DEA Accused Of Leaking Misleading Info Falsely Implying That It Can't Read Apple iMessages
from the that's-not-the-truth dept
So this is interesting. Yesterday, CNET had a story revealing a "leaked" Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) memo suggesting that messages sent via Apple's own iMessage system were untappable and were "frustrating" law enforcement. Here's a snippet from that article:Encryption used in Apple's iMessage chat service has stymied attempts by federal drug enforcement agents to eavesdrop on suspects' conversations, an internal government document reveals.CNET posted an image of the letter:
An internal Drug Enforcement Administration document seen by CNET discusses a February 2013 criminal investigation and warns that because of the use of encryption, "it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices" even with a court order approved by a federal judge.
That leads Sanchez to wonder if there might be some sort of ulterior motive behind the "leaking" of this document, done in a way to falsely imply that iMessages are actually impervious to government snooping. He comes up with two plausible theories: (1) that this is part of the feds' longstanding effort to convince lawmakers to make it mandatory that all communications systems have backdoors for wiretapping and (2) that it's an attempt to convince criminals that iMessages are safe, so they start using them falsely believing their messages are protected.
Which brings us to the question of why, exactly, this sensitive law enforcement document leaked to a news outlet in the first place. It would be very strange, after all, for a cop to deliberately pass along information that could help drug dealers shield their communications from police. One reason might be to create support for the Justice Department’s longstanding campaign for legislation to require Internet providers to create backdoors ensuring police can read encrypted communications—even though in this case, the backdoor would appear to already exist.While both scenarios are plausible, both seem fairly cynical as well. I'd like to think that law enforcement is above attempting such tricks, but unfortunately that might just be naive these days.
The CNET article itself discusses this so-called “Going Dark” initiative. But another possible motive is to spread the very false impression that the article creates: That iMessages are somehow more difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement to intercept. Criminals might then switch to using the iMessage service, which is no more immune to interception in reality, and actually provides police with far more useful data than traditional text messages can. If that’s what happened here, you have to admire the leaker’s ingenuity—but I’m inclined to think people are entitled to accurate information about the real level of security their communication enjoy.
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Filed Under: dea, encryption, imessages, privacy
Companies: apple
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True, but smart criminals either enter the corporate business world or politics. The smartest do both. No need to worry about encryption when you can just buy your freedom back.
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Re:
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Co-intel Pro
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Re: Co-intel Free
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Just caught this
T E R R O R I S M ! ! ! B O O! ! !
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Protection against hackers
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Smart Criminals must use their own encryption and I really do not have more knowledge than this.
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Useful tool. It works be creating 2 keys, public and private. The public key can only encrypt the email/document/file, it can't reverse the encryption. The private key though, is one you must protect and keep hidden. That key is the one that breaks the encryption. Keep a backup, but keep it locked up (for example, on a USB drive inside a lockbox) so prying eyes can't get their hands on it.
Using GPG is not too hard. Step 1, create your public and private keys. Step 2, share the public key with anyone at all who would be interested in sending you encrypted emails. Step 3, obtain public keys from anyone you would want to send email to. Now you're ready to use it.
Any emails you receive, you run through your personal private key, and it decrypts. Any emails you send, run the text through the receiving user's public key first to encrypt it, then send it out.
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Re: Re:
http://gpgtools.github.io/GPGTools_Homepage/
And for Windows users:
http://www.gpg4win.org/
Linux users, you probably already know that you have it in your software center or equivalent.
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/Sarc
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Apples and Pomegranates
If the police are tapping SMS, they may think they've go everything when they don't. There are two separate streams, Apple and SMS.
So the "oops we didn't get it all" probably warn tech-challenged law school grads and police that they are not covering ALL bases by only tapping the phone.
Then there's the question of decoding and reading - tapped cellular streams can be read in real time based on an on-going warrant - but reading between the lines, the iPhone iMessage content needs a warrant after the fact and Apple's assistance to decode. (Do you think Apple would give out the key, or simply process the decoding for the law?)
