Finally, the FBI will not need Apple to access the content, encrypted smartphone Syed Farook, one of the two authors of the massacre of San Bernardino, which killed 14 people in December. A report dated March 28, passed the California Central District Court, says: “The government has managed to access data stored in the iPhone Farook and therefore demand more assistance” Apple. The prosecutor, Eileen Decker, asked the court to cancel the notice of the Californian company – procedure that had there a month and a half, set fire to the powder
16. February, the court had in fact ordered Apple to develop an ad hoc version of iOS, the operating system of the iPhone, to allow investigators to test a large number of passwords to unlock the device. Notice contested by Apple for the company, such software would amount to a “back door”, a secret access that can be reused, and set a precedent, likely to force companies sector to weaken data protection of its users.
If were followed by several weeks of legal confrontation, media and politics. Until rebound, March 21: The FBI, which had however said he could not do without Apple, announced that a “third party” had proposed a method. It remained to test it – it’s now done. According to David Bowdich, deputy director of the FBI office in Los Angeles, “full operation of the phone and investigation measures that follow are continuing.”
How did the FBI do?
This is the question that everyone asks, the US agency was being careful not to give any detail. Specialists are reduced to conjecture. So for security expert Jonathan Zdziarski Apple products, the most likely option would be to remove and copy several times the flash memory chip of the iPhone to perform tests without fear erasing data after ten unsuccessful attempts – a tedious solution but sufficient if the iPhone is protected by a simple four-digit code
as for “third party” . has helped here too, it is a deep mystery. Several theories have circulated, the former Apple employee to the powerful NSA. The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth for his part said he would Cellebrite, a company specializing in the “mobile forensic” , evidence extraction from mobile phones. The company, which claims “15,000 users among the police and the army,” is a credible candidate. According to the website Motherboard, since 2012, the FBI has spent more than $ 200 million in Cellebrite solutions – including 15,000 in an order signed on 21 March. Its equipment is also used in France. Thus we find in the archives of public procurement, a command “extraction systems and data analysis” rose to Cellebrite end of 2014, for four years, to the police, the gendarmerie and the national Directorate of customs intelligence and investigation.
the Israeli company has neither confirmed nor denied being the “third party” that helped the FBI. At the very least, Article Yedioth Ahronoth earned him a great advertisement.
Is this a victory for the FBI?
Not really . True, the agency will access the contents of the iPhone 5C Syed Farook, but a police source quoted by the New York Times recognizes that investigators could find nothing useful – it s ‘is a business smartphone, Farook who destroyed his personal phone. And the issue was broader. As acknowledged James Comey, FBI boss before a committee of representatives in the US Congress, the case of San Bernardino would have created a legal precedent. The smartphone Farook is far from the only one which the authorities want to access: the procedures are underway in ten cases. But last month, in a dispute concerning access to the smartphone from a drug dealer, a New York judge ruled in favor of Apple
The sensitive nature of the investigation. – Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on Facebook just before passing the act – was not enough to win the favors of a divided public, marked by Edward revelations Snowden about massive surveillance practiced by the NSA and its epigones. To the point that even within the US administration, voices have recently criticized a “major strategic error” from the FBI. At the hearing of Comey to Congress, the Michigan Democrat John Conyers was not private to raise the issue of the effect of opportunity. In an email sent late August to several colleagues, revealed by the Washington Post General Secretary Office of the National Director of National Intelligence, Robert S. Litt, thought indeed that the “legislative environment [...] very hostile” any restrictions on cryptographic technologies could “evolve to a terrorist attack or a criminal offense where it could be demonstrated that strong encryption has hindered the action of the security forces. “ clearly, the case of San Bernardino is not enough.
is this a victory for Apple?
only partly. In his standoff against the FBI and the Justice Department, the firm at the apple has aggregated many supporters – starting with the bosses of Silicon Valley, Sundar Pichai (Google), Jan Koum (WhatsApp) or Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), who denounced the risk of legal precedent. Support also civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and number of computer security experts, who were alarmed risk weakening data protection. And to a former head of the NSA, Michael Chertoff, who championed both for encryption and for the California company.
Still, the announcement of the US government puts Apple in a delicate situation, since the FBI announced that it was possible to bypass the security of one at least of its models. True, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies are supposed to go to companies the existence of loopholes, “unless there is a clear need for national security or law enforcement.” What, judge the EFF, should play in favor of a transmission of technical details to Apple. But nothing is less certain: according to Jonathan Zdziarski, the access method to the iPhone already classified Farook would
Is the conflict ended
.? Far from there. On this point, everyone agrees. authorities hand, the Justice Department said it “continue [d] to pursue all possible options” on access to data, it is through cooperation with manufacturers, by court battles or by “the creativity of the public and private sectors” in terms of technical circumvention. As for the firm at the apple, it ensures that it will continue “to increase the security of [its] products because the threats and attacks against [its] data are increasingly frequent and sophisticated” . It is already hard at work, both to strengthen the protection of iOS than his service “cloud”. For the ACLU, “This is a postponement in an inevitable battle” for “one day or another, the FBI will fall on an iPhone it can not unlock “. More generally, the controversy surrounding encryption technologies continues. According to Reuters, new legislation would be in the pipes on the side of the US Senate.
And in France?
The conflict between Apple and the FBI is also invited to Parliament French. MEPs have adopted an amendment to the anti-terrorism bill, which punishes five years in prison and 350,000 euro fine “The fact that a private organization, to decline to [...] protected data by means of cryptology which he is the builder “ during an investigation of terrorist offenses. During his trip to the United States, the Interior Minister had supported the FBI. Recently, during a session of questions to the government, he questioned the “darknet” and “encrypted messages”.
the investigation of the events of November 13, is the use of phones “disposable” and SMS “plaintext” by the attackers came out. Generally, encrypted phones are “far from the majority” of those faced by investigators, said a police source in Libération . The Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, had not less marked in September, the giants of the Net to make “Blind Justice” , citing the case of smartphone Ghlam Sid Ahmed, suspected of murder and attempted attack in Villejuif. On both sides of the Atlantic, the “war of cryptography” is far from over.
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