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posted by mrpg on Tuesday November 21 2017, @01:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the isn't-it-easier-to-ask-the-nsa? dept.

The Texas Rangers have served Apple a warrant for iPhone and iCloud data connected to the recent mass shooter Devin Patrick Kelley. However, it is unknown whether Kelley actually used iCloud to store data, and unlikely that Apple will be able or willing to help unlock the iPhone:

Texas Rangers investigating the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs have served a search warrant on Silicon Valley giant Apple Inc. and are seeking digital photos, messages, documents and other types of data that might have been stored by gunman Devin Patrick Kelley, who was found with an iPhone after he killed himself.

Court records obtained by the San Antonio Express-News show Texas Ranger Kevin Wright obtained search warrants on Nov. 9 for files stored on Kelley's iPhone, a second mobile phone found near his body and for files stored in Kelley's iCloud account — Apple's digital archive that can sync iPhone files.

The iCloud feature is an optional service. Obtaining such records, if they exist, directly from Apple could aid authorities investigating the worst mass shooting in modern Texas history. Apple's policy regarding iCloud content states that material may be provided to law enforcement agencies if they obtain search warrants.

In addition, the FBI may have already screwed it up.

Also at Engadget, BGR, and Fast Company.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Tuesday November 21 2017, @01:22PM (1 child)

    by pTamok (3042) on Tuesday November 21 2017, @01:22PM (#599624)

    This would be a public key using public key technology, which could be used to encrypt this 256-bit per-device symmetric key for transport to Apple, so that Apple then has this unique per-device key in their database. And if called upon on an individual per-device basis, Apple could decrypt that using the highly guarded at Apple matching private key, which would allow per-device access to the contents of the phone. They don't want to do it. I get that. I respect that.

    But there are solutions, is my point, to providing under law single-device access which Apple could at their discretion with this technology choose to make available if legislation is enacted to cause that to happen, without anybody getting a master, any third party, any law enforcement getting any sort of carte blanche access to all of the iPhones in the world.

    If this is what Steve Gibson said, then he was having a seriously off day.

    If Apple have a database of device keys, all the government needs to do is compel Apple to provide either (a) ad lib access to that database to parties nominated by the government or (b) a regularly updated copy of that database. It is so not secure I would be laughing in hysterics if I thought someone really thought that was a reasonable solution. If anyone thinks Apple can't be compelled, there are little things called National Security Letters. If the US government get access, then any jurisdiction where Apple sells iPhones will make a condition of market access that their government gets access too.

    Of course, Apple could already have been compelled to compile such a database in the way Steve Gibson describes, and what we are seeing is a major misdirection campaign to convince us that it hasn't happened. There are so many ways a device key could be 'leaked' back to Apple using side-channels/steganography etc. that mean that it would be practically impossible to show that this was not happening.

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  • (Score: 2) by romlok on Tuesday November 21 2017, @02:18PM

    by romlok (1241) on Tuesday November 21 2017, @02:18PM (#599643)

    If the US government get access, then any jurisdiction where Apple sells iPhones will make a condition of market access that their government gets access too.

    I thought that too as I was listening to the podcast. Fortunately, this was actually the very next thing said:

    LEO: The problem with that, of course, is that they're afraid, not so much about the U.S. government, but other governments asking for that kind of access.

    But I think Steve's point was merely that there are technical solutions to allowing warranted access to individually identified devices, which is what the government claims to want, that don't involve any agency holding any backdoor or "golden key".