San Bernardino DA Tells Judge To Side With FBI Over Apple Because iPhone May Have Mythical Cyber Weapon
from the magical-unicorn-fairy-thinking dept
There's been lots of press coverage over the fact that basically a ton of organizations and experts have filed amicus briefs in support of Apple in its legal fight with the FBI/DOJ -- and we'll have a post on that shortly -- but on the flip side, the District Attorney for San Bernardino Country, hilariously arguing that he represents "the people of California" as his client, has filed one of the nuttiest amicus briefs you'll see in favor of the FBI. The- Initial reports suggested there were three shooters, instead of two. And even though that was later discounted by basically everyone, perhaps this one phone will reveal a third shooter.
- Perhaps the phone has some sort of mythical cyber weapon that could wreak havoc on the world.
At the time that the murders were being perpetrated at least two 911 calls to the San Bernardino Police Dispatch center reported the involvement of three perpetrators. Although the reports of three individuals were not corroborated, and may ultimately be incorrect, the fact remains, that the information contained solely on the seized iPhone could provide evidence to identify as of yet unknown co-conspirators who would be prosecuted for murder and attempted murder in San Bernardino County by the District Attorney.What?!? On that first point, as detailed in On the Media's wonderful "Breaking News Consumer Handbook," when it comes to active shooter situations, there will almost always be a false report of more shooters than their actually are. On the second point... just wow. San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos is apparently now making up shit out of thin air. Aren't law enforcement searches supposed to involve "probable cause" rather than "um... what's the scariest computery thing I could think of based on what I've seen in TV and movies?"
The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized IPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino County's infrastructure, a violation of Cal. Penal Code §502 (Lexis 2016) and poses a continuing threat to the citizens of San Bernardino County.
As iPhone forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski told Dave Kravets at Ars Technica, this is the equivalent of the idea that a "magical unicorn might exist on this phone." He also noted "the world has never seen what he is describing coming from an iPhone." And also:
It sounds like he’s making up these terms as he goes. We've never used these terms in computer science. I think what he’s trying to suggest is that Farook was somehow working with someone to install a program on the iPhone that would infect the local network with some kind of virus or worm or something along those lines. Anything is possible, right? Do they have any evidence whatsoever to show there is any kind of cyber pathogen on the network or any logs or network captures to show that Farook's phone tried to introduce some unauthorized code into the system?Security researchers are now cracking all kinds of jokes about this:
Cyber pathogens are so unspeakably dangerous that the open research community has wisely never published a single paper about them.
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) March 4, 2016
Of course, it should also be noted that this is not actually the first time San Bernardino County DA Michael Ramos has been mentioned here on Techdirt. Last year he was blathering on about charging drone operators for murder for flying drones near wildfires. One would hope that magistrate judge Sheri Pym knows better than to give any weight to an argument that is based on magic pixie dust fantasy-land arguments.
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Filed Under: cyber pathogen, cyber weapon, doj, fbi, michael ramos, san bernardino, san bernardino da
Companies: apple
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Therefore you must be referring to something outside the article. Does this DA have some sort of history of perjury?
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Pixie Dust
One can hope, but lets be honest based on the already dangerous ruling issued in this case by Pym...it's much more likely that Michael Ramos has been the one supplying Pym with the Pixie Dust in the first place.
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Re: Pixie Dust
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Paraphrased:
If he had at least argued that it might contain fairy dust and unicorn farts.
But a "cyber pathogen"? Does he remember which side of the case he is supposed to argue, or rather make his prancing clown act for?
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...oh, and, apparently, San Bernardino District Attorneys.
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This DA seems to have gotten his tech knowledge from watching Skyfall when the otherwise tech-savvy Q decides to plug a known criminal mastermind's laptop into a secure network and doesn't think anything bad would happen.
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It could be deadly! Quick, open it!
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Re: It could be deadly! Quick, open it!
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DA still wins for most likely CSI: Cyber plotline.
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The seized IPhone may contain evidence
Courts have said in the past that prosecutors and law enforcement need a valid reason to search anything that a suspect might own. Prosecutors and law enforcement need legal justification to search something that a suspect possesses or possessed. Telling the court that they "might be evidence" is not a legal justification for a search, which is why courts routinely toss out evidence when it has been obtained illegally and without due process.
Recently, the Supreme Court ruled in Rodriguez v. United States that police officers who detained a driver and then extended the vehicle stop by calling for a K9 unit where the police found methamphetamine in the car amounted to nothing more than an illegal search.
With Apple, even though the iPhone is owned by the government (the state of California), neither law enforcement nor the government can force any company, corporation, business or private citizen to engage in behavior solely for the benefit of the government.
It's simply ridiculous how little this prosecutor knows ab out the law, which he is supposed to be quite familiar with.
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Re:
Ridiculous, but expected. The government doesn't have anything beyond 'well there might be something valuable on the phone' as an argument, so of course their claims of why they really need to be able to force Apple to unlock it are going to be based on some pretty shaky(or utterly ludicrous in this case) logic.
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"... contained solely on the seized iPhone..."
Very affirmative. Definitely just on that one, specific device.
"... could..."
Ummm... not so affirmative.
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Also possibly on the phone:
- The script for the tv show 'Lost', explaining everything in full detail.
- Full translation of the Voynich Manuscript.
- Winning numbers for the next 100 lotteries.
- A copy of an email from Quentin Tarantino explaining exactly what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
- The cure for all forms of cancer(but not the common cold).
- An absolutely superb, made-from-scratch BBQ sauce recipe.
