Apple is bowing to pressure from the Chinese government and storing encryption keys in China. While I would prefer it if it would take a stand against China, I really can’t blame it for putting its business model ahead of its desires for customer privacy.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 28, 2018 apple, china, cloudcomputing, encryption, iphone, keyescrow, privacy, Security technology Read more >
Forbes reports that the Israeli company Cellebrite can probably unlock all iPhone models:
Cellebrite, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based vendor that’s become the U.S. government’s company of choice when it comes to unlocking mobile devices, is this month telling customers its engineers currently have the ability to get around the security of devices running iOS 11. That includes the iPhone X, a model that Forbes has learned was successfully raided for data by the Department for Homeland Security back in November 2017, most likely with Cellebrite technology.
[…]
It also appears the feds have already tried out Cellebrite tech on the most recent Apple handset, the iPhone X. That’s according to a warrant unearthed by Forbes in Michigan, marking the first known government inspection of the bleeding edge smartphone in a criminal investigation. The warrant detailed a probe into Abdulmajid Saidi, a suspect in an arms trafficking case, whose iPhone X was taken from him as he was about to leave America for Beirut, Lebanon, on November 20. The device was sent to a Cellebrite specialist at the DHS Homeland Security Investigations Grand Rapids labs and the data extracted on December 5.
This story is based on some excellent reporting, but leaves a lot of questions unanswered. We don’t know exactly what was extracted from any of the phones. Was it metadata or data, and what kind of metadata or data was it.
The story I hear is that Cellebrite hires ex-Apple engineers and moves them to countries where Apple can’t prosecute them under the DMCA or its equivalents. There’s also a credible rumor that Cellebrite’s mechanisms only defeat the mechanism that limits the number of password attempts. It does not allow engineers to move the encrypted data off the phone and run an offline password cracker. If this is true, then strong passwords are still secure.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 27, 2018 apple, cellphones, dhs, fbi, iphone, israel, locks, phones, Security technology Read more >
If you’re going to commit an illegal act, it’s best not to discuss it in e-mail. It’s also best to Google tech instructions rather than asking someone else to do it:
One new detail from the indictment, however, points to just how unsophisticated Manafort seems to have been. Here’s the relevant passage from the indictment. I’ve bolded the most important bits:
Manafort and Gates made numerous false and fraudulent representations to secure the loans. For example, Manafort provided the bank with doctored [profit and loss statements] for [Davis Manafort Inc.] for both 2015 and 2016, overstating its income by millions of dollars. The doctored 2015 DMI P&L submitted to Lender D was the same false statement previously submitted to Lender C, which overstated DMI’s income by more than $4 million. The doctored 2016 DMI P&L was inflated by Manafort by more than $3.5 million. To create the false 2016 P&L, on or about October 21, 2016, Manafort emailed Gates a .pdf version of the real 2016 DMI P&L, which showed a loss of more than $600,000. Gates converted that .pdf into a “Word” document so that it could be edited, which Gates sent back to Manafort. Manafort altered that “Word” document by adding more than $3.5 million in income. He then sent this falsified P&L to Gates and asked that the “Word” document be converted back to a .pdf, which Gates did and returned to Manafort. Manafort then sent the falsified 2016 DMI P&L .pdf to Lender D.
So here’s the essence of what went wrong for Manafort and Gates, according to Mueller’s investigation: Manafort allegedly wanted to falsify his company’s income, but he couldn’t figure out how to edit the PDF. He therefore had Gates turn it into a Microsoft Word document for him, which led the two to bounce the documents back-and-forth over email. As attorney and blogger Susan Simpson notes on Twitter, Manafort’s inability to complete a basic task on his own seems to have effectively “created an incriminating paper trail.”
If there’s a lesson here, it’s that the Internet constantly generates data about what people are doing on it, and that data is all potential evidence. The FBI is 100% wrong that they’re going dark; it’s really the golden age of surveillance, and the FBI’s panic is really just its own lack of technical sophistication.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 26, 2018 courts, crime, fbi, forensics, operationalsecurity, privacy, Security technology, surveillance Read more >
This is the story of the Hawaiian bobtail squid and Vibrio fischeri.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 23, 2018 Security technology, squid, video Read more >
People harassing women by delivering anonymous packages purchased from Amazon.
On the one hand, there is nothing new here. This could have happened decades ago, pre-Internet. But the Internet makes this easier, and the article points out that using prepaid gift cards makes this anonymous. I am curious how much these differences make a difference in kind, and what can be done about it.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 22, 2018 amazon, anonymity, internetandsociety, Security technology Read more >
Researchers have discovered new variants of Spectre and Meltdown. The software mitigations for Spectre and Meltdown seem to block these variants, although the eventual CPU fixes will have to be expanded to account for these new attacks.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 21, 2018 academicpapers, hardware, malware, Security technology Read more >
It’s not a great solution, but it’s something:
The process of using postcards containing a specific code will be required for advertising that mentions a specific candidate running for a federal office, Katie Harbath, Facebook’s global director of policy programs, said. The requirement will not apply to issue-based political ads, she said.
“If you run an ad mentioning a candidate, we are going to mail you a postcard and you will have to use that code to prove you are in the United States,” Harbath said at a weekend conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State, where executives from Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google also spoke.
“It won’t solve everything,” Harbath said in a brief interview with Reuters following her remarks.
But sending codes through old-fashioned mail was the most effective method the tech company could come up with to prevent Russians and other bad actors from purchasing ads while posing as someone else, Harbath said.
It does mean a several-days delay between purchasing an ad and seeing it run.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 20, 2018 facebook, fraud, mail, Security technology, socialmedia, voting Read more >
Interesting history of the security of walls:
Dún Aonghasa presents early evidence of the same principles of redundant security measures at work in 13th century castles, 17th century star-shaped artillery fortifications, and even “defense in depth” security architecture promoted today by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and countless other security organizations world-wide.
Security advances throughout the centuries have been mostly technical adjustments in response to evolving weaponry. Fortification — the art and science of protecting a place by imposing a barrier between you and an enemy — is as ancient as humanity. From the standpoint of theory, however, there is very little about modern network or airport security that could not be learned from a 17th century artillery manual. That should trouble us more than it does.
Fortification depends on walls as a demarcation between attacker and defender. The very first priority action listed in the 2017 National Security Strategy states: “We will secure our borders through the construction of a border wall, the use of multilayered defenses and advanced technology, the employment of additional personnel, and other measures.” The National Security Strategy, as well as the executive order just preceding it, are just formal language to describe the recurrent and popular idea of a grand border wall as a central tool of strategic security. There’s been a lot said about the costs of the wall. But, as the American finger hovers over the Hadrian’s Wall 2.0 button, whether or not a wall will actually improve national security depends a lot on how walls work, but moreso, how they fail.
Lots more at the link.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 19, 2018 borders, nationalsecuritypolicy, physicalsecurity, Security technology Read more >
The National Academies has just published “Decrypting the Encryption Debate: A Framework for Decision Makers.” It looks really good, although I have not read it yet.
Not much news or analysis yet. Please post any links you find in the comments, and I will summarize them here.
Powered by WPeMatico
February 16, 2018 cryptography, encryption, nationalsecuritypolicy, Security technology Read more >