SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the so-simple-that-a-gov't-employee-could-do-it dept.
Russia Today reports
The US public doesn't need a Digital Security Commission; they need the FBI to stop deceiving everyone and tell the truth that it wants to spy on Americans, John McAfee, developer of the first commercial anti-virus program told RT's Ed Schultz.
[...] "The FBI wants Apple to change their software so that it removes the check for security, so that we don't check for security anymore. Once it has that software, they can use that software on any phone. But they say they only need it for one phone."
[...] "You need a hardware engineer and a [software] engineer. The hardware engineer takes the phone apart and copies the instruction set, which are the iOS and applications, and your memory. And then you run a program called a disassembler, which takes all the ones and zeros and gives you readable instructions. Then the coder sits down and he reads through. What he is looking for is the first access to the keypad, because that is the first thing you do when you input your pad. It'll take half an hour. When you see that, then he reads the instructions for where in memory this secret code is stored. It is that trivial--a half an hour.
...The FBI knows this, Apple knows this."[...] "In either case, if they (the FBI) don't know, that is tragic; if they do know it, then they are deceiving the American public and Apple and everyone else by asking for a universal key."
Video
Do you see any flaws in McAffee's explanation?
Previous: Apple Wants Court To Rule If It Can Be Forced To Unlock iPhones
Seems Like Everyone has an Opinion About Apple vs. the FBI
Update: TPP-Exposing Journalist Ed Schultz Lands on His Feet at RT
John McAfee Announces He Will Run For President of the United States
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Sunday March 06 2016, @03:56AM
It's questionable to me whether the FBI has staff that can desolder and construct an interface for an arbitrary memory chip. I also think that when the FBI starts to think it needs that, it's going to have more hoops to jump through to develop procedures for handling this kind of evidence, compared to the relative ease of handling hard drives.
I think this handwringing is both because they have a short-term problem that they really aren't equipped to deal with this type of evidence, and the long-term problem that they see themselves as losing an arms race with security features. (I'll note that I think they should lose that arms race).
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday March 06 2016, @05:02AM
I do not know if my experience is typical, but when I was working for a government aerospace contractor, it seemed like the most creative and intelligent techie types were the first to go, as the higher paid people who made the decisions of who stays and who goes seemed to feel threatened by them.
Ideally, it seemed they were trying to engineer a business model of a few very highly paid people at the top, with below them lots of completely interchangeable minions.
To do this, they used "compartmentalization", "need-to-know", "charge numbers", and a high rate of turnover to keep any one minion from becoming knowledgeable enough to pose any sort of threat to the job security of the ones hiring him at minimal salary to do a minimal function.
Showing any sort of curiosity or inner drive to do something seemed a surefire way to get to the top of the next week's layoff list. The "motivational" and "inspirational" training they sent the managers to had the opposite effect on me, as they just seemed to be management's way of telling how unimportant and meaningless my life under them was.
It seemed all about how to find people who would work for cucumber while they got the grape. And they did not mind flaunting it. Fancy offices, preferred parking, catered gatherings that only they were invited to, getting to spend half every day on "management training", and other perks. We sure were not important enough to train, especially "on the clock".
Who would want a curious engineer around when they could shake the hand of the man earning a million dollars a year who hires the men that determine whether that engineer has a job next week?
As for desoldering the chip, the way I do those is do a quick rough solderwick w/ lots of flux to remove what solder will remove that way. Then I dab on plenty of Sn42/Bi58 solder cream then heat the whole shebang up under a infrared source like a high power halogen. This bismuth based solder paste has a much lower melting point than standard solder - it will quickly alloy with the remaining solder and the whole pad area will liquefy, leaving the chip easily removable by suction cup or tweezer.
An entrepreneur markets something like this solder paste under the name "ChipQuik", but I found the Sn42/Bi58 that works just as well much cheaper in China... Google up some solder alloy charts regarding bismuth/tin/lead to get a good idea of what your mix melts at. Once removing your chip, wick off the bismuth solder. Although it has wondrous low temperature melting point, it is quite brittle. In the lab, OK, but I would not want to ship it to a customer that way. Rosin flux cleans up nicely with industrial ethanol.