So it seems to be a double purpose - they want to warn the police and attorneys they are not getting the whole picture with a simple wiretap. If it leaks and gives crooks a misleading sense of security, so they are more open on their imessages, bonus!
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Willfully ignorant is the more apt term.
Like our lawmakers and administrators.
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AMIRIGHT?
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Just for completeness, how long it takes to break encryption depends entirely on how many resources you're willing to throw at the problem. No encryption method available for use today will hold up for very long against a concerted, well-financed effort to break it.
You would, of course, have to be a very special person to warrant that kind of effort, so as a practical matter this doesn't really mean much.
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How does (a) imply (b)?
Sure, I can see (a), but how does that imply (b)? Could not messages be stored in the cloud and passed to you fully encrypted? Why would Apple have any more ability to decrypt them just because they're storing them?
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Re: How does (a) imply (b)?
You can view them on a new device without moving over a key... At the very least, Apple has the information necessary to decrypt them.
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Re: Re: How does (a) imply (b)?
If you back up your phone, receive several imessages and restore before you backup again, you will lose them.
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Re: Re: Re: How does (a) imply (b)?
If you back up your phone, receive several imessages and restore before you backup again, you will lose them."
Or you could just hit the "Edit" button and clear the conversation and also not use photo streaming.......that also completely clears you server side.
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Re: Re: How does (a) imply (b)?
I could be wrong though.
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You can choose to encrypt backups or not
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Are you sure...
It caused me issues once because I had imessage turned off for a bit and it was all going to my ipad i never checked. Those delivered messages never showed back up on my phone when I re-enabled imessage.
I think some people are talking about restoring from backup and don't realize it.
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If it is true
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The theory is weak
I believe it would be quite easy for iMessages to be stored, in their encrypted form, and recoverable when you use a different device, simply based on the Apple login credentials. Naturally, all Apple would have is a hash of the credentials, not the cleartext. The decryption key for a user's imessages could also be stored by Apple in an encrypted form that used something Apple does not have --- the cleartext of the login password --- for the decryption key. Upon successful login to Apple, the encrypted key of the iMessages (which is all Apple has) is passed to the device, which the decrypts it with the cleartext (which never leaves the device) of the Apple login password.... and then decrypts the iMessage contents.
This would allow for recovery of iMessages when your device is replaced, but Apple would not be able to decrypt them.
This would also support password changes not having to re-encrypt all the iMessages... just the single key. But it doesn't allow for password resets. I don't know if iMessages survive a password reset. But even that may be doable w/o Apple being able to decrypt iMessages.
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Re: The theory is weak
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Worse than you know.
There are also kits for law enforcement that plug in and copy every block (even deleted ones) off an iPhone without unlocking it.
Apple sold out long ago. Remember when they insisted there was no TCM chip in their machines but the Hackintosh people found the code support and then others found the chip on the motherboard?
Now it's integrated in the CPU.
You can boot a turned off stock Dell or HP and remote control it - copy the drive, flash the BIOS, etc.
Ever put an Amiga and sniffer tools with a snooper hub on a PC or Apple network? Secret packets are sent that are hidden from the OS. Identifying serial number for every machine - just like cell phones.
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now I call BS
It's definitely an obstacle worth mentioning, the key burned into the device where only that device can read the direct bits unencrypted once you encrypt...
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428477/the-iphone-has-passed-a-key-security-thres hold/
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Yes, you are naive. There's nothing wrong with the time honoured practice by the police of lying to prospective perps. It doesn't hurt anyone as long as it doesn't try to act as evidence in court. They do it all the time to elicit information. Sometimes, suspects need to be threatened to cough up the truth. I see nothing wrong with that, as long as it's the truth they're after and it doesn't descend into physical torture.
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A simpler possibility
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You've only gotta read up on how secure a Blackberry is when encrypted with a device key and passcode.
Why offer good end-to-end encryption when you cant even secure the device!
Sort it out.
J
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