John McAfee Shows his incompetence
in his Apple v. FBI/DOJ case solution
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Posted on 03/02/2016 11:57:21 PM PST by Swordmaker
John McAfee, the anti-virus program pioneer and gadfly U.S. presidential candidate, claimed that unlocking the Apple iPhone of Syed Farook, one of the shooters who carried out a deadly attack in San Bernardino, California, late last year, is a “trivial” exercise and explained how it should take the FBI just 30 minutes to complete it.
McAfee, who is among 12 candidates vying for the Libertarian Party nomination to run for president this year, spoke to Russia Today about the continuing debate over the FBI’s attempt to force Apple Inc. to unlock the iPhone 5C used by the terrorist by creating a specific version of iOS to bypass security. The federal agency and the company will appear before Congress to debate the issue Tuesday.
However, McAfee indicated he believes unlocking the iPhone is a “trivial” matter and that the FBI knows this, adding that if it doesn’t, then “we are in deep trouble.” And he said that if the FBI is indeed aware of how trivial it is to unlock the iPhone, then it is deceiving the public by “asking for a universal key” to access Apple’s smartphones.
According to McAfee, this is how the FBI could unlock Farook’s iPhone.
“You need a hardware engineer and a software engineer. The hardware engineer takes the phone apart, and copies the instruction set [the phone’s mobile operating system and installed applications] and the memory. You then run a program called a disassembler, which takes the 1s and 0s and gives you readable instructions,” McAfee said.
“Then the [software engineer] sits down and reads through it. What he is looking for is the first access to the keypad, because that is the first thing you do when you input your [personal identification number]. When he sees that, he reads the instructions for where in memory the secret code is stored.”
McAfee previously wrote he would be able to decrypt the San Bernardino iPhone free of charge so that Apple wouldn’t have to put a backdoor into one of its products. At the time, he said it would take three weeks, but he has now suggested he offered that time frame just as a precaution so he basically wouldn’t have to eat his words later.
The trivial nature of unlocking an iPhone does not serve as an indictment of Apple, McAfee said, as “any computer can be [cracked], and it is a half hour job.”
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McAfee is a total bozo.
Why would a guy that makes a living off cyber security, tell how to jail break a secure device?
a glance at his photo is a clue why,,,
LoL
Technically this isn’t a jail-break action anyway, so I should get a comment or two on that...
All in 30 minutes.
Truly miracle workers.
Of course, there's the other problem, Apple doesn't ever store the passcode anywhere on the iPhone, only a one-way HASH representing that passcode with which a newly input and re-calculated HASH will be compared every time a user inputs his passcode to open his or her iPhone, so there IS NO STORED PASSCODE to locate.
Next, even were these miracle workers able to find the HASH, it's a one-way calculation. It is impossible to start with the HASH and, even if you have the algorithm that created it, to work it backwards, arrive at the seed value, the User's passcode, from which it was created.
Finally, that HASH is stored in an EPROM like area inside the iPhone 5C's A6 processor called the Encryption Engine, a sub-processor area, which can only be written from without but not read from outside the Encryption Engine by the A6's normal processing of Apps, or by any external hardware probing such as a JTAG probe. Anything inside the Encryption Engine, is for all extents and purposes, walled off, invisible to apps and hardware probes because it cannot be read from outside the Encryption Engine and only the RESULTS of what is done with those data can be released from within that Engine.
John McAfee's opening scheme simply cannot work.
Mcafee is a complete idiot. He’s really wrong on this, and has no idea how dumb he sounds.
Because his days of living off cyber security are long past, or at least, his relevance to the organization that is the source of his income. He lacks clue.
Apple has been ordered to install on the iPhone in question a software update that will disable the phone's limits on password retries and password retry frequency. Apple, alone, is able to build such a software update, because, before accepting a software update, the phone checks that the update is cryptographically signed by Apple. Apple is refusing to (1) code the update and (2) sign it. Thus, the current court battle.
Even if Apple were to provide the demanded OS update, the FBI would still have to brute-force the password, a task which could be trivial or impossible, depending on whether Farook had a four or six-digit password or a much longer password, like idunno, say, Ribab10nca-Ammact3r.
There may be an alternative. It may be possible to read the device's memory using electron microscopy techniques and import it into a virtual machine. That would cut Apple out of the loop. But the difficulty of the brute-forcing step would remain.
Then there is the question of whether there is anything of value on the phone. Farook and his bitch physically destroyed their personal phones. The phone the FBI wants into was Farook's work phone. On the one hand, the fact he didn't destroy it indicates it's worthless. On the other hand, it stopped backing up to iCloud six weeks before the attack. Hmm. Why did it do that?
I hope he beats Gary Johnson.
Isn’t this the guy who after murdering his next door neighbor successfully eluded the police by crouching in a hole in his back yard?
Why, yes it is.
Thanks for the interesting comments. I agree with you take on these things.
The man is a bit short of a byte in the upper story.
John McAfee Reveals How The FBI Can Unlock An iPhone In 30 MinutesAsk any kid in high school. They can probably do it in half the time.
I can’t trust a man who tans unevenly.
“Next, even were these miracle workers able to find the HASH, it’s a one-way calculation. It is impossible to start with the HASH and, even if you have the algorithm that created it, to work it backwards, arrive at the seed value, the User’s passcode, from which it was created”
If you have the calculation the you could build a data base of pass codes to hashed results. Then reverse the hash to a pass code that works.
This is what Apple is fighting. Because the calculation would have to be released for any data used as evidence.
There’s that, plus his strong facial resemblance to the Shroud of Turin.
Quote of the day...lol
The algorithm(s), and I understand there are more than just one for making the HASHes, are burned into the silicon of the Encryption Engine and are also, like the HASH itself, not readable from outside the engine.
So, first you not only have to find a way to read the hidden, unreadable HASH, but you also have to figure which one of several top-secret and unknowable algorithms is the one randomly that was randomly burned onto the silicon of the that particular Encryption Engine when it was made—and Apple says like the Unique ID also burned onto the silicon, no records are kept anywhere of these data—then you have to use that unknowable algorithm(s) to build a data set of all possible passcode HASHes so you can compare the impossible to read one hidden inside a locked, unreadable secure location which you cannot probe or find to see if it matches? OK, I Got it. Pardon me if I snicker a bit.
No, Apple is fighting the idea that the FBI wants them to remove the passcode trial counter which after the fourth try, puts an ever increasing time between passcode tries, up to an hour before you can try again, and on the tenth failed passcode, erases the comparison HASH making it impossible to unlock the iPhone. The owner would then be required to restore his or her data from an iTunes or iCloud backup using their AppleID and password. . . and put in a new passcode.
You are correct that any method that gets around the barricades Apple has erected to prevent access would be subject to defense discovery if the evidence gained from cracking into an iOS device were used in trial. I posted that objection to being able to keeping the method secret two weeks ago on FreeRepublic and as far as I can tell I was first to point it out anywhere. Others picked it up from here days later.
AN easier way to do it would be to give it to the Chinese communist government. Apple seems to have no issues sacrificing their principles when it comes to making them happy.
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