FBI Claims To Have Hacked Into The iPhone

Much noise… And then silence.

Having spent a more than a month in court proceedings, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has claimed that its managed to hack into the iPhone 5C in question.

The court debacle triggered by FBI demanding Apple’s help to forcibly unlock the smartphone, was still in progress, when FBI came up with this ‘sensational’ claim.

Why The Court Case?

Apple had refused to provide FBI any assistance in hacking into the phone, on the grounds of user privacy. And despite all manners of pressure Apple stuck to it’s guns.

We’d earlier written about Apple’s side of the story and why it decided not to help the FBI ‘hack’ the phone. It makes for extremely intense and intriguing reading. I suggest you hop over to that article, and arm yourself with Apple’s side of their battle and reasoning, and then resume this article with that perspective in mind.

Apple’s refusal lead to an active and heated debate weighing the importance of user privacy over national security, involving more than just the two parties.

The iPhone 5C in question belonged to Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters in the San Bernardino shootings. This specific phone was important as Farook and his wife, who was also involved in the shootings, had destroyed every other smart device they owned, before dying in the shootout the same day.

To know what the fuss is all about — why FBI needed Apple’s help in this day and age of technical wizards on FBI’s payrolls, head over to another article I wrote a month or so back, which will help you understand the fundamentals of this dichotomy.

Also, there were some unanswered questions, relating to why FBI didn’t just brute force the device on their own. We dug around, researched the topic in depth. You should read the article, to gain a clearer answer how a small automated check holds up a federal investigation behemoth.

Did The iPhone 5C In Question, Really Contain Any Useful Information?

The FBI, even though it claims that it has broken into the device, refuses to provide any further information in this regard.

Owing to that rather pregnant silence from FBI, many speculate that the smartphone might not really have had any information of use after all, since Farook destroyed other devices and left only this one active.

How Do We Know FBI Even Broke Into The Device?

The truth is, we don’t. The Bureau has refused to provide any further information in this regard. All they have stated has been that they have been able to break into the device with the help of a third party.
“All we have at this point is the FBI’s word, but it’s also possible that the FBI hasn’t actually hacked the iPhone but is simply saying it has to save face as it backs out of its legal battle with Apple” said Tony Bradley, a contributor to the Forbes on the matter.

Having Raised The Obvious Question Of Suspicion First, Let Us Now Address The Rest.

For that, first, let us believe that FBI has indeed managed to hack into the iPhone 5C in question, taking a report published on the InVerse for the same: “A senior law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the FBI managed to disable the passcode memory wipe feature, which would have destroyed the phone’s data after 10 incorrect passcode attempts. After that feature was offline, the government was able to use a brute force attack (a computer crunching every possible combination rapidly) to get into the phone in just 26 minutes.”

The first question that comes to mind on reading this is — Did FBI know all along that it could hack into the device or was it a surprise when they actually succeeded?

We don’t have any clear answers to that. All we may have are speculations.

Why Does It Matter, Though?

Because FBI could not have gone to the court knowing that there were other things it could try, by the law of the country.

Given the stature of the organization, the law states that it must try certain extreme measures and exhaust all possible options before it goes ahead and demands external help from private entities.

But How Could The FBI Not Know?

“Anyone who works in computer and information security knows that there is no such thing as invulnerable security and every device and the operating system has vulnerabilities that can be exploited. The FBI should have known before it even started its legal battle with Apple, that there are ways to access the device without Apple’s help, so it’s possible the FBI actually had a hack (or three) all along” said Bradley, the Forbes reporter.

Unless… FBI has a different axe to grind with Apple Inc.

Let us, however, give the FBI, the benefit of the doubt here as well. Let us assume that they believed that they had exhausted all possibilities before they went to the court to solicit Apple’s help. Let us also believe that it came as a surprise to them when this supposed third party was able to crack the device for them.

The questions then are just two: the “How” and the “Who”, and the FBI has refused to answer either. While the “Who” can be speculated about, let us just assume that it was a freelancer because that seems like the most likely of possibilities. As for the how there are many possibilities.

• Edward Snowden, of the WikiLeaks fame, commented recently that the FBI could easily break into the phone. He talked about copying the phone’s memory and then replacing it every time it self-destructs, getting the FBI uncountable number of tries. This method is called NAND mirroring and is commonly used in the circles.
• Another method suggested was that the feds could conceivably hack Apple’s software running the iPhone through a software flaw, according to Johnson. “Apple … is never going to be able to compete with what is going on behind the scenes in the black market” Jay Kaplan, a former NSA analyst and co-founder of security firm Synack, told The New York Times.
• The most volatile and dangerous of the methods suggested was that by the name of Acids and Lasers. Zdziarski, an expert in the field, describes it as follows: investigators could remove the microprocessor from the iPhone and run it through a chemical treatment before hitting it with a laser. But… One wrong move and the chip would be ruined. Not only would the data be lost, there would no longer be any point in forcing Apple to write new software.

The last one of the three some how seems like the most dangerous to use on the iPhone in question. We, however, can only speculate since the FBI has refused to give any details as to this.

The How And Who Are Not The Only Questions Here Anymore. There Are Questions That Are Much More Important.

Are other Apple devices vulnerable? Does Apple even know what is going on?

Quite possibly, yes!

Other devices are vulnerable to the same technique. The entire security system of Apple devices gets called into question. Since FBI has refused to divulge anything, all Apple can do is speculate what FBI did and how they did it.

Should the government, ethically report their methods to Apple?

Ethically, yes, they should! Since it compromises the security of other devices and other private citizens and entities well. But it seems highly unlikely that they would. They instead could be planning to use this technique for greater things in the future, perhaps help the NSA with them.

Since Apple did not play nice with the government, it is highly doubtful that the Bureau would.

What does this do for Apple’s reputation?

This certainly tarnishes Apple’s reputation. Apple has been a company that has boasted of its security and the measures that it puts into them. Especially after iOS 9, Apple has been deemed the company with one of the most secure devices.

The public eye that the FBI has hacked the phone under, some say, may tarnish Apple’s reputation in this regard. However, given that the FBI’s not provided any conclusive evidence to back up their claim on having successfully intruded on the iPhone, there’s a lot of people who are discounting “vulnerabilities” just yet.

Moreover, Apple standing up for their user’s security and privacy would also have earned them far more loyal followers — hopefully the righteous kinds.

Is the debate over privacy and security done for?

No way!

It is not a debate that could be done for just like that, however, in this particular case, it might have suffered a setback. The iPhone that the FBI seemed to be planning to use to set a precedent has set a precedent of an absolutely different kind. “This iPhone seems to have been chosen very specifically as the one the FBI wanted to force the issue on because it believed that it could play on the fear of terrorism to sway public opinion and establish a legal precedent that would empower the government to compel private corporations to cooperate” said Bradley, of the Forbes.

Let us see where the debate goes with future incidents of the sorts which are bound to come through. The FBI, thus, having hacked into the iPhone 5C that belonged to a terrorist, has raised many questions of grave importance.

The answers to most of these questions are simply speculations. They, instead, perhaps would be the center of much debate in the near future.

Apple responded to the news thus: “Apple believes deeply that people in the United States and around the world deserve data protection, security and privacy. Sacrificing one for the other only puts people and countries at greater risk. This case raised issues, which deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion.”

In other related news, the FBI has already tried to hack into the iPhone and iPod involved in a murder investigation in Arkansas. They’re not telling if they succeeded or not.

Telling silence, isn’t it?

Originally published at Chip-Monks.