[conspire] Order to Compel Apple to Assist With SB Shooter Unlock

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 02:38:51 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: skeptic at lists.johnshopkins.edu
Subject: Re: And so it begins
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Quoting Michael D. Sofka (sofkam at rpi.edu):

> On 02/17/2016 10:36 AM, Wade T Smith wrote:
> >Not a continuation of this thread, but a simple theft of the subject line, to which I follow with this-
> >
> >http://www.scribd.com/doc/299504577/Order-to-Compel-Apple-to-Assist-With-SB-Shooter-Unlock
> >
> >- which is a demand from the FBI that Apple write specific software
> >just for them.

Apologies for being pedantic, here, but it's actually a _court order_
from a Federal magistrate judge, one Sheri Pym, speaking for the Central
District of California in Los Angeles.  (Northern District sits in San
Francisco, Southern District in San Diego, Eastern District in - IIRC -
Riverside.)

But yes, I'm sure that the judge's order was per the specification
handed to her by the FBI and/or other spooks.  She seems to have just 
said, 'Hey, sure, you get Christmas early, Mr. Assistant AG.'

Mindful of Mike Sofka's question below, I'll mention in passing that
another word for court order is 'writ'.  A writ aka court order
requiring the addressee to do something is called a 'writ of mandamus',
sometimes anglicised to 'writ of mandate'.  The other _most common_ type
of writ aka court order is one requiring the addressee to NOT do
something, which is called an injunction or 'writ of prohibition'.

The other three:
o  writ of habeas corpus:  'Hey, stop holding this guy without trial, and 
   show cause to a judge, already.'
o  writ of certiorari:  'Hey, lower court!  I, Justice High Muckity-muck
   want to review your recent decision, so sent me all the records.'
o  writ of quo warranto ('by what authority?'):  'Hey, wacko politician!
   You need to prove to this court that you're entitled to the public
   office you've been lately squatting in.'

I've just now read the writ.  Wow.  First reaction:  Judge Pym probably
has absolutely no idea she's ordered Apple to create from scratch a
major engineering effort costing literally about ten million dolllars 
(Deirdre's estimate, and she was an iPhone engineer at Apple) just
because some Feds want to know what was on Syed Farook's iPhone 5C.

No reason was cited for believing that dead mass-murderer Farook's
iPhone had anything on it to which the Feds had any rights, _but_ they
already had a warrant (or, Michael says, owner's permission) to search
it, issued some time after the San Bernardino shooting murders.

US Assistant AG Eileen Decker is quoted as saying 'We have made a solemn
commitment to the victims and their families that we will leave no stone
unturned as we gather as much information and evidence as possible.'
Evidence in what case, Ms. Decker?  Are you prosecuting the corpses of
Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik?  This does nothing for the
14 victims and their families; it's just a Federal fishing expedition
where they don't even know what they're looking for but just want to
dragnet a bunch of data to trace connections and see what they can dig
up.  (I'm not necessarily opposed to them doing so; I just find the
doublespeak tiresome.)

Judge Pym ordered Apple to develop a bespoke, specialised IOS bootable
image that could be booted completely in RAM on Farook's iPhone (not
touching anything on the 'phone's regular flash storage), that does _not_
lock and autoerase after ten bad passcode attempts, that has no 
software-driven delay between password attempts, and will accept
brute-force rapidfire attempts to guess the IOS numeric passcode
(figurately) machine-gunned at the 'phone over one of its network or
physical ports.

And this very specific request is probably phrased that way because 
some agent at FBI who's been probing iPhones thought 'Hey, it would help
if Apple would conjure out of nowhere a special standalone boot image
for cracking this passcode, so let's get a judge to order Apple to make
one.'


> Apple's letter to customers about this:
> http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

Apple quite rightly points out that the creation of the mandated
cracking tool would put all iPhones' security at risk, because the tool
would of course be immediately and massively leaked, or stolen, or both,
and then used by arbitrarily large numbers of underground figures,
corporate espionage agents, foreign spook agencies, etc.  

The government, as always, attempted to deny this reality in advance:  
Oh, no, surely we would not leak this, and we double-promise not to let
it be stolen.  And we didn't ask for a general-purpose tool, only one
that works with just a single iPhone S/N.  It wouldn't be conceivable
that a criminal would then hack that to work with different or arbitrary
S/Ns, because that would be Bad and Wrong.

Insultingly obvious bullshit justificatory story from the government.
Same old.


> It is an interesting case, with many implications.  On the one hand,
> the owner of the phone (the employer) has given permission, and
> there is little doubt about the guilt of the suspects.  It seems
> reasonable in that sense to allow an investigation to proceed.

Concur.

> On the other hand, Apple is being asked to help break the encryption
> the developed, and in the process create a method by which any iPhone
> could be "backdoored."

And there is absolutely no precedent for that.  I expect an immediate
argument for reconsideration of the writ in front of Judge Pym.  If that
doesn't work, I expect Apple and a coalition of other tech companies to
appeal the case _and_ to go on a major offensive in front of lawmakers,
judges, and the general public to explain why making skeleton keys to
all locks trivially available to criminals doesn't make people safer.


> What I find most interesting, and perhaps Rick can comment on this,
> is that the FBI is making this demand under the "All Writs Act of
> 1789."

I'd never hear of it before, and I gather that it's a very broad,
general empowering of Federal courts to issue writs.  Wikipedia supports
my hunch that it's obscure because it's normally never applied, which in
turn is the case because normally more specific, more-focussed enabling
legislation grants courts the rights and duty to take action.

I infer that the Asstant AGs, applying for this writ on behalf of the
FBI and/or other spooks, became highly aware that they wanted to request
a totally unprecedented type of court order for which neither Federal
caselaw nor any _specific_ Congressional statutory law created any
foundation whatsoever -- so they seized on this extremely vague,
sweeping, non-specific Federal statute to justify the rights grab.

> I'm guessing this law enforcement request is one Scallia,based on
> his past technology and law voting/opinion writing history, would
> not support.  While I disagree with virtually 100% of his social and
> corporate decisions, he was a strong advocate for restraining law
> enforcement's unfettered use of technology, and did not write kindly
> of fishing expeditions.

Interesting point.  I think you're right.


----- End forwarded message -----