I have on several occasions used this technique to remove 24Cxxx EEPROMS from boards I am reversing so I can solder the EEPROM back onto a memory board read by an Arduino, which then sends either a binary or Intel HEX file through the serial/USB port back the the PC, that's running the disassembler...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2016, @06:53AM
Most chips in phones are BGA. Much less fun to desolder, and even less fun to re-ball and then resolder onto a testbed.
I do both hw and sw and I think the sw approach would be easier.
That said, it would be good to do the hw approach and copy the FLASH contents before hacking the IOS.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday March 06 2016, @07:17AM
Quite true... I have yet to successfully do a BGA.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2016, @06:52PM
BGAs require either a focused hot air system (shaped nozzles, shields, etc.), or a heat plate. Either way, much care is needed regarding other parts which can't take the heat, such as: connectors, buttons, pots, switches, etc, which are made with plastics - you try to shield them, heatsink clip them, or just remove them first.
An art professor friend of mine, who is very technologically savvy, had an Apple laptop fail (I don't know the model.) He learned it was a common problem with his model, that some of the BGAs weren't properly soldered (probably rushed through the IR oven) and the fix he found was to bake the motherboard in his home oven. I'm not sure the temp, maybe 450? Anyway, he removed vulnerable parts, baked it, reassembled it all, and it still works. He's an amazing teacher too.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2016, @01:05PM
I have on several occasions used this technique to remove 24Cxxx EEPROMS from boards I am reversing so I can solder the EEPROM back onto a memory board read by an Arduino
I just use clamps: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=sop%208%20clamp [ebay.com]
For the eMMCs, stuff like this is used: http://www.teeltech.com/mobile-device-forensic-software/coded-read-emmc-chips-without-soldering/ [teeltech.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday March 06 2016, @01:06PM
Though I personally only tried the SOP8 clamps ;)
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bobs on Sunday March 06 2016, @01:23PM
I do not know if my experience is typical, but when I was working for a government aerospace contractor, it seemed like the most creative and intelligent techie types were the first to go, as the higher paid people who made the decisions of who stays and who goes seemed to feel threatened by them.
This has been my experience as well with less competent managers. Good leaders will figure out how to encourage and use the creative and intelligent, the poor ones will purge them as threats.
(Score: 1) by bitstream on Sunday March 06 2016, @01:45PM
And the market place will hopefully purge the corporations run by less than competent managers ;)
It's however quite sad how much talent that is wasted for idiotic reasons or people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2016, @09:36PM
Nah, big org's always degenerate this way. Either work for a smaller org, or learn to play the game.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday March 06 2016, @06:14AM
It's questionable to me whether the FBI has staff that can desolder and construct an interface for an arbitrary memory chip.
Agreed, they probably can't do it. And neither can Joe Random programmer and Bob Random EE working together.
John McAfee seems unlike to be of much help either. The chip was invented long after John was well and truly out of the computing in any real way.
I've done a small amount of dis-assembly, trying recover source code for a program where the source code was lost, and all there was left was an executable. It can be months of work, and you can not easily discern the path through the code that will be taken at execution time. This was true back in 486 days, and its more true today with multi-core processors. And it wasn't with the amount of code in a whole operating system.
I think this is more of Big John's buffoonery and talking out his ass.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday March 06 2016, @06:29AM
It was hard enough in the days of the 8086, I began really taking a long time to do this under '286, especially under protected mode such as Phar-Lap. I do not even try on the later stuff anymore. Out of my league.
I will still reverse and modify microcontroller stuff though. You know - stuff based on 8051 or similar. Often the source code is long gone by the time it gets to me. And someone just wants it to work again.
If not that, I just replace the whole shebang with an Arduino-compatible and any interfaces I may need to conjure up. Its amazing what can be done with "propeller" chips slaved to an Arduino via I2C.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday March 07 2016, @05:45PM
Oh look, he lied
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/john-mcafee-lied-iphone-apple-fbi/ [dailydot.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Monday March 07 2016, @06:57PM
I ended up reading his backstory after posting that and exaggerating to get attention and then playing it off as a carefully calculated move after the fact is completely in character for McAfee.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.