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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: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:21AM (10 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:21AM (#650793) Journal

    There is no surprise here, that LEO's are willing to go to any lengths to violate the freedoms they are supposed to respect and enforce.

    Nor is there any surprise at the sums of money they are willing to waste in pursuit of violating people's rights.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:26AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:26AM (#650795)

      High price. Low service.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:33AM (1 child)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:33AM (#650844) Journal

        Which is exactly why I use Nano for all my CLI text-editing needs.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:44PM (#651059)

          And I thought you were so progressive.... *sob*

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:47AM (4 children)

      by Whoever (4524) on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:47AM (#650805) Journal

      Actually, there is a surprise: that they have bought cheap phone cracking tech and not expensive phone cracking tech.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:43AM (3 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:43AM (#650849) Journal

        Didn't we just have a story about seizure of DMCA defeating devices?

        Why can't people or Apple sue the manufacturer of such equipment or software? It's not like it has any other legitimate purpose.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @12:42PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @12:42PM (#650901)

          Laws are selectively enforced, I suppose.

          Funny how that isn't considered an abrogation of the Pledge of Allegiance...

          ( I pledge allegiance ( in exchange for ) Justice for All ). If this copyright stuff is really law, shouldn't it apply to everyone, not just some?

          This copyright stuff does not seem to be law at all... its a selectively enforced wishlist.

        • (Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:05PM (1 child)

          by looorg (578) on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:05PM (#650914)

          Why can't people or Apple sue the manufacturer of such equipment or software? It's not like it has any other legitimate purpose.

          Considering that Apple was up in arms when the FBI (or was it some other LEO) wanted help with cracking their way into various phones and devices that they found on terrorists (or suspects or whatever) isn't it a bit odd that Apple would allow some former security employee to open up a business that does just what they did not want to do, or claimed was almost impossible or whatever their argument was. Clearly it was doable since various LEO:s have found other companies to do it for them, so it seems more like that they just didn't want to or they wanted to protect the image of how they stand with their customers on security or some such fantasy. Unless this company, Grayshift, is actually approved by Apple -- after all they won't have to do break into any phones, they can still claim that they are standing by their customers, all while they have a "sanctioned" Apple phone cracking service staffed by former security employees.

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:15PM

            by frojack (1554) on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:15PM (#651041) Journal

            Apple can put these companies out of business by changing the OS and plugging the holes. Gut suing them for DMCA violations could be very lucrative.

            Lets wait and see if they do either. If not, we can pretty well deduce who's in bed with these guys.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:58AM (#650831)

      High price. Low Service.

    • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:27AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:27AM (#650840)

      High price. Low service.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by cocaine overdose on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:24AM (3 children)

    Selling zerodays to idiots is the first step to losing that zeroday. I'm more than 100% certain those "police professionals" don't know the first thing about securing their shit. They've probably got a single IT guy, hired from the local highschool to setup their website. Maybe two. The other one's the weird ass coroner that always spends a bit too much time doing inquests. Word has it, he's also knows how to use the "darknet TORrents."

    Anyway, it looks absolutely trivial to penetrate their website (thank you modern JS and Google for boosting sites' SEOs that have sitemaps, you glorious moron). One would hope they're not running their police backend on the same server as their website, but who knows (well, I'll leave that up to interpretation ;) ). Once that's through, finding "graykeypassword.txt" is a piece of bacon. Now all you gotta do is setup a proxy through your backdoor and you've got near undetectable access to GrayKey. What would be worse, however, would be if they bought the offline package. Then it's just a matter of downloading the files and reselling them on your end. Or worse!

    Careful what you sell to morons, they might kill your mom.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:59AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:59AM (#650808)

      If you actually manage to do this, the hilarious thing to do would be to simply use up all 300 uses.

    • (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.

      --
      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (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.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:40AM (4 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:40AM (#650803)

    So somebody at Apple has apparently absconded with the private keys.