- The last will and testament of Emperor Norton, revealing that he was a genuine emperor the entire time.
- A file containing approximately three dozen slightly offensive jokes, every single one of which ends with '... and that's why you don't ask.'
- Half a dozen funny cat gifs.
- Schematics for a machine capable of producing endless free energy, along with instructions in making a material that acts as a perfect conductor of electricity.
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Re: Also possibly on the phone:
-The key to interstellar travel
-Elvis
-A "Cyber Drug" that makes the San Bernardino DA actually make sense
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Re: Also possibly on the phone:
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Re: Re: Also possibly on the phone:
However, what we might find is a secret government report detailing an investigation into what that thing on his head actually is. My suspicion is that it's alien life.
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And here I've been an anti-Vax'er ever since that problem with the Vax 11/780 back in my college years...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Also possibly on the phone:
Sure. Haven't you heard of iBola?
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Sure. Haven't you heard of iBola?
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Re: Also possibly on the phone:
- Will this guy win another term as DA?
- Will this guy become governor of California and how did he do it?
- Will this guy continue to be famous by making outlandish claims like this?
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Full brief?
The APPLICATION says, on p.1-2: (Bold-allcaps added.)
Further, on p.4, the application says: (Bold-allcaps added again.)
ISTM, that the linked document, which the article above characterizes as the “full brief” is not actually the amicus brief. The linked document is just the application to file another document, to wit, the aforementioned amicus brief, which we're not seeing.
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Re: Full brief?
The article above has been modified to note that, yes, it was just the motion and not the brief.
Re Lavabit, I note that the EFF brief referred to is hosted on the Apple servers rather than the court's system. I'd wager that the brief itself is available, just not from apple's servers. ... or not when Techdirt wrote it up.
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• If trustworthy people are willing to take a physical trip to the courthouse, then physically eyeballing the clerk's file is an option.
• There might still be reasons to have someone available in a publishing chain who has never agreed to the PACER terms.
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Re: Re: Full brief?
I got the briefs directly from PACER or from Apple. For whatever reason some of the "attached" briefs aren't in PACER (or posted by Apple).
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Speaking of the Unknown
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The National Enquirer warned us about this. Hackers creating a virus that could make your computer explode. We didn't listen.
See if you can laugh when all the electronic parking meters on your street are popping like popcorn.
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Fort Detrick
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It starts out just thinking through the contingencies, and then moves to tabletop exercises, and then writeups land in filefolders… if you've got an F-15 in the air already, and KC-135 or KC-10 support arranged, then where do you put it all down? What's the next stage?
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Historically...
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Re:
No clue. Please google that for me.
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So let me get this straight...
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Are you scared now?
Okay, then....
CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER CYBER!
What about now?
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Wow. Just wow.
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Something which the FBI, DOJ, and any other agency that wants to take a crack at it is more than welcome to do on their own.
What they aren't welcome to do is order someone else, in this case Apple, to write custom code for the sole purpose of removing key security features protecting the contents of the device in the process. What they are 'asking' for goes well beyond 'unlock it', both in what is being demanded and what it will mean if their demand is accepted by the court.
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No one's stopping them.
They just need to guess the passcode and hope the phone doesn't erase if they don't guess it correctly.
They've got a 1 in 1000 chance of guessing it right before the phone auto-erases. That's hardly Apple's problem.
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Regardless, someone who is capable of physically replacing the ”Toshiba THGBX2G7B2JLA01 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND flash” on the “Apple make: iPhone 5C, Model: A1532, P/N: MGFG2LL/A, S/N FFMNQ3MTG2DJ” has a better chance.
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Source?
My understanding is that the hw uid in the A6 is “fused” which I read as possibly either “fused” or “anti-fused”. Either way, doesn't that require a higher write voltage than read voltage?
Where are the voltage regulators?
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Not since fuse became synonymous with flash technology used as where fuse bits used to be.
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This is a consumer device. You're telling me that Apple is spending processor die area like this? I'm finding this improbable.
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Terrifying
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Re: Terrifying
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This is all about precedent and nothing else. If the ruling stands there are LEOs all over the nation standing in line to get a look at the private thoughts/papers/associations of iPhone owners.
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It carries a dangerous cyber pathogen that can disrupt the whole national communication infrastructure.
The name of this pathogen is "precedent".
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The Breakdown of the Bicameral DA
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Cyber Pathogen = Pandora's Box
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Well, you started it!
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Re: Well, you started it!
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Prosecutors saying that "there might be" evidence is NOT a legal justification, that's just a biased opinion coming from the prosecutor and they aren't allowed to go on fishing expeditions just because they think there might be evidence.
What happens if Apple is forced to unlock the device and there is no evidence? That opens up to the filing of lawsuits against the police department and the prosecutor.
Courts do not grant warrants based on guesswork. If they did start doing this, it would open up every case to being appealed in the federal courts and cost local jurisdictions millions of tax dollars in wasted court proceedings.
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Ok, let's think this through.
Now suppose you are a hardened terrorist with a powerful "cyber pathogen" at your disposal. What do you do? You take to guns and start shooting people in the street until you are killed.
I mean, focus!
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Re: Ok, let's think this through.
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Re: Re: Ok, let's think this through.
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Pathogen definition
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With a fishing expedition that bad, bruh, you will definitely NOT be needing a bigger boat.
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Ah yes.
It's almost like he's a professional problem seeker looking to turn it into a cause which gets him elected to "higher" office. He's not the sort of solution anyone needs. There's far less costly and more effective solutions than him.
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