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posted by janrinok on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-have-no-secrets dept.

GrayShift is a new company that promises to unlock even iPhones running the latest version of iOS for a relatively cheap price.

In a sign of how hacking technology often trickles down from more well-funded federal agencies to local bodies, at least one regional police department has already signed up for GrayShift's services, according to documents and emails obtained by Motherboard.

As Forbes reported on Monday, GrayShift is an American company which appears to be run by an ex-Apple security engineer and others who have long held contracts with intelligence agencies. In its marketing materials, GrayShift offers a tool called GrayKey, an offline version of which costs $30,000 and comes with an unlimited number of uses. For $15,000, customers can instead buy the online version, which grants 300 iPhones unlocks.

This is what the Indiana State Police bought, judging by a purchase order obtained by Motherboard. The document, dated February 21, is for one GrayKey unit costing $500, and a "GrayKey annual license—online—300 uses," for $14,500. The order, and an accompanying request for quotation, indicate the unlocking service was intended for Indiana State Police's cybercrime department. A quotation document emblazoned with GrayShift's logo shows the company gave Indiana State Police a $500 dollar discount for their first year of the service.

Importantly, according to the marketing material cited by Forbes, GrayKey can unlock iPhones running modern versions of Apple's mobile operating system, such as iOS 10 and 11, as well as the most up to date Apple hardware, like the iPhone 8 and X.

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xw5bqz/documents-prove-local-cops-have-bought-cheap-iphone-cracking-tech


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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:35AM (1 child)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:35AM (#650819) Homepage Journal

    You have the right to remain silent.

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    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by cocaine overdose on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:45AM

    Heh, good luck, bronzers. All I've got on this machine is a browser history full of LARPing as a likely pedophile, on S/N. Even then, you won't be able to defeat my system. It's guarded by 4 rainbow LED turbo-charged fans, 4 sticks of 16 GB DDR4 Ryzen Gaming Ram, a piss bottle by the power supply -- it's a deadman's switch -- and a very locked down file permissions system. There's no way you plebieans will be able to use your "GrayKey" on this bad mamajama. Face it, you played yourself. While you were listening to my spiel, I was draming my entire "entertainment collection" using nothing but my toes and a slide-phone keyboard I've rigged with a wireless transceiver. And #2, you've been played again. That's not a computer, it's a plastic frame with a printed picture of a Windows 2000 desktop taped to it. It's not even a prnt scrn, it's a photograph of the screen of a CRT monitor. You've been played. My trousers are sufficiently sticky now, take me away.