. Then someone can come in during the discussion and still understand it without having to learn thread specific shorthand that does not apply outside the thread (eg in the so called real world, for example). All standard disclaimers remain applicable. If I am babbling on, apologies to all.

I think you've got a fairly good grasp of it.

[Swordmaker]

Keeping that in mind, the claim of the DOJ that Apple refused to offer any help is simply not true. To infer the password was reset by someone in San Bernadino without mentioning the password was changed at the request of the FBI is a lie by omission.

You are right.

Footnote #22 from the Apple Motion to Vacate:

The government obtained the Order without notice to Apple and without allowing Apple an opportunity to be heard. See Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950) (recognizing that one of the "'fundamental requisite[s] of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard'") (quoting Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394 (1914)). But this was not a case where the government needed to proceed in secret to safeguard its investigation; indeed, Apple understands that the government alerted reporters before filing its ex parte application, and then, immediately after it was signed and confirmed to be on the docket, distributed the application and Order to the public at about the same time it notified Apple. Moreover, this is the only case in counsel's memory in which an FBI Director has blogged in real-time about pending litigation, suggesting that the government does not believe the data on the phone will yield critical evidence about other suspects.

Not only that, but the FBI in its Court Order supporting documents claimed the San Bernardino County IT department unilaterally changed the password. That was a material fact that was not just mis-represented but was an outright lie. From Footnote #21 in the same Motion to Vacate:

In its motion to compel, filed February 19 with this Court, the government sought to shift the blame to the "owner" (San Bernardino County) in describing who changed the password and why it allegedly has no other viable alternatives besides the creation of a new operating system. Dkt. 1 at 18 n.7. The FBI later issued a press release acknowledging that it "worked with" the County to reset the password. See Hanna Decl. Ex. Y [Statement to Address Misleading Reports that the County of San Bernardino Reset Terror Suspect's iPhone Without Consent of the FBI, issued by the FBI to Ars Technica (Feb. 21, 2016)]

In two cases of material facts, important facts, that were used to justify the issuance of this Court Order compelling Apple to cooperate with the opening of the iPhone, the FBI lied; perjured itself to get the Court Order issued. Why should it be continued when two of the most important arguments for its issuance were plainly FALSE?

[Swordmaker]

You truly are an ass.

Your claim that a paper covering the security of iOS 9 was not valid for iOS 9.2 was YOU being an ass. Now give it us a break from such denseness which you have been parading for a week now.

[SteveH]

Not sure how wrong it is. In some circumstances it is expected by convention for one side or the other in a dispute to file a proposed motion or order wording. The judge then takes the proposed motion or order wording into account when issuing the actual order. If one side or the other has done its writing job correctly, the draft order just asks for what the legal argument justifies in the writ or motion. Judges often (usually?) do not write such orders, one party or the other does. If they don’t then the judge can simply let the issue slide by (in effect) doing nothing— not issuing the order. IANAL but this is my distant recollection from when I did some in pro per work on a case I filed once. Yeah, it was wierd and took some getting used to until I realized that the real meat was elsewhere and the actual order was in effect partly just the legal equivalent of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s.

[SteveH]

de nada. For extra richness, recite in the appropriate foreign accent (hint: not Spanish, lol).

[Ray76]

You claim(ed) the security of the 5c used a secure enclave. It doesn’t. Why do you post diagrams showing the secure enclave, and text describing it’s use?

[SteveH]

No doubt just about any lawyer could easily confirm or deny this. Right now, however, it seems to me that not many lawyers are paying much attention to this thread, so unless a lawyer pipes up relatively quickly, folks might want to keep that in mind, that this particular thread might be somewhat untethered from a legal perspective.

Ideally, though, it would be nice to have a lawyer or three out there who could keep us all corralled (so to speak).

[SteveH]

OK. Right now I am embroiled in trying to come up with a welding mod and schedule with a shop for my truck and it’s soaking up a lot of my bandwidth, as are some other various and sundry tasks. I was not ignoring you and I actually do care, but without more time than I currently have to go back and check old threads, I feel safer maintaining a fig leaf of neutrality. Besides, there is a lot of technical stuff to get back up to speed on which is challenging enough without the legal aspects and personal attacks (if any). In any case I am trying to retain a modicum of situational awareness. Please feel free to keep an eye on me lest I stray too far into the “DU Zone” (queue spooky and wierd sounding theramin music here).

[DiogenesLamp]

Your comments about a 15 minute fix are ignorant and unsupportable.

I am not the only one that has this opinion. Code Toad says he can do it in 10 minutes.

We are not talking about changing one procedure call - there are multiple systems involved, and without thorough testing, a quick fix like you suggest would most likely result in bricking the phone anyway.

Multiple systems in a routine that counts to 10? Just how complicated a method do you suppose Apple uses to count to 10?

