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posted by janrinok on Sunday June 17 2018, @11:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the bit-by-bit dept.

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

Letter to judge reveals 731 pages of messages, call logs uncovered on one of two phones.

[...] The letter to Judge Kimba Wood stated that "the Government was advised that the FBI's original electronic extraction of data from telephones did not capture content related to encrypted messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Signal... The FBI has now obtained this material."

In a letter to the presiding judge in the case against Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's long-time personal attorney, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York revealed today that it had obtained additional evidence for review—including a trove of messages and call logs from WhatsApp and Signal on one of two BlackBerry phones belonging to Cohen. The messages and call logs together constitute 731 pages of potential evidence. The FBI also recovered 16 pages of documents that had been shredded, but it has not yet been able to complete the extraction of data from the second phone.

This change is likely because of the way the messages are stored by the applications, not because the FBI had to break any sort of encryption on them. WhatsApp and Signal store their messages in encrypted databases on the device, so an initial dump of the phone would have only provided a cryptographic blob. The key is required to decrypt the contents of such a database, and there are tools readily available to access the WhatsApp database on a PC.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/fbi-recovered-hundreds-of-encrypted-messages-from-michael-cohens-phone/


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fritsd on Sunday June 17 2018, @03:36PM (3 children)

    by fritsd (4586) on Sunday June 17 2018, @03:36PM (#694262) Journal

    I don't understand US law, so I had to resort to Wikipedia: sorry!

    It had a paragraph on when attorney-client privilege can be overruled:

    When the privilege may not apply [wikipedia.org]

    (Note it said: "may")

    Disclosure in case of a crime, tort, or fraud

    The crime-fraud exception can render the privilege moot when communications between an attorney and client are themselves used to further a crime, tort, or fraud. In Clark v. United States, the US Supreme Court stated that "A client who consults an attorney for advice that will serve him in the commission of a fraud will have no help from the law. He must let the truth be told."[8] The crime-fraud exception also does require that the crime or fraud discussed between client and attorney be carried out to be triggered.[9] US Courts have not yet conclusively ruled how little knowledge an attorney can have of the underlying crime or fraud before the privilege detaches and the attorney's communications or requisite testimony become admissible.[10]

    *IF* Donald Trump contacted his consigliere (a nice proper word for advisor, surely??) to "get rid of" some of his problems, like to muzzle and threaten Stormy Daniels so that she could not jeopardize his election, then *maybe* he asked for something that broke the law. Like the law to not get death threats "shame for your daughter if something bad were to happen to you". Either that didn't really happen, or Michael Cohen organized that on his own initiative, or his client Donald Trump asked him to.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:57PM (#694289)

    Sounds like a fun game, who is worse? The lawyer? Or the cuck he rode in on? No way thas t daughter came from that doughboy,also explains why fucko has such incestuous thoughts.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday June 17 2018, @09:54PM (1 child)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday June 17 2018, @09:54PM (#694357)

    A nice explanation of why Mr. Trump's former lawyer is in trouble here, but the A/C was trying to explain why he can't get a good lawyer.

    As we are all aware, it's really because he doesn't listen and won't pay.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @11:14PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @11:14PM (#694365)

      Which explains how and why he ended up with Cohen. Only a greedy and ethically bankruot person would take on such a risk since the connections could be manipulated for his own gain. I hope he doesnt have to weigh his life against giving up Trump, that selfish prick would probably roll over unless some "nameless associate" is likely to off him.