"The Israeli mobile forensics firm Cellebrite helped the FBI hack into the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, NBC reports, citing industry sources.
The firm has been rumored to be behind the FBI’s newfound ability to access the device, thanks to a previous and unconfirmed report from an Israeli newspaper.
Neither Cellebrite nor the Department of Justice has confirmed the reports.
The FBI has routinely contracted Cellebrite over the last five years. The company, which publicly boasts of its ability to hack into Apple devices, has received over $2 million in purchase orders from the agency since 2012.
The DOJ on Monday withdrew its case against Apple, telling a federal court it was able to unlock the device without the tech giant's help."
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/274619-israeli-firm-behind-iphone-hack-report
5 comments:
Nice to see the FBI is on the job.
Now, if they would only put their foot down and demand a grand jury presentment for the Hildabeast.
Perhaps Deborah sees something nefarious in this.
Note: "Israel," as a country or government - as the reference implies - did no such thing. Shocking as it is to some people, private firms are hosted in countries other than just America.
Getting to the issue itself, I puzzled over, at first, the decision to implore Apple to do something they were right to be skeptical of. I further puzzled over the FBI's recent announcement. What did they have to gain by declaring, "We cracked your code!"
I'll tell you what. I heard a recent broadcast about how the U.S. government has had a long habit of employing hackers to find weaknesses in Microsoft and other companies' codes, and would use that as leverage for convincing them to share their electronic secrets with the government. Ultimately, this could only help get us to the present situation, where technology companies and telecoms are so intertwined with government interests as to make almost any resistance against such a behemoth industrial gov't-security complex nearly futile.
So apparently Apple took a stand.
And then, the gov't confidently declared that such a stand was not needed anyway.
In other words, your cooperation is demanded, but not necessary. Comply with us or we will roll you over, regardless.
That's what all this was about, if you ask me.
"That's what all this was about, if you ask me."
Absolutely. All your privacy are belong to us.
And you are correct, very sloppy title. Apologies..
No problem. It's hardly an egregious oversight.
It's just that we're going into silly season and my accuracy alert is on hair-trigger. ;-)
Cheers -
Maybe Guccifer, the Romanian, hacked the phone? perhaps in a plea deal.
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