If you write code, you should know that any time you make a change in any part of the code, you risk introducing bugs that may affect parts of the code you hadn't even considered.

You must be using too many global variables. I can't imagine too many other methods of wrecking parts of code outside of subroutines except by using too many global variables.

But to make it simple, let's find the portion of code where we increment the "number of tries" counter. How about we change
Num_Tries++; to
//Num_Tries++?

I imagine there are a dozen ways to make a small code change to stop it from wiping the phone.

Apart from that, the FBI filing claims Apple has admitted they can do it.

When the government first realized that Apple retained the means to obtain that data from the SUBJECT DEVICE and that due to the way that Apple created the software Apple was the only means of obtaining that data, the government sought Apple's voluntary assistance. Apple rejected the government's request, although it conceded that it had the technical capability to help.

[Swordmaker]

Not sure how wrong it is. In some circumstances it is expected by convention for one side or the other in a dispute to file a proposed motion or order wording. The judge then takes the proposed motion or order wording into account when issuing the actual order. If one side or the other has done its writing job correctly, the draft order just asks for what the legal argument justifies in the writ or motion. Judges often (usually?) do not write such orders, one party or the other does. If they don't then the judge can simply let the issue slide by (in effect) doing nothing-- not issuing the order. IANAL but this is my distant recollection from when I did some in pro per work on a case I filed once. Yeah, it was weird and took some getting used to until I realized that the real meat was elsewhere and the actual order was in effect partly just the legal equivalent of crossing the t's and dotting the i's.

Apple knew NOTHING about the FBI going to Magistrate Judge Pym seeking a Court Order for what they were already doing, cooperating with the FBI and DOJ.

From Footnote #22 of Apple's Motion to Vacate:

The government obtained the Order without notice to Apple and without allowing Apple an opportunity to be heard. See Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950) (recognizing that one of the "'fundamental requisite[s] of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard'") (quoting Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394 (1914)). But this was not a case where the government needed to proceed in secret to safeguard its investigation; indeed, Apple understands that the government alerted reporters before filing its ex parte application, and then, immediately after it was signed and confirmed to be on the docket, distributed the application and Order to the public at about the same time it notified Apple. Moreover, this is the only case in counsel's memory in which an FBI Director has blogged in real-time about pending litigation, suggesting that the government does not believe the data on the phone will yield critical evidence about other suspects.

[Swordmaker]

I am not the only one that has this opinion. Code Toad says he can do it in 10 minutes.

CodeToad is a long time anti-Apple Hate brigade member and is no more expert on these devices than you are. He is NOT someone to use as an expert voice on how to do this. He knows no more than do you about how to do it. He is NOT AT ALL FAMILIAR WITH iOS. Zip, nada, Nothing. CodeToad is not an Apple user.

We concede that Apple has more than the technical expertise to do this. The question is NOT that can it handle, but SHOULD it. The first is technical, the other philosophical and Constitutional.

[CodeToad]

Well, what else would we expect from a liberal Apple social media troll? You are a computer user and a junior one at that. We engineers think you nerdy kids ought to just shut up about things you know nothing about. Everything you post you have to ask Apple what’s its position so you stay on message.

[CodeToad]

Your previous statements were that Apple COULD NOT TECHNICALLY perform the task, yet now that we called BS, you state otherwise. You knew nothing of this issue being a computer user and not an engineer yet you mouthed off and held to the Apple talking points.

Such an Appple sleazebag.

[JimSEA]

A short comment/question, it looks as though we are going to have either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton heading the federal government for the next four years. Do you really want either of these acknowledged authoritarians to free passage to your daily business and, more particularly you moral and political opinions? They will, of course have many ways to get information we believe is protected by the First Amendment. Will there be increasing limitations on speech? It certainly seems as though some form of “hate speech” limitation is on the door step and thin skinned chief executives will be tempted to protect themselves and their actions.

[DiogenesLamp]

When was the last time you heard of a complex software project being delivered on time and on or under budget (and being 100% bug free)?

That is development. Once Development has worked out the kinks in new code which was written to create new functionality, it's generally stable, and will not blow up with a minor perturbation such as stopping a counter from counting.

This already written and debuged code. They could change the "number of tries" to any number they like with virtually no effort.

Well, Apple has lots of engineers and lots of lawyers and there seem as if there can be many unintended consequences.

And I'm pretty sure the Apple Lawyers are going to do everything they can to keep the Apple Engineers from telling the court how easy it is to implement the method suggested by the FBI.

And is it true that the order was not signed by anyone? Maybe the actual order is a seperate document that is actually signed by the magistrate judge.

The fact that they are having a hearing on the matter tells me that the court considers it a valid order. If it were not, then the court would be asking "who stole the stamp?"