JOHN MCAFEE: I'll decrypt the San Bernardino phone free of charge

[limequat]

Posting here because I believe this is publicity for his campaign:

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-ill-decrypt-san-bernardino-phone-for-free-2016-2

So here is my offer to the FBI. I will, free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone, with my team. We will primarily use social engineering, and it will take us three weeks. If you accept my offer, then you will not need to ask Apple to place a back door in its product, which will be the beginning of the end of America.

If you doubt my credentials, Google "cybersecurity legend" and see whose name is the only name that appears in the first 10 results out of more than a quarter of a million.​

Mic drop.

 

[Michael Landon]

While I agree that it's better to have him and his team decrypt the information from a single phone rather than the heavy-handed approach of the government forcing an entire company to provide the means to do it to all phones, I wonder if we can trust him not to violate the privacy principles of the America people if he were somehow elected President?

- ML

 

[EBounding]

I find this hard to believe. How would his team "social engineer" their way into the phone?

 

[AuH20]

Hasn't Apple already unlocked 70 phones that the authorities had requested access to? Cook is full of it.

 

[squirl22]

My understanding is that there is no way to get into the phone without developing a new product. Apply specifically designed their new phones to not allow anyone, even them, to get into the phone. This was their way to insure their customers that they were not cooperating with the feds and could not open the phones themselves. So, the feds are ordering a company to develop a new product; that is why I said this is fascism.

 

[limequat]

My understanding is that there is no way to get into the phone without developing a new product. Apply specifically designed their new phones to not allow anyone, even them, to get into the phone. This was their way to insure their customers that they were not cooperating with the feds and could not open the phones themselves. So, the feds are ordering a company to develop a new product; that is why I said this is fascism.

Yes. The only way in is via a iOS update. The FBI is asking Apple to custom build a version of iOS that could break the encryption.
I have no idea what McAfee has up his sleeve, but it's entertaining to watch.

 

[VIDEODROME]

He's going to socially engineer Apple

 

[brushfire]

The NSA has everything they need.

 

[presence]

I find this hard to believe. How would his team "social engineer" their way into the phone?

social engineering would include things like phishing attacks; he's offering to obtain the information through nefarious means if he's cleared of crime for purpose of the investigation. Potentially he could hack into other systems... obtain for example failed password attempt where he attempted to put his iphone password into his twitter account, etc.

 

[FunkBuddha]

Making the claim that your going to socially engineer someone before you actually do it is foolish. Even if you've already socially engineered them and gotten the information before you make the claim.

I don't know much iPhones but i do know that they check a URL to see if updates are available at regular intervals. If you impersonated that URL you can get the phone to download whatever you want. The phone won't run it though because it isn't signed by Apple and there probably has to be some user input to install it. Maybe Apple has some mechanism to override that and force the file to execute.

If that's how it works and McAfee's people were able to get the key that Apple signs it's updates with, in theory they could back door it.

 

[euphemia]

They have taken phones to the labs at Apple to open them for government analysis before. What the government is demanding is that Apple create a tool to be used so government can bypass Apple and break into phones themselves.

This is not about San Bernadino. This is about you and me. This plan was formed a long time ago. All the government needed was a specific event that was big enough to make citizens feel vulnerable.

If Congress (Hello, Rand? Are you listening?) is serious about protecting the privacy of citizens, they will repeal the Patriot Act, and pass a law specifically calling for special treatment of terrorists and terror events. This would mean the President and the FBI would have to classify events as terror and people as terrorists.

No more blanket stuff to spy on everyone. It's a waste of time and money, and a violation of the Constitution.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

They have taken phones to the labs at Apple to open them for government analysis. What the government is demanding is that Apple create a tool to be used so government can bypass Apple and break into phones themselves.

This is not about San Bernadino. This is about you and me. This plan was formed a long time ago. All the government needed was a specific event that was big enough to make citizens feel vulnerable.

do you have a reference for this ?

 

[euphemia]

do you have a reference for this ?

That depends on how much of a reference you consider CBS to be. Link

I would also say this: Hillary and anyone she ever looked at should be coming out against the FBI. She, of all people, needs to be very concerned about the security of her iPhone and the ability of the FBI to unlock it.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

That depends on how much of a reference you consider CBS to be. Link

I would also say this: Hillary and anyone she ever looked at should be coming out against the FBI. She, of all people, needs to be very concerned about the security of her iPhone and the ability of the FBI to unlock it.

touche

 

[Chester Copperpot]

That depends on how much of a reference you consider CBS to be. Link

I would also say this: Hillary and anyone she ever looked at should be coming out against the FBI. She, of all people, needs to be very concerned about the security of her iPhone and the ability of the FBI to unlock it.

i dont see anything in the think that specifically says the FBI wants the tool to bypass the need for apple to unlock anything

 

[presence]

do you have a reference for this ?

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/19/11064054/apple-fbi-lockscreen-encryption-passcode-backdoor
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/17/apple_iphone_5c/
http://mashable.com/2016/02/17/how-apple-could-hack-iphone/#eylgFYDpsZqo
http://www.techinsider.io/why-fbi-needs-apple-to-hack-the-iphone-2016-2

The four-digit passcode, along with a key built into the phone's hardware, is necessary to de-crypt the messages and photos on your phone. Without it, they just read as garbled data.

Apple is better able to access that data than the FBI because it holds a set of keys. Those keys won't unlock the vault, but they do allow it to access and modify the vault's locking mechanism — and to make changes that would allow the FBI to pick the lock on its own.


Right now, if you enter an incorrect passcode on an iPhone 5c (the model owned by the shooter) you just don't get in. Make some more mistakes and iOS will make you wait longer and longer between each attempt. Screw up enough times and your phone will erase its data. This protects your iPhone from something called a "brute-force attack," a hacking attempt in which a computer sends thousands and thousands of possible pass codes to the iPhone until it lands on the correct one.



The FBI's order demands that Apple create a firmware update that would remove these safeguards and allow a brute force attack. As security researcher Dan Guido writes at Trail of Bits, only Apple has the secret keys necessary to make an iPhone accept a firmware update. That's why the FBI or NSA can't do it on its own.

after the firmware update it would take the FBI less than 14 minutes to brute all possible combinations

 

[euphemia]

Hillary should be the test case, not Farook. Hillary represents a far greater threat to national security than Farook and Malik ever did. We may never know what damage Hillary has done.

 

[limequat]

Hillary should be the test case, not Farook. Hillary represents a far greater threat to national security than Farook and Malik ever did. We may never know what damage Hillary has done.

Tweet this to Trump. Maybe he'll RT, lol.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/19/11064054/apple-fbi-lockscreen-encryption-passcode-backdoor
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/17/apple_iphone_5c/
http://mashable.com/2016/02/17/how-apple-could-hack-iphone/#eylgFYDpsZqo
http://www.techinsider.io/why-fbi-needs-apple-to-hack-the-iphone-2016-2


after the firmware update it would take the FBI less than 14 minutes to brute all possible combinations

the reference i mean is one that the govt itself specifically wants the ability to backdoor the phone so it can crack the phone WITHOUT help from apple.. this would mean that the FBI really wants the power instead of this specific information..

thats what im looking for.

 

[VIDEODROME]

He's gonna get Tim Cook really drunk