    This is why I keep saying the only solution is to force device makers to allow the owner to pick which keys they want in their device. Defaulting to having the vendor keys is perfectly fine for most users most of the time, it makes updates simple, etc. But cases like this demonstrate why burning keys into a device that can't be replaced and that only the vendor is supposed to know is going to always be subject to unrecoverable failures, just like this one.

    Each device (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, etc) should include a business card with a QR code on it, or a USB stick as appropriate, with the master device key. Using that key you can access the deepest security level, add / remove keys, etc. Even replace the device key itself if one suspects (rightly) the vendor may have retained a copy. Of course removing any of the preloaded keys would have to impact warranty and updates from the vendor and the user would have to accept responsibility for that action. Of course it should also be possible (especially in a corporate environment) to have IT download updates, examine them and then add a signature with their keys to allow their devices to accept them from an inhouse repository.

    Operating systems, even Holy Apple, should be mandated to be configurable to permit such things. When you buy a device you should own it. That means the keys AND the other access required to exercise ownership. Combine with Right to Repair and it should also mean full documentation of the hardware should be available, either supplied as a preloaded PDF or available at a nominal charge with out requirements for complex legal agreements, limitations to incorporated entities, credit checks and other BS.

    I know this will shock the younger readers but we old timers remember when computing gear routinely came with extensive documentation and the extra service manual level documentation was typically sufficient to implement software drivers from. Then it all suddenly closed up and is only now, with the Open Source movement pushing hard, beginning to open back up a bit.

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:31AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:31AM (#650817) Homepage

      Yeah, this. Reminds me of that hacking contest in which an ex-NSA employee won. Come on, that's stacking the deck at best and a national security violation at worst.

      Then you wonder why that is allowed. Marketing for the NSA, or just a plain unfair advantage for profit like how our congressmen can legally insider-trade while the rest of us cannot. I recall (not that I am a speculator) "blackout" periods in which it was forbidden for employees of my defense-contractor employer to trade during certain periods.

      It doesn't matter even if they had approval from the alphabet soup to indirectly reveal vulns -- the deck is still stacked in their favor. Perks of the trade, perhaps, but still unethical ones.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:38AM (1 child)

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:38AM (#650821) Homepage Journal

      The reason Working Software asked me to write a keylogger called "Last Resort" is that WSI's owners father was a writer.

      If that father ever clicked in the wrong place his click would cause a different application to come to the front.

      That confused and upset him so much that every single time he would pull out the power cord.

      I really did write a keylogger. I think we charged $9.95 for it. I got lots of grateful fan mail from prospective Great American Novelists.

      --
      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:51AM

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:51AM (#650828) Homepage Journal

      Have you pointed that out to your elected representatives?

      Don't email them. Phone calls are somewhat acceptable but hardcopy snail mail is the most effective.

      That enables your representatives to sort their constituents' letters according to the opinions expressed therein and then...

      ... weigh them.

      "Naked Economics: Understanding The Dismal Science" points out that small but vocal interest groups are the most effective with getting legislation passed. Consider that the Feds still offer a subsidy to mohair farmers.

      It happens that I share your opinion but have yet to tell my congresscritters about it. My printer's busted so I'll have to use my client's. I'll mail such a letter on Monday.

      --
      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:25AM (1 child)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:25AM (#650815) Homepage Journal

    but to edit your iPhone's hosts file you need to jailbreak it.

    There was some photography app that was in the Cydia app store that grew to be quite popular.

    It required jailbroken phones because the API to operate the camera was in a private framework.

    Apple didn't want to encourage jailbreaking so they put the camera API into a public framework.

    If we all jailbroke our phones just so we can blackhole web bug servers, it's likely that Apple will provide a way to edit hosts on un-jailbroken devices.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by vux984 on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:03AM

      by vux984 (5045) on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:03AM (#650834)

      Did you just postulate a solution that would require consumer demand to take pictures to equal their demand to edit the hosts file to blackhole web bug servers? ;)

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by requerdanos on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:22PM (1 child)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:22PM (#650919) Journal

    a $500 dollar discount

    A five hundred dollar dollar discount?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:18PM (#651043)

      A five hundred dollar dollar discount?

      Yes. They got it out of the ATM machine.

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