An anticipated courtroom showdown between Apple and the FBI was scheduled for today — but that’snot happeninganymore . Thehearing was postponedfollowing an FBIcourt filingclaiming a “ third party ” had shown the politics an alternate method to unlock the San Bernardino taw ’s iPhone , one that does n’t require Apple ’s assistance .
The timing of the FBI ’s filing could not be more suspicious . This is the effectual equivalent of hollo in unhinged on a Friday before a foresighted weekend . All we eff is that the FBI require to hold off until it can test this occult raw method .
We do n’t sleep with who this “ third political party ” is , and we do n’t recognize what method it ’s offered to FBI . But here are some possibilities :
1) NAND Mirroring
This involves tinker with ironware , but it ’s not near as destructive as other pick . Forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski has a great descriptionon his blog :
Most of the tech expert I ’ve heard from believe the same as I do – that NAND mirroring is likely being used to some degree to brute power the pin on the gadget . This is where the NAND chip is typically desoldered , dumped into a filing cabinet ( likely by a buffalo chip reader / programmer , which is like a cd burner for chips ) , and then copy so that if the gimmick begins to pass over or stay after five or ten tries , they can just re - compose the original paradigm back to the fleck . This technique is kind of like cheating at Super Mario Bros. with a save - biz , allowing you to work the same level over and over after you keep dying . Only instead of play a game , they ’re judge different stick combination . It ’s possible they ’ve also made hardware modifications to their test devices to add a socket , allowing them to quickly flip chips out , or that they ’re using ironware to simulate this scrap so that they do n’t have to .
And here ’s a video of the NAND desoldering process :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG7JlDDX_RM
Why it could work : This method would allow the FBI to try an numberless number of guesses for the passcode . It also does n’t run a risk permanently destroying the phone .
Why it probably wo n’t work : Well , it actually might . This is , by far , the most credible scenario , as the FBI could have work on with forensics teams with background in NAND mirroring . Johns Hopkins secret writing expertMatthew D. Green , who recentlydiscovered a flawin Apple ’s iMessage encoding , says this is “ almost for sure correct . ” But whenever you ’re poking around at hardware , there ’s always the possibility something will go amiss .
2) Fiddling with the microprocessor
One way of life the FBI could pull up the datum it wants from the iPhone is manually taking the phone apart and using something likea focused ion beamto access its UID key on the headphone ’s microprocessor . The UID is decisive for brute - forcing the speech sound ’s countersign , since the unlock computer code is mesh in the identifier data . This is a method Edward Snowden suggestedat a recent talk .
Why it could work : We knowthis could workin possibility , and this variety of chip - hacking has been done in the past tense to access data .
Why it probably wo n’t exercise : The FBI would need to bump off the potato chip ’s encapsulationwith acidbefore it even attempted to search the chip . This method carries an extremely in high spirits risk : A midget error — a drib too much acid , or a optical maser pointed a shred in the wrong direction — could destroy the earphone , rending the data point unobtainable .
As security researcher Jonathan Zdziarskinoted , the FBI wo n’t be able to keep the court case against Apple if it utilize this method acting and ruins the speech sound .
3) The NSA is unlocking the phone
The FBI has n’t directly answer an obvious question during this fight : Why did n’t it just necessitate the NSA ? FBI Director James Comey tell Congress the NSAwas not help . But he ’s alsoa clownand did n’t peg down why the NSA was n’t helping .
There ’s a good reason why the FBI might not necessitate the NSA : It is advantageous to the FBI to jell a legal precedent here by ram Apple to cooperate . If the FBI had won this fight , it would ’ve had a strong precedent for conscripting technical school companies to assist in raze their security in the futurity . That articulate — what if the NSA did help ?
Why it could work : The National Security Agency hasa long historyof investigate workarounds for Apple ’s security measures , and has the most sophisticated and aggressive tactics for intercepting data of any agency in the world . Even former White House officialshave arguedthat it could probably get the datum off the telephone set .
Why it probably wo n’t work : As I mentioned , this route is n’t as appealing to the FBI . Also , the court brief reference to a “ third party ” bespeak that it ’s not a government agency allow the method .
4) John McAfee is unlocking the phone???
Antivirus entrepreneur and libertarian hood John McAfeeoffered to unlock the phonewith his team by using “ societal applied science . ” He judge that it would take three weeks .
Why it could work : lol
Why it probably wo n’t work : John McAfee is an muddled , attention - starved wash - up who spouts nonsense frequently , and there is no evidence that he has anything remotely resemble a practicable method acting for retrieving the data from a locked iPhone .
Of course , we do n’t know which route the FBI is taking . These are all hypotheses — some ridiculous , some less - so . Another hypothesis is that the FBI realized it had a dud case for case in point and accepted a thin offer so it could back out of a losing fight . Then again , if that were the typesetter’s case , why involve for a wait or else of dropping it outright ? This is still a mess of a state of affairs , and we may have to wait until the sense of hearing actually happens to find out what ’s on the political science ’s roadmap